A long-awaited regional milestone has arrived! A complete seven-county metro address point dataset is now available from the Minnesota Geospatial Commons. Its attributes follow the recently adopted state address point data standard.

The dataset aims to contain a point location and the official address for all occupiable units and other official addresses within each address authority's jurisdiction. Address authorities are usually cities.

Minnesota's Wildlife Action Plan is a partnership-based conservation plan to ensure the long-term health and viability of Minnesota's wildlife. The plan focuses on species that are rare, declining, or vulnerable to decline.

For the past three years, Hennepin County has hosted the an open data code-a-thon called "Geo:Code". The event is a community-generated conference to connect residents with Hennepin County and open data. This year's event will be held on March 24 and 25, 2018, at the Hennepin County Library in Minneapolis. MnGeo would like to encourage attendees to make use of the resources here at the Geospatial Commons for their projects.

In the past two months, the Minnesota Geospatial Commons has been honored with recognition in two national award programs. First, the Center for Digital Government included us in their Inaugural Goverment Experience Awards, under the category of "Government to Government Experience".

In our February 2016 article, we covered the policies behind "Free and Open Data" and the deep research done by the folks at MetroGIS  Since then, MetroGIS coordinator Geoff Maas has shared those policies, and the benefits of free and open data policies with local governments and citizens.

One of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s goals is to develop and maintain high-quality, accessible data systems. The agency’s What's In My Neighborhood application has been helping deliver this data to people for nearly 15 years. Recent changes to how the MPCA stores and manages its data allow the application to deliver more than ever.

Resource-by-resource, the amount and variety of geospatial information available via the Commons is growing! Not only are established publishers continuing to add resources, but nine new publishers have joined the effort this past year. We'd like to extend a big welcome to:

In honor of Geography Awareness Week, we'd like to announce the availability of several long-awaited datasets.

Land Cover and Impervious Surface Data

As part of the state’s commitment to protecting clean water, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has released an interactive map to help Minnesotans understand the buffer requirements for Minnesota’s waterways in a visual way.

Since 2015, MnGeo and the Department of Public Safety (DPS) have been collaborating to create a more modern 911 system entitled Next Generation 911 (NG911). Through the use of geospatial data, emergency personnel can more accurately pinpoint the location of emergencies allowing for quicker responses – and the potential to save more lives.