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Technology we had extensive resources to do." However, Georgina's mayor and regional councillor, who represent the Town at York Regional Council, endorsed it for Georgina when they heard about it and the advantages were quickly realized. Scherbarth said that now "we use this data on a daily basis" and the many sources of asset data now go directly into the communal GIS database. T h r o u g h n o n - d u p l i c a t i o n o f efforts, partners save an estimated $445,000 annually. Sharing pipe information is more than just responding to growth. It is a safety issue too, said Brian Bell, director for utilities with Esri Canada. "As our buried infrastructure ages, and the interconnections between companies and municipalities become more complex, having a better understanding of the risk and consequences of our asset the municipalities did not have to pay a consultant to set this up independently. We had a system they could easily plug into and they knew if the projected growth was accurate they would also realize more taxes. Not every municipality in York Region has the same projected explosive growth but they all want to save taxpayer's money. Georgina, Ontario, which borders Lake Simcoe, has a population of approximately 50,000 and operates as a town that includes a variety of small communities, many of whose population booms in the summer. Although its infrastructure isn't under immediate threat, it is also not as interconnected as with other municipalities in the Region. It's a strong structural base as David Scherbarth, operations analyst with the Operations and Infrastructure Department for Georgina, explained. "Leveraging tech is not something management actions is essential. It's also essential to have the right tools and mechanisms to consolidate and organize that authoritative content." It certainly is. We had to easily convert shared data into information so that it was available to all our partners, providing crucial support in a variety of situations. The software was the glue that made that possible. Data files from different areas are entered via Geocortex and then go on an ETL data management platform. Because all our GIS information is in Esri software, it can read all the data coming in and works well with the Esri GIS architecture. It is displayed to all the partners on an Esri map. York Region, its constituents and local municipalities are all saving money by coordinating their data sharing practices around industry best practices and standards, enabling them all to do more with both their own information and that of their peers. This article originally appeared in the July/August edition of Water Canada. Jennifer Chung is a GIS technologist with The Regional Municipality of York. As our buried infrastructure ages, having a better understanding of the risk and consequences of our asset management actions is essential. Credit: ESRI November/December 2019 ReNew Canada 31 renewcanada.net

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