The Starke County Surveyor’s Office is working to make updated drainage information available to the public through the county’s Geographic Information System website.
The office announced this week that all of Starke County’s regulated drains will soon be added to the public GIS website. Once the work is completed, the county will have its first updated, downloadable drainage map in a decade.
A GIS, or Geographic Information System, uses location-based data to show different types of information on a map. Starke County’s GIS includes layers for information such as property parcels, aerial photography, flood zones, soils, wetlands, and other geographic features.
According to the Surveyor’s Office, Starke County has approximately 640 miles of regulated drains. Those can include open ditches, tiled drains, and urban drains serving agricultural, residential, and commercial development under the jurisdiction of the Starke County Drainage Board.
Making the regulated drain information available through GIS will allow members of the public to view the locations of those drains alongside other mapped information. The updated downloadable map could also provide a reference for property owners and others looking for information about drainage systems in their area.
The Surveyor’s Office said work on the map is still in progress. In an unfinished image shared by the office, regulated drains are shown in orange, while blue lines represent drains that are either unregulated or have not yet been transferred to the correct map layer.
