Using GIS Technology to Streamline Efforts to Respond to Illegal Dumping

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2022

Illegal Dumping – Illegally disposing of unwanted items such as tires, construction material, mattresses, furniture, appliances, household trash, and hazardous materials - can create eyesores and severely impact a community’s appearance and the health of its residents. Dumping generally happens on the roadside, but vacant lands are also impacted. Code Enforcement Officers in San Bernardino County respond to these activities by conducting abatements: cleaning up and properly disposing of the dumped materials. These abatement efforts initially involved using a Microsoft Access database to create work orders and generate reports. Staff would create a work order in Access, print it, record abatements on paper while in the field, then enter the information into the database once back in the office. This process was time-consuming and error-prone and made it difficult for stakeholders to stay up-to-date. Starting in January of 2021, Code Enforcement streamlined this workflow using GIS technology. Now, staff create and dispatch assignments utilizing a web application, then complete those assignments and record abatements using mobile applications in the field, which updates dashboards accessible to stakeholders within minutes. Using this workflow, data are seamlessly shared from the office to the field and back, helping keep stakeholders informed with up-to-the-minute information, and enabling them to create reports at any time using the dashboards’ filtering capabilities.