• NCDC Imaging & Mapping, a unit of Native Communities Development Corp. (NCDC), to handle imaging, GIS effort to determine accurate billing.
COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, Dec. 13, 2006 -- Funding critical to future stormwater drainage capital improvement projects in the City of Colorado Springs will rely on high-resolution satellite imagery and analysis provided by NCDC Imaging & Mapping. Impervious surfaces mapped from the imagery will make sure that property owners are accurately billed using a new rate plan adopted by the Colorado Springs City Council on Nov. 14. The fee structure accounts for drainage from impervious surfaces, such as rooftops and parking areas.
NCDC was selected to provide the city-owned Stormwater Enterprise program with updated satellite images twice a year for up to five years. NCDC will process the QuickBird satellite imagery, the highest resolution commercially available, so that any changes are detected in the impervious surfaces of properties.
"Updating impervious area for the stormwater enterprise is essential to ensure that optimal revenue is generated for the more that $295 million in capital improvement projects in the city's backlog", said Don Parkison, GIS Analyst with the Colorado Springs Stormwater Department. "Among the geospatial vendors in Colorado, NCDC stands out by their attention to detail and level of knowledge concerning high resolution image processing. That is exactly what we wanted for this multi-year project."
The cost of the satellite imagery will be less than $50,000 per year. However, using the highly accurate and reliable data provided by NCDC, the Stormwater Enterprise program is expected to recapture this investment with increased annual revenues of $430,000 in the first year and $300,000 each year thereafter. According to city staff estimates, $66.5 million of the $295 million total backlog in stormwater capital improvements are considered critical needs projects.
A division of Native Communities Development Corp., NCDC Imaging & Mapping (www.ncdcimaging.com) provides satellite image mapping and expert feature extraction services to private entities, public utilities, local, state, federal, and tribal governments. An authorized DigitalGlobe reseller, NCDC specializes in the image processing and advanced analysis of QuickBird satellite imagery. These solutions are targeted to a wide range of natural resource, environmental and emergency management applications, including: urban forestry management, wildfire risk assessment, mapping of pervious and impervious surfaces for water resource and stormwater management, identification of biomass energy sources, invasive species change detection and mitigation planning, and enhanced 911 mapping to improve emergency response services. NCDC clients include: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, City & County of Denver, Asplundh Tree Expert Company, Colorado Springs Utilities, Pueblo County, Public Service Company of New Mexico, and the Navajo Nation.
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