Department Mission
Our mission is to implement an integrated and cooperative GIS program among the local governments and agencies within Yavapai County.
GIS in Yavapai County
What is GIS? GIS stands for Geographic Information System. A GIS allows for the creation, management, analysis and mapping of geographic data.
What is the GIS Department responsible for? We design, maintain, and support the county's GIS. This looks like:
- Automating processes, such as updating or creating data, with Python
- General geospatial data quality control and integrity assurance
- 911 data management, quality control, and integrity assurance
- Creating custom applications used by the public to view our data or used by other county departments to view their data
- Technology maintenance including database management, software upgrades, documentation, and system integration planning
- Training and support for 200+ county staff who use GIS
- Custom applications, data management, and software integration support for many county departments including the Assessor's Office, Elections, Facilities, Development Services, Public Works, Flood Control, and more.
- Analysis of geospatial data, often to assist with strategic decision making
- Management of sharing GIS data with the public
- Assisting the public with finding and using our data, contour requests, and taking phone calls to answer all your GIS questions.
Current Projects
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Implementation Phase
- County Flood Control Flood Alert hardware migration
- Quality Control modeling of Street and Address data
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Testing Phase
- Emergency Management Reporting Tool
- Creating Election Result Dashboard
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Development Phase
- Creating visualization for internal script duration for better management of after-hour re-processing of GIS data
- Common Places / Points of Interests amalgamating sources
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Research Phase
- Statewide Imagery Program with Arizona Geographic Information Council (AGIC)
- Pilot project for the indoors for schools
- Extracting Public Works road assets (guardrail/pavement markings) from video/imagery
- Public GIS Website Interactive Map application redesign to be mobile friendly
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Projects On-Hold
- Parcel Fabric for Pro
- Automation Notebook for street centerlines reference fields (postcode, post community, neighborhoods, ESN, Msag community) with spatial updates
- Building and Refining Network Dataset for Future Routing and Service Area Analysis
- County-wide GIS database detecting changes (tax area codes, taxable administrative boundaries)
Completed Projects
- Upgrading ArcGIS Enterprise to 11.4 - August 2025
- Create new internal GIS Enterprise Geodatabase - August 2025
- County-wide ArcGIS Pro Upgrade to version 3.4.2 - June 2025
- Intersection Geocoder to Analyze Sheriff Calls for Service - May 2025
- County Flood Control ArcGIS Pro Editor Flood Parcel Documents, Portal Application was discontinued. - March 2025
- Emergency Management Genasys Evac Zones Project - January 2025
- Public mapping applications of Skull Valley Cemetery, Genung Memorial Park, and Congress Cemetery - December 2024
- ArcGIS Enterprise web services porting to AGOL hosted feature layers - March 2024
- Publishing Historical Imagery internally for County staff - January 2024
- County-wide ArcGIS Pro Add-In to switch between web services and direct connections - January 2024
- Public ArcGIS Server Upgrade to 11.1 (DMZ application server) - January 2024
- ArcGIS Pro Notebook for City Street Updates (Prescott/Prescott Valley) - Winter 2023
- Published USGS 2021 1 ft Contours as Vector Tiles - Winter 2023
- Split up USGS 2021 1 ft Contours blocks into sub-block for easier use - Winter 2023
- ArcGIS Enterprise Upgrade to version 11.x - Winter 2023
- ArcGIS Enterprise GIS Database migration to SQL 2019 - Winter 2023
- County-wide GIS software upgrade to ArcGIS Pro - Fall 2023
- Rebuilding Enterprise internal system to support the use of Pro and be able to share 2021 Aerial Imagery - Summer 2023
- County-wide GIS database SQL Server 2019 Upgrade; Summer 2023
- County Flood Control Flood Alert GIS migration to vendor solution; Summer 2023
- County GIS Intranet Web Application (ESRI ArcGIS Enterprise) upgrade to ArcGIS 11.1 - Summer 2023
Ongoing Tasks
- Internal ArcGIS Pro help page with tutorials for County Employees
- Automation of routine data transformation and geoprocessing tasks
- County-wide 911 data support for Next Generation 911
- County Public Works street centerline GIS data maintenance
- Creating specific ArcGIS online web applications for county and public uses to meet certain departments needs
- Local Government amalgamating street centerlines auditing and automating
- State Arizona Geographic Information Council (AGIC) support boards and committees
- Management of Lidar data, Contour data, and Imagery for the County
- Supporting Central Yavapai Metropolitan Planning Organization (CYMPO)
- Supporting Verde Front Project
- Yavapai Community WildFire Protection Plan Revision
- Yavapai Community Broadband Outreach
News
[move to separate page] The GIS started in late 1992 with the primary goal of creating a digital land database of all parcels in the county. The initial project addressed the issues of planimetric data acquisition, aerial flights of the county, and initial conversion of county assessor’s maps to a digital format. GIS became a department in 2015 with goals towards providing basic mapping/location based needs for County staff, developing more data sharing with public and private parties, and providing GIS education of the county staff and within the community. To see a history of GIS within Yavapai County, view the Yavapai County GIS StoryMap.
[move to separate page] Yavapai County land mass covers 8,127 square miles with only about 25% of the land is privately owned. The rest is publicly owned including Bureau of Land Management, Department of Interior, US Bureau of Indian Affairs, national forest, national park service, State Parks, and State of Arizona trust. Elevations range from 1500 ft to 7979 ft where the County is divided by the mountain into two areas, an eastern area called the Verde Valley; a western area including Prescott which is the County Seat. Population of the County in 1990 was 107,714 (US Census), in 2010 was 211,073 and in 2020 was 232,396. View the Census Summarizing Census results from 1990 - 2020 StoryMap.