Statewide aerial photo scheduled moved up a year

The North American Imagery Program (NAIP) is going to fly Arizona in 2o10, a year ahead of schedule, because the Dept. of Agriculture got extra budget money and flew the 2010 scheduled states this year. State and local officials are looking at the possibilities of upgrading the photo acquisition to include an IR band or half meter resolution coverage.

I was at the annual conference of the Arizona Geographic Information Council (AGIC) in Tucson for part of the day as a Board member, and to give a presentation on our rapidly expanding Geoscience Information Network (GIN).

At the Board meeting we got the update on NAIP. Arizona has an option to contract directly with the vendor rather than going through the Dept. of Ag, and get the added or higher resolution data at a significantly lower cost. The group is going to poll the community for possible interest and financial support.