Next Generation Government: Gov 2.0 and Beyond

Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program (MDEP) and the Cloud

—Ryan Schulz, Desert Managers Group

The Mojave Desert Ecosystem Program (MDEP) has been in existence since 1995 serving the Mojave Desert California ecoregional needs for shared GIS and digital data through the World Wide Web. The goal of the program is to provide a resource for federal, state and local agencies to share environmental data for the collaboration on issues that affects the landscape across jurisdictional boundaries. Over the fifteen years the program has been in existence its use of the web and allowing access remotely has followed the growth of the current cloud phenomenon. Recently MDEP formed a partnership with Southern Nevada Agency Partnership (SNAP) to grow the mainly California focused data set to a shared service including parts of Nevada, Arizona and Utah within the Mojave Ecoregion. This partnership has resulted in a robust solution that all agencies within the Mojave Desert can utilize with shared services such through cloud like activities. With concepts such as cloud piping MDEP can now share data with various clouds throughout the country with no secondary data warehouse. Users can access and use available data from participating agencies directly, ensuring the data is accurate and up to date.