Abstract: The West Virginia Mineral Lands Mapping Program: Statewide GIS Resource Evaluation and Assessment

Craig A. Neidig, Nick Fedorko, Ed Maki, Gregory Elmes

In 1995, the West Virginia legislature enacted H.B. 2222 that provided a mandate and funding for a statewide evaluation of mineral resources, specifically coal, to promote a more open and equitable means to assess the taxable value of mineral holdings by West Virginia property owners. Written into the legislation was an appropriation for the initial development of a Geographic Information System (GIS) to integrate the work. Designated as the Mineral Lands Mapping Program, the lead agencies are the WV Geological and Economic Survey, the WV Department of Tax and Revenue, and the State GIS Technical Support Center at West Virginia University. The complex topography and geology of West Virginia require that large volumes of two- and three-dimensional spatial data be created t support the identification, mapping, and evaluation of coal resources for improved tax assessment of land parcels. The political and economic context of the project, data requirements and sources, inputs and digital conversion procedures, adoption of metadata and data standards, geological base mapping, coal resource modeling methods, tax parcel reconciliation, and integration of the various data sets are all important issues for this program.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90950©1996 AAPG GCAGS 46th Annual Meeting, San Antonio, Texas