Modern society is totally dependent on maps and mapping technology. Our culture is based upon mobility and transportation, and perhaps in no region is this quite so obvious as in coastal areas like the Maritimes. David Cody, a Geographic Information Systems Technician, works for the Nova Scotia government overseeing a project to produce a whole new set of maps of coastal Nova Scotia.

David, 46, works for the Nova Scotia government's Geomatics Centre. With years of experience in photogrammetry (the art and science of making maps from aerial photos), he was put in charge of a complex coastal mapping project that will eventually produce 117 maps at a scale of 1:50 000, from the coast out to the twelve-mile limit.

Scheduled for completion in the spring of 2000, the job requires a massive amount of co-ordination, both of data and people. "It involves a lot of quality control work, a lot of contracting out and specification development, a little bit of programming, and a lot of paperwork," David says.

The coastal mapping project is making use of both new aerial photography and existing maps, like those from the Nova Scotia topographic and forestry databases, and charts from the Canadian Hydrographic Service. Merging them is tricky because the maps were created for different purposes, and are not to the same scale.

David is also responsible for organizing the work of the various contractors on the project, and making sure that work is up to standard.