GIS (Geographical Information System) and GPS (Global Positioning System) are quickly becoming a crucial tool in the war on weeds. The Lower Weiser River CWMA, in conjunction with Washington County Weed Control, employ an advanced software and hardware combination for recording weed inventories, making historical weed infestation maps, treating EDRR sites, maintaining biological treatment sites and much more.
Using this technology, our main goal is to be able to show the locations of weed areas and historical representations of these weed areas as their size decreases or increases in relationship to whether or not the area(s) were treated.
Each CWMA Neighborhood Project receives a map indicating the previous years' treatment sites, as well as a new map on which the Project Cooperators can indicate where they have treated. This map information is later digitized and combined with actual mapped sites and preserved as a historic map for future use.
In 2007, approximately 1,146 acres were recorded and mapped by the Washington County Weed Department, not including Cooperator indicated areas.