THE HERBERT INFORMATION PORTAL: DELIVERING REAL-TIME SPATIAL INFORMATION TO THE HERBERT RIVER SUGAR COMMUNITY

THE Herbert Resource Information Centre (HRIC) launched the Herbert Information Portal (HIP) in 2009. The HIP is a collaborative Enterprise GIS solution that has been used to facilitate and promote community relationships through shared access to geographic information system (GIS) tools. This initiative has been widely successful because it has provided key spatial management tools to those industries and community groups that do not have the individual capacity to establish such systems. The HIP is world class in its uniqueness as a whole-of-community solution that crosses organisational boundaries. This includes interfacing private sugar industry systems involved in the growing, harvesting, transporting and crushing of sugar cane, with local government and environmental management systems. This solution provides online access to real-time spatial information critical for improved decision making in the Herbert River sugar district, and in the Wet Tropics area of North Queensland.