|
|
|
|
General
Meeting - Annual Federal Agencies Presentations
FY 2007 FY 2006 FY 2005 FY 2004
CARTOGRAPHIC USERS ADVISORY COUNCIL
(CUAC) 2006 MEETING MINUTES May
4-5, 2006 George
Washington Carver Center/USDA
CUAC Members: Joe Aufmuth, Michael Fry, Katie Lage, Mary McInroy, Clara P. McLeod, Bruce Obenhaus, Virginia Tech, Anita Oser, SLA,
Social Science Division, G&M Daniel T. Seldin, Joy Suh, Thelma Thompson, Linda Zellmer, Agency Presenters: Christine Clarke, introductory
remarks George
Rohaley, National
Remote Sensing Leader, USDA-NRCS Susan J. DeLost, Program Manager, Geospatial
Services, Dr.
Brett L. Abrams, Electronic
Records Archivist (
Working Group/FGDC Bob Bewley, Senior Geographer, Bureau of Land Management Carol Brandt, Geospatial Information Program
Manager, Bureau of Transportation Statistics/DOT Gregory J Allord, Science Information and
Education Office, Geological Survey Michael P. McDermott, National Coordinator, Natural Science Network, Geological Survey William R. “Bill” Effland, Soil
Scientist, USDA/NRCS Soil Survey
Division Tim Trainor, Assistant Division Chief for
Geographic Areas and Cartographic Data Products, Geography Division Robin L.
Haun-Mohamed,
Director, Collection Mgmt & Preservation, GPO Ted
Preibe, Director,
Library Planning & Development, GPO Dr. John R. Hébert, Chief, Geography and Map
Division, Library of Congress Submitted Written
Agency Report: Department
of Energy Federal
Agency Presentations Schedule Thursday
PM, 4 May, beginning 1:15 PM 1:15—Welcome,
introductions, (remarks by Christine Clarke, NCRS) 1:30-- Remote sensing/NRCS, George
Rohaley 2:00--USFS, Susan DeLost 2:30-- 3:00--BLM, Bob
Bewley 3:30, closing remarks and thank
yous to agencies
Friday,
May 5, 2006, beginning 9AM 9:00-- Welcome, introductions,
last-minute preparations 9:15-- BTS, Carol Brandt 9:45—USGS, Greg Allord
and Mike McDermott 10:30-10:45--break 10:45--Soil Survey/NRCS, Bill
Effland 11:30--CENSUS, Tim Trainor LUNCH—USDA
cafeteria 1:00--GPO, Robin L.
Haun-Mohamed and Ted Priebe 1:45--LC/G&M, John
Hébert 2:30, closing remarks and thank
yous to agencies
Chris
begins by explaining that she is with the Natural Resources Conservation
Service (NRCS), one of roughly 27 organizational units in the USDA.
USDA has over 100,000 staff and NRCS, Farm and Service Agency and Rural
Development are considered the 3 field based agencies, meaning that they have
staff in almost every county in the nation. NRCS changed its name from
the Soil Conservation Service in 1994, and before that they were the Soil
Erosion Service (1935) under the DOI. Their purpose at that time was to
mediate and minimize the negative impacts of the dust bowl and wind erosion. Today,
the agency focuses on land management, conservation, and working with
farmers, ranchers, and land owners at the local field level. They have
approximately 150 GIS specialists in the field. Some staff are district
conservationists that are using a Customer Service Tool kit (CST), which is
an application built on top of ESRI products like ArcMap. This is a
user friendly interface that can be used in all fifty states to develop farm
plans, view DOQs, or aerial photos. Other GIS users work more with raw data
and support CST users. The agency is also involved in the Federal Geographic
Data Committee (FGDC) Geo-spatial One Stop, and the Geo-spatial Line of
Business (GeoLOB). Brief
Q&A period: 1.
Do you think that the government will go to a more centralized funding
system? Answer:
That’s a possibility, but it’s a challenge to compare GIS
activities across disciplines. Christine welcomes help in building a
foundation for GIS use with standard data sets and infrastructure. Question:
Has the USDA Geospatial Data Gateway limited access to data to non .gov
users? Answer:
Yes, The Gateway was developed to deliver authoritative data to USDA agency
field staff. Due to the
convenience of the data access via the Gateway, non federal use increased
substantially over time. To
ensure non-federal users acquired the most up to date data from the
appropriate sources, outside users are now redirected to the authoritative
data source. In doing so, USDA
does not incur distribution responsibilities for data of which we are not the
authoritative source and users are ensured the most current information. They
only turned off those layers for which they were not the authoritative source
for the data sets (for example, data kept by USGS). Question:
Is there state-wide aerial photography available on the USDA site? Answer:
The most current aerial photography available from USDA can be found at http://www.apfo.usda.gov/
(submitted
by Clara McLeod) George
Rohaley, NRCS-Remote Sensing Leader George
Rohaley’s talk, “Use of Remote Sensing in USDA and NRCS,”
included a brief overview of the use of remote sensing in NRCS, imagery
sources, applications of imagery, USDA image archive and distribution, and
USDA NAIP (National Agricultural Imagery Program), which is one of the
biggest imagery programs in USDA. He also discussed smaller projects that are
specific for NRCS and showed more than 100 slides in the presentation. The
mission of National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) is to help people
conserve, maintain, and improve our natural resources and environment. In
short, NRCS mission is “helping people help the land.” Most
of NRCS’s acquired imagery comes from three sources: Satellites, High
and Low Altitude Airborne cameras and digital sensors. NRCS acquires imagery
for it’s people who work on the ground at the USDA county service
centers (about 3000 offices). The Service Centers have converted from using
analog data to mostly using digital data today. The centers have ArcGIS and
use agency business-oriented tools called “Customer Service
Toolkit.” Orthoimagery is used as a base map for all GIS data layers at
the Service Centers. Most
of the imagery NCRS uses comes from airborne system (film or digital).
Typically the Service Centers prefer airborne images with natural color
because it is visually more relatable to actual ground situations. Recently,
however, USDA contractors are flying more imagery with digital sensors. We
have been told that digital imagery cannot be used in court, attorneys
account for a small demand for film images. Along
with Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Farm Service Agency (FSA), and
Forest Service (FS), NCRS is one of top four imagery users in USDA. (Others
include National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS), Risk Management
Agency (RMA), Agricultural Research Service (ARS), and Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service (APHIS).) Applications
of imagery within USDA include agricultural competitiveness, agro-terrorism,
base map, carbon synthesis, compliance, base area, crop monitoring, crop
condition assessment, soil survey, disaster monitoring, drought monitoring,
earning warning, environmental monitoring, fire suppression, homeland
security, resource inventory, invasive species, land use conversion, and
yield monitoring. NRCS focuses on soil survey, crop monitoring, environmental
monitoring, and resource inventory. Satellite
images that NRCS uses primarily come by FAS. FAS has contracted with
companies such as Digital Globe, Earthsat, Eurimage, GeoEye, Space Imaging,
and SPOT to get world wide images. NRCS can gain access to FAS images
(Rohaley showed several slides for 03, 04, 05 LANDSAT acquisitions showing
good coverage of USDA
Image Archive and Distribution: All aerial photographs and digital
imagery acquired by NRCS must be contracted by the USDA Aerial Photography
Field Office (APFO). Located in USDA
Aerial Contract Awards: Most
of these image acquisitions are done based on contract awards. FY2005 contract awards are over 30
million ($ 33,455,497). The
contract awards have substantially increased in the last three years. Most of
the funding (71 %) goes to USDA NAIP. See the Aerial Photography Field Office
(APFO) Web site (http://www.apfo.usda.gov/)
for image status, contracting services, and any other information. USDA
Small Area Photography Contracting: NRCS
has been involved with a small area photography and aerial photographic
contracting project. This project is a five-year contract to acquire very
high resolution imagery (1:4000 to 1:15,840 scale) under a indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity
contract and for specific task orders in smaller areas such as National
Resource Inventory (NRI) sites, which acquires imagery resolution that
results in a ground resolving distance of 2.5 inches. Why is such high
resolution required? Each year, NRI acquires approximately 70,000 sites a
quarter acre in size to do as inventory.
In the past, inventory was site specific, but now it is done primarily
by photographic interpretation techniques. NRCS has specific photographic
periods, mostly in growing seasons. The NRCS contractors update their projects
status every two or three days through the web. Data collection will be done using
remote sensing techniques at three remote sensing laboratories: National
Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP): This
program is USDA’s largest imagery program, acquiring 1 and 2 meter
natural color digital ortho imagery during the agricultural growing season
(summer). NAIP updates 1 meter
resolution images on a 5 year cycle.
Distribution
links for future information and data include: ·
USDA
Aerial Photography Field Office (http://gdw.apfo.usda.gov/naip/viewer)
for NAIP and USDA Aerial Imagery. ·
USDA
Data Gateway (http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/)
for data products packaged by county. ·
Foreign
Agricultural Crop Explorer (http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/cropexplorer)
for global image, weather, etc. Digital
Elevation Model (DEM): NRCS
has contracted to acquire DEM data. Most DEM data is in the public domain.
Digital elevation is used for land use planning and soil surveys. When combined with digital ortho
imagery, digital elevation allows updating soil survey mapping on laptops
rather than from the ground (soil survey and DEM will be covered in detail at
tomorrow’s presentation). Imagery
for the Nation Proposal: Everyone
wants imagery: local, regional, state, tribal, and federal governments, as
well as the private sector. There
is a proposal for three distinct programs under imagery for the nation: one
meter, one foot, and six-inch acquisition program--a sort of
infrastructure. The one meter
program, which will be managed by USDA, would enhance the existing NAIP with
the cover of the lower 48 states annually ( Questions/discussion:
CUAC:
What happened to National High Altitude Photography (NHAP) program, DOQs, and
its creation with one meter accuracy? The
NHAP program was replaced by National Aerial Photography Program (NAPP),
which was administrated by USGS.
NAPP is now gone. NAPP
produced the original source of ortho images based on 1:40K scale and mostly
black & white. However, NRCS and most of USDA do not need NAPP product.
NRCS, USDA, and Farm Service Agency also need natural color images.
Therefore, NAPP went to NAIP. The soil survey program still needs leaf-off
images such as black and white, but can get them from archives at the USDA
Aerial Field Office. CUAC:
Is there any back up system for the CD-Rom product in case there is damage
the CDs stored at the USDA Aerial Field Office in CDs
and fire wire drives are used to deliver NAIP items. Now they are on a
server. The products come in
multiple copies, and states which use the images have back-up copies. Film life span is 75 years old. (Submitted by Joy
Suh) Susan J. DeLost, Program Manager, Geospatial
Services, Susan
DeLost, Geospatial Services Program Manager, spoke about “USDA Forest
Service Maps and Other Related Products” on Thursday May 4, 2006. She
began by giving an overview of the land managed by the USFS and the mission
of the USFS. Maps and geospatial data support the activities of the USFS in a
number of areas, including: forest
planning, forest health protection, watershed restoration, fire prevention
& management, and recreation. The USFS participates in interagency
coordination with the FGDC and partners with the USGS, the BLM, and other organizations
(federal, tribal, state, local) to increase efficiency and provide additional
services and products to its customers. Maps
have been an integral part of the USFS activities since the agency’s
establishment in 1905 and are a vital part of managing the national forests
and grasslands. Maps were
initially produced at the local unit level, with little standardization or
consistency. Since the
mid-1970’s, with the establishment of the USFS’ Geospatial
Service and Technology Center (GSTC), the emphasis on standardization has
increased, while still allowing flexibility for local needs. The GSTC works
closely with the agency’s national forest units and Regional Offices to
produce map products, geospatial data and related applications. The GSTC and
the Remote Sensing Applications Center (RSAC) units of the USFS, co-located
in Susan
showed the traditional mapping products produced by the USFS: general maps,
forest visitor maps, topographic maps, and specialty maps and brochures (http://www.fs.fed.us/maps/). She
brought samples of some of these maps to share with the group. They have just
finished updating the map for the brochure, “A Guide to Your National
Forests and Grasslands”, which was last updated in 2000. Another agency
map product is the Forest/Grassland Visitor Map, which has traditionally been
produced at a scale of ½” = 1 mile. Some forests are now producing these
at the 1” = 1 mile scale. In
1992, the USFS entered into an agreement with the USGS to produce a
single-edition 1:24,000 (1:63,360 in The
USFS is a voting member on the Board on Geographic Names (BGN). Betsy Kanalley is the USFS/USDA
representative to the BGN and is the current chair of the BGN’s
Domestic Names Committee. The USFS participates in updating and maintaining
the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). Susan
discussed and showed the FS Geodata Clearinghouse (http://fsgeodata.sc.egov.usda.gov/),
which provides access to metadata and downloadable data created by the USFS.
She also showed a web-GIS service for active fire mapping, linked from the FS
Geodata Clearinghouse. Susan
also demonstrated a new USFS Geoportal intra-net site, which provides
one-stop shopping for geospatial information for agency employees. The
USFS is working on a number of new geospatial tools and products: the
Geospatial Interface, Carto Tools, MPS Atlas, Print-on-Demand, and additional
web-based data and services. The
Geospatial Interface is essentially an ESRI- ArcMapTM extension
that allows users to easily retrieve, view and use spatial and tabular data
related to their subject area, which are stored in a number of databases
across the agency. Carto
Tools provides map templates for various USFS map products that are included
in documents (e.g., Forest Plan Revisions and others) and publications to
increase the standardization of these products. MPS
Atlas is a project that the USFS is working on with ESRI that will
incorporate the Carto Tools templates into ArcGIS in order to simplify map
production for both standard and unique products. The
Print-on-Demand initiative’s goal is to design and implement a print on
demand web solution for Single Edition Quadrangles. It will first be
implemented internally, with public access planned for the future. The USFS is exploring opportunities to
partner with other service providers, both public and private. This interface
will provide access to standard quadrangles and user-selected areas, but will
not include the vegetation tint.
One goal is to provide more up-to-date data for displaying and
printing maps via a web-based service than is currently possible with the
printed map product. The USFS has
not yet developed an archiving process for this product. Susan suggested that CUAC send a
letter to the FGDC and her about the need to archive this data as it is
updated. (Submitted by Katie
Lage) Dr.
Brett L. Abrams, Electronic
Records Archivist ( Brett
focused his presentation on the activities of the Historical Data Working
Group (HDWP) established by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) to
promote “the awareness of the historical dimension to geospatial data
which have been financed in whole or part by Federal funds” and to
facilitate “maintaining historically valuable geospatial data and
making it available to future generations.” Current membership includes personnel
from USGS’ The
function of The
current standards for the transfer of Currently
the HDWG is pursuing building a community among individuals and organizations
interested in the historical dimension to geographical data, including
maintaining a website with a library of information and a discussion
component available to members.
Future initiatives for the working group include creating a Geospatial
One Stop Portal Community for historical collections such as those at The
following two links provide additional information about the Historical Data
Working Group: Link
to the main page: http://www.fgdc.gov/participation/working-groups-subcommittees/hdwg/index_html Link
to the library page: http://www.fgdc.gov/participation/working-groups-subcommittees/hdwg/folder_contents (Submitted
by Anita K. Oser) Bob Bewley, Senior Geographer, Bureau of Land Management Bob
Bewley, Senior Geographer at the Bureau of Land Management, presented to CUAC
on Thursday May 4, 2006. He spoke about the BLM’s enterprise GIS, the
National Integrated Lands System, national data sets, data sharing, and
showed some examples of BLM maps. The
BLM is the largest land management agency, managing 262 million acres. In
1948 the General Land Office merged with the agency in charge of grazing on
public lands to for the Bureau of Land Management. The BLM’s mandate
comes from the 1976 Federal Lands Policy Act. The
BLM is in the process of creating an enterprise GIS. An enterprise GIS is
defined as, “… a
business-wide GIS that is characterized by standard data, in a transactional
format that allows update, maintenance and use by all levels of the
organization.” The BLM’s enterprise GIS will support
standardized data and serve out core datasets across all levels of the agency
in support of the BLM’s goals. Bob explained that the creation of an
enterprise GIS needs: data standards, software and hardware, telecom support,
the personnel to create and support it, and business/management support. The
BLM is exploring two models of an enterprise Bob
showed CUAC examples of the Land and Mineral Use Records Viewer in NILS. The
national data sets included in NILS are: range allotments, areas of critical
environmental concern, land use planning boundaries, BLM administrative
units, national lands conservation system, surface management agency, oil and
gas leases, mining claims, and geothermal leases. NILS
also includes some USFS data, as the BLM partners with USFS to serve it out.
For example, the Land and Mineral Use Records Viewer displays data about the
recent USFS Rural Schools Conveyance proposal. The BLM’s policy is to
share data between federal agencies and local and state governments.
Bob’s presentation included a list of BLM data administrators by state,
included at the end of these minutes. Bob
then discussed BLM standard maps. The BLM creates 1:100,000 Surface
Management Status maps digitally and prints paper maps. 1:500,000 Surface
Management Status maps are created for all western states. Both of these series
are updated approximately every 7 years. There was a question from CUAC
members about the 1:500,000 maps not coming through the FDLP. Bob suggested
we talk with Bill Jackson. He understood that they should be coming through
the FDLP. Katie (Lage) said she would contact Bill Jackson. Bob showed
examples of both of these standard map series. The
BLM also creates specialized maps such as mining maps, potash area maps, and
oil and gas reserve maps. These specialized maps use the standard BLM line
styles and colors but regional cartographers have more freedom with these
types of maps than with the standard 1:100,000 and 1:500,000 maps. Bob showed
many examples of the variety of specialized maps produced by the BLM. CUAC
members had a question about NILS data being sent out through the FDLP. Bob
said that some of the data sets are proprietary. For the non-proprietary
data, this might be a possibility. He would talk with GPO about this. CUAC
members also inquired if the NILS data is being archived as it is updated and
changed. The NILS data is “versioned” and archived on a quarterly
basis. BLM Data Administrators o o o o o EASTERN STATES John
Douglas, CIO 202-452-1638 o o o o o
o o o o
(Submitted by Katie
Lage) Carol Brandt, Geospatial Information Program
Manager, Bureau of Transportation
Statistics/DOT Carol
spoke on the status of the Geospatial Information Program at BTS. As a result of a February 2005
reorganization, BTS became part of the new Research & Innovative
Technology Administration (RITA) within the US Department of Transportation
(DOT). The BTS Geospatial
Information Program (BTS/GEO) lost funding this past fiscal year and was
forced to discontinue the BTS/GEO
will continue to: produce the annual National Transportation Atlas Databases
(NTAD, a Congressional mandate); provide mapping support to the The
2006 NTAD, due out this summer, will include the usual transportation
datasets, as well as the following new information: Highway Performance Monitoring System
(HPMS); Automatic Traffic Recorder Stations (ATR); Weigh In Motion Stations
(WIM); and Hazardous Materials (HAZMAT) Routes. Also included in NTAD are the
following geographic reference datasets obtained from other agencies:
national populated places, urbanized area boundaries, 109th congressional district boundaries,
county and state boundaries,
hydrographic features, metropolitan statistical area boundaries (all from
Bureau of the Census), national park boundaries (National Park Service),
Metropolitan Planning Organization Boundaries (DOT), non-attainment areas
(EPA/DOT), and military bases (Military Surface Deployment and Distribution
Command, SDDC). These geographic
datasets area way to make the NTAD product a transportation “map in a
box,” so users can add GIS capability to the geographic and numeric
data included and create their own maps. BTS/GEO
provides mapping and analysis support to the Crisis Management Center,
including assistance on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and other emergency
situations, as well as handling special mapping/spatial analysis requests
from Congress and the DOT Secretary, e.g., air traffic hub mapping and
“Annual Rural Airport Analysis” information. Much of this spatial analysis
and information is available internally and on not the web due to the
sensitive nature of the data, e.g., pipeline locations. BTS/GEO
is currently involved with the Geospatial Line of Business (LoB) federal
government initiative. Geospatial
LoB is a new plan for agencies to work together to: identify opportunities to share common
geospatial processes and functions across government; result in a more
coordinated approach to producing, maintaining, and using geospatial data;
ensure sustainable participation from Federal partners to establish a
collaborative model for geospatial-related activities and investments; and
influence the FY08 budget cycle.
Since the GLoB scheme was sent to the agencies in March, much of
Brandt’s time has been spent on determining how best to work with other
agencies to set up and conduct the Geospatial LoB. Until a few years ago, a number of BTS geospatial information products were disseminated through the federal depository program, but this is no longer the case. Brant and GPO representat |
