A Few Words from the NSGIC President: On the FGDC Annual Report

From the desktop computer of 2009-2010 NSGIC President Will Craig, of Minnesota.

A few things stood out for me as I read the Federal Geographic Data Committee's 2009 Annual report.

First was the naming of Bill Wilan as National Spatial Data Infrastructure Champion. Our previous post on the FGDC annual report accurately reflects my thoughts on Bill and his being honored.

I do recall one other thing, though. I remember talking to Bill at the 1996 award event. He was pretty proud of his work.

"I think it is the first layer of the NSDI, isn't it?"

Indeed it was. The NWI is not one of those "core Framework" themes, but it was the first out and it met the needs of all levels of government across the nation.

I was also pleased to see the Fifty States Initiative as both an accomplishment and a part of the FGDC's goals for the next year. This partnership between the FGDC and NSGIC has been very valuable for the states, helping almost all of us increase our strategic planning efforts. I'm happy to see that the FGDC plans to start working with us on a transition from planning to implementation.

Among the success stories in the report is one about using geospatial data for program compliance. This is a story about USDA's Risk Management Agency (RMA) using NAIP images from four consecutive years, along with Common Land Unit data, to analyze areas suspected of improper claims. NAIP imagery allowed the RMA to identify large areas that were ineligible for payment, thus preventing more than $700,000 in improper payments in one state.

This illustrates the value to the federal government and to states of a sustained orthophotography effort and highlights, I think, the importance of the Imagery for the Nation (IFTN) initiative. Among the goals in the FGDC report for IFTN are "establishing a virtual project management office to implement the governance structure and to advance the funding strategy for full implementation in fiscal year 2011."

And I was impressed by the substance in the white paper on parcel data included in the report: Cadastral Data and the U.S. Mortgage Crisis: A Case for a National Land Parcel Database. A number of studies identify the need for an indicator based on parcels. The conclusion here is basically the same as that of the 2007 National Academies report -- that immediate action be taken to put in place a national land parcel coordinator. Because establishing this position will require resources and because the job is likely be a difficult one, the report also recommends that a review be done of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) authorities to understand who could take on this work.

It's a start, and I hope it is a start that we make in the coming year. This is important work and I was very happy to see it highlighted by the FGDC in this report.