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.

FGDC Announces Plans for the 2010 NSDI CAP Grants

The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) has announced plans for the next round of Cooperative Agreements Program (CAP) grants for the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI).

The official solicitation is due next month, but the plans are for seven CAP grant categories in 2010:

• Metadata Trainer and Outreach Assistance
• Framework Data Exchange through Automated Geo-Synchronization
• Fifty States Initiative: Strategic and Business Plan Development
• Fifty States Initiative: Business Plan Development and Implementation
• Return on Investment (ROI) Methodology and Business Case Development for Multi-agency NSDI Projects
• FGDC Standards Development and Implementation Assistance and Outreach
• Demonstration of Geospatial Data Partnerships across Local, State, Tribal, and Federal Government

Grant submissions will likely be due in January, with projects to commence by September of 2010.

FGDC Publishes 2008 Annual Report

The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) has published its 2008 Annual Report. The document is available as both a web page and a PDF document.

The Annual Report includes highlights of 2008 and goals for 2009.

The highlights for the last year include:

• The Geospatial Line of Business,
• Formation of the National Geospatial Advisory Committee,
• The third year of the 50 States Initiative,
  
• Growth in the Geospatial OneStop,
  
• Progress on Imagery for the Nation, and
  
• Several success stories.

Goals for 2009 include continuing to work in these areas and:

• Developing a national strategy for geospatial information,
• Improving national land parcel data, and
  
• Support for homeland security and emergency management.

Among several appendices are an update on the status of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure Framework Themes.

Florida GIS Coordination Effort Featured on govtech.com

Government Technology has a feature article this week on the GIS Strategic Plan effort in Florida.

The article, Come Together, Right Now, notes that the eight-storm strong hurricane seasons of 2005 and 2005 brought the need for GIS coordination to the fore among the state's emergency management community.

In Florida, post-storm data analysis illustrated how better statewide coordination of geospatial information during the hurricanes likely would have saved more lives and enhanced emergency managers' efforts to evacuate part of the state's 19,500 square miles of coastal zone. The Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) initially took the lead in formulating a statewide GIS strategic plan.

'Our director, Craig Fugate, has a pretty simple charge: In the absence of leadership, become one,' said Richard Butgereit, GIS administrator of the FDEM."

The story is also noted in All Points Blog today. Adena highlights the role that the NSGIC Fifty States Coordination Criteria play in the discussion.

The fact that a sidebar highlights the rubrick shows what NSGIC is doing to push forward on its Fifty States Initiative, that is, to develop coordination and ideally a state coordinator in all 50 states. I'm not sure if NSGIC publishes rankings, but if you want to help push your state forward you might want to see how well it does meeting the listed requirements.

In fact, though NSGIC doesn't always highlight state-against-state competition, the results of the Fifty-States Survey are published in an annual State Summaries collection.

National Research Council Study on Land Parcel Data

The National Academies Press has announced a pre-publication release of a report on taking a national approach to creating and maintaining a parcel information.

A Committee on Land Parcel Databases was brought together. It included county, state and federal officials and representatives from academia and the private sector. The Committee reviewed previous studies and concluded that "complete national land parcel data is necessary, timely, technically feasible, and affordable."

The report includes nine recommendations to reach the goal of national land parcel data. What follows is my interpretation of these recommendations, based on a first reading of the report's executive summary. Further study may show that I have missed some nuances, but let this be a starting point.

1. There should be federal/national coordinators and further study should determine where best to place that responsibility in the federal government.
2. There needs to be a better understanding of the role of parcel data in the collection and maintenance of several related framework data sets.
3. The federal government should develop a "single, comprehensive, and authoritative" geospatial data set of federal lands.
4. A business plan for land parcel data should be created at a national level.
5. There should be a land parcel data coordinator for tribal trust lands.
6. There should be an effort to better integrate Census Bureau geospatial data, and potentially Title 13 data, into the national land parcel data effort.
7. There should be state-level land parcel data coordinators, integrated with the NSGIC Fifty States Initiative.
8. There should be a funding plan to assist local governments in data collection and maintenance and to make better use of existing federal funding.
9. Federal funding to state and local governments for geospatial projects should be dependent upon those governments making basic parcel data -- not detailed property ownership data -- available in the public domain.
   

The report -- "National Land Parcel Data: A Vision for the Future" -- is available for sale from the National Academies. A free PDF Executive Summary is available. The final published copy is expected later this summer.

I predict that this will be the subject of some continuing discussion.