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.

"______________ For the Nation" Watch: Elevation

A story from the Associated Press on the Boston Globe web site focuses on cal by the NRC for an update of elevation data across the US:

The National Research Council yesterday proposed an "Elevation for the Nation" program to produce up-to-date data.

The story reports on the effort by FEMA to move from paper to digital Flood Maps, but notes that the basic elevation data behind those Flood Maps are in some cases decades out of date. And it explains, very briefly "Lidar."

Via All POINTS BLOG.