PROJECT TITLE
Development of a Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC)
Environmental Hazards Geospatial Data Content Standard
DATE
March 1997
SUBMITTING ORGANIZATION
FGDC Facilities Working Group (FWG). The Point of
Contact (POC) for the Environmental Hazards standard is Nancy Blyler (202)761-8893.
OBJECTIVES
To develop a nationally focused Environmental Hazards Geospatial Data Content Standard
(hereafter called Environmental Hazards Standard) that will establish a consistent approach to
sharing information about natural and manmade substances, materials, and conditions that are, or
have the potential to be, detrimental to ecosystems on the earth.
GOALS
1. To compile common definitions for environmental hazard data that will facilitate the effective,
use, understanding, and automation of geospatial information.
2. To standardize entities, attributes, and domain values that will improve the creation,
management and data sharing of environmental hazard data.
3. To resolve discrepancies related to the use of similar terms, thereby minimizing duplication
within and among systems.
SCOPE
The environmental hazards standard will address data concerning the evaluation and
investigation of the existence of environmental hazards, monitoring the presence of hazards,
preparedness and protection from hazards, and remediation of their effects. This standard will
include the management of information about chemical and biological substances, hazardous
materials, and physical conditions that affect the earth's ecosystems, including air, soil, and water
systems (both surface water and ground water.) This standard will not address natural disasters
(e.g., volcanoes, earthquakes.)
JUSTIFICATION/BENEFITS
There is no national geospatial data content standard for environmental hazards. A
comprehensive data content standard supporting the study, management, and remediation of
environmental hazards would be beneficial to hazardous materials managers, solid waste
engineers, and public works officers. Benefits would also be realized in emergency situations,
when efficient management and data sharing between federal and local agencies is imparative to
containing hazardous materials and protecting the environment.
Development of Environmental Hazard Standards through the FGDC will provide an
opportunity for broad participation from national, state, and local governments, municipalities,
professional societies, and private industry. Environmental Hazard Standards will also support
the FGDC's integrated standard database project and will provide new data sharing opportunities
for the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) (i.e., federal, state, and local governments, as
well as the private sector.)
APPROACH
The FWG will establish an Environmental Hazards project team to develop this
Environmental Hazards Standard. The project team will begin development of this Environment
Hazards Standard using the Environmental Hazards information contained in the Tri-Service
Spatial Data Standard (TSSDS). However, the project team or the resulting standard will not be
constrained to the content extracted from the TSSDS. The entity classes, entity types, etc. may
be enhanced and modified to create a comprehensive Environmental Hazard Data Content
standard that meets the diverse requirements of federal, state, and community environmental data
users. The project team will solicit input from a broad range of agencies and environmental
groups for development of the standard.
The FWG will also maintain an Environmental Hazards database containing the
entity/attribute/domain information that can be used to support the Standards Working Group
(SWG) integrated feature registry project.
RELATED STANDARDS
As mentioned in the approach paragraph, the TSSDS is a related
standard that includes Environmental Hazards information. Additional content added to the
Environmental Hazard standard (beyond what is available from the TSSDS) will be closely
coordinated with the Tri-Service CADD/GIS Technology Center so that later versions of the
TSSDS may potentially incorporate this additional information. This project will also be
coordinated with the Facilities Identification project.
Other related standards (relevant to domain values) are:
EPA Order 2180.1, June 26, 1987 standard for Chemical Abstracts Service Registry
Number Data Standard for using CAS Registry Number for identification of chemical
substances.
ANSI X3.50-1986, American National Standard for information systems --representations
for U.S. customary, SI, and other units to be used in systems with limited character sets.
NIST Special Publication 811, 1995 Edition, Guide for the Use of the International
System of Units (SI) for standardizing units of measure.
SCHEDULE
The FWG has formed an Environmental Hazards project team to begin work on
the development of this standard. The development of a working draft Environmental Hazards
Standard is expected to take 9-12 months. Once the FWG is satisfied with the content of this
Environmental Hazards Standard it will be forwarded to the SWG for consideration to go out for
public review. The FWG expects to have a completed, approved Environmental Hazard standard
in 24 months.
RESOURCES
The FWG has adequate resources to accomplish the initial development of this
Environmental Hazards Standard. If after review and comment from other Federal Agencies and
the non-Federal sector there is considerable additional content need, then additional resources
may be required.
POTENTIAL PARTICIPANTS
The primary participants will be the members of the FWG
which includes representatives from federal agencies, municipalities, professional associations,
and private industry.
TARGET AUTHORIZATION BODY
The FWG proposes pursuing the development of this
Environmental Hazards Standard as an FGDC standard. The FWG may consider pursuing (at a
later date) the development of the Environmental Hazards Standard as an ANSI (American
National Standards Institute) Standard within ANSI's technical committee for GIS, NCITS L1.
FGDC would serve as the Target Authorization Body until this Environmental Hazards Standard
becomes an ANSI Standard.
