Action items.
Action 1: If you would like your agency to have an exhibit at the National GIS Day in Mellon Auditorium on November 19-20, please contact Tara Schuette (ESRI) by October 14 at 703-506-9515 X8044 or tschuette@esri.com.
Action 2: Wendy Blake Coleman will send the Coordination Group members information regarding National GIS Day.
Action 3: If you would like to participate on the FGDC Future Directions planning team or in the FGDC Future Directions activity itself, please contact Alison Kiernan (akiernan@usgs.gov) by COB October 17.
Action 4: Hank Garie (GOS) will send an email to the Coordination Group members summarizing the GOS Data Steward activity and announcing the kick-off meeting for the data stewards (to be held at DOT immediately after the November 4 Coordination Group meeting).
Action 5: Please contact Rick Miessau with any words of wisdom or feedback regarding his Everglades Restoration Data Management presentation (rmiessau@sfwmd.gov) or 561-682-6521.
Host: Michael Sherman, NCPC
Attendees:
Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC Staff Director
Alison Kiernan, FGDC
Shane Dettman, NCPC
Stacy Wood, NCPC
Ralph Crawford, USFS
Jochen Albrecht, UMD/ UCGIS
Anne O'Connor, Census
Eddie Pickle, IONIC Enterprise
Billy Tolar, USGS/National Atlas
Kathy Covert, FGDC
Rick Misseau, SFWMD
Nancy Blyler, USACE
Lee R. Warren, NIMA
Myra Bambacus, NASA
Wendy Blake Coleman, EPA
Hank Garie, GOS
John Clark, GSA
Hedy Rossmeissl, USGS
Patricia Weir, NASA
Robby Wilson, NOAA
Paul Cutler, NAS
Alan Stevens, FGDC
Michelle Torreano, EPA
Bonnie Gallahan, FGDC
Lesley Ogrosky, FGDC
Rick Yorczyk, NOAA
Mark Bradford, BTS
Ted Hull, NARA
Barry Napier, USFS
Mario Lopez-Gomez, Civil Rights/DOJ
David Painter, FGDC
Leonard Gore, Jr., BLM
Fred Miller, GSA
Leslie Wollack, FGDC
Salvatore Sclarani, HUD
Rob Dollison, GOS
Chris Clarke, NRCS
Susan Hargrove, DOE
Via Teleconference:
Barb White, FWS
David Stein, NOAA CSC
Sharon Shin, FGDC
Update - Ivan DeLoatch, FGDC Staff Director
Ivan DeLoatch has been appointed the permanent FGDC Staff Director as of October 6. Ivan is pleased with this opportunity and looks forward to leading the FGDC into a new era.
The NSGIC Annual Conference held in Nashville this September was very productive. The conference focused on homeland security and Ryan Cast (DHS) presented a key note address on the subject. Hank Garie (GOS), Barb Ryan (USGS) and Ivan DeLoatch sat on a panel and clarified issues regarding the Geospatial One-Stop, The National Map, and the FGDC. There will be a unified grant between the Geospatial One-Stop, The National Map, and the FGDC in FY04. The States continue to be active in Homeland Security efforts and are looking at strategies to leverage their data.
The draft Framework Data Standards developed through Geospatial One-Stop have been submitted to INCITS L1 for review. We now need to think about completing standards for the other data themes listed under OMB Circular A-16.
National GIS Day will be celebrated on November 19 - 20 at an event sponsored by DOI and EPA in the Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. The E-Gov exhibit from the ESRI Conference last July will be used to showcase collaboration between Federal agencies. DOI, EPA, NOAA, USDA, NASA, DHS, DOD, and NCPC are participating and will have booths at this event. There will be break out sessions on Geospatial Information Policy, E-Gov, Homeland Security and the intended audience will include Congressional staffers. The CIO Council is supportive of this event and there will be a VIP reception with 200 invited VIPs. There will also be a children's event with interactive tools and websites commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition. This is an opportunity to bring our policy makers, CIOs, and State CIOs together in a geospatial context. Spread the word!
Action 1: If you would like your agency to have an exhibit at the National GIS Day in Mellon Auditorium on November 19-20, please contact Tara Schuette (ESRI) by October 14 at 703-506-9515 X8044 or tschuette@esri.com.
Action 2: Wendy Blake Coleman will send the Coordination Group members information regarding National GIS Day.
There is proposed legislation introduced by Representative Clay entitled "The Geospatial Preparedness Act" H.R. 3186 relating to geospatial data and homeland security. For more information please view the document at http://thomas.loc.gov. There may be a meeting regarding this legislation at the National GIS Day event.
FGDC members are encouraged to participate in the FGDC Future Directions activity that has just begun. The vision of the FGDC will be reviewed and possibly revised. Enterprise Architecture could help the agencies work together more easily across the Federal sector.
Action 3: If you would like to participate on the FGDC Future Directions planning team or in the FGDC Future Directions activity itself, please contact Alison Kiernan (akiernan@usgs.gov) by COB October 17.
Geospatial One-Stop Update - Hank Garie, GOS Executive Director
Last week Hank Garie attended the E-Gov project manager's meeting hosted by Mark Forman's successor, Karen Evans (former CIO of DOE). The GOS was only one of three or four E-Gov projects that rated green all across the scorecard. This is a testimony that the Federal Partners have allowed this project to stay on track through their funding and hard work. On September 30, Scott Cameron (GOS Managing Partner) signed the official transmittal letter and sent the draft GOS standards to ANSI for review. The harmonization team will be asked to adjudicate comments and continue their work on this effort.
During Hurricane Isabel last month, the folks at the NSGIC Conference pulled NASA, NOAA, and State data together, along with private sector weather tracking data, and published it on the GOS Portal to aid response efforts. This exercise illuminated the need to proactively populate the GOS channels to aid response efforts in the event of an emergency. Ryan Cast volunteered his efforts to develop a Homeland Security channel for the GOS Portal.
Bonnie Gallahan (FGDC) will serve as lead between the GOS Project and the 17 data channels listed at the Portal. Hank thanked those that had volunteered to serve as Data Stewards for these channels. Data Stewards include: Tim Trainer (Census) for the Administrative Boundaries and Cultural channels; Dennis Lytle (USDA) for the Agriculture channel; NASA and associated FGDC Working Groups for the Climatic channel; BLM and the Cadastral Subcommittee for the Cadastral channel; USGS for the Elevation, Geologic, Imagery and Inland Waterways channels; EPA for the Environmental channel; DOT for the Transportation channel; FCC for the Communications channel and Ryan Cast (DHS) for the Homeland Security Channel. Hank hopes that Chuck Croner at CDC/HHS will be able to host the Health and Disease channel.
Action 4: Hank Garie (GOS) will send an email to the Coordination Group members summarizing the GOS Data Steward activity and announcing the kick-off meeting for the data stewards (to be held at DOT immediately after the November 4 Coordination Group meeting).
Q: What is the timeframe for the data steward activity?
A: This will be an ongoing dynamic process. NOAA and Cadastral may be used as examples for the other data channels. We hope we can post real progress in a couple of months.
Comment: Imagery and base mapping is a huge category and USGS will provide leadership. However many agencies do have a stake in this and USGS would like support in this activity from other agencies, even if they are not taking a leadership role.
Response: Teams of communities of interest, not just Feds, are required to move this data steward activity forward.
Comment: DOI Architecture Committee is identifying data standards for every department in the bureau. Barb White is recommending that DOI work closely with FGDC on this, as the efforts will dovetail.
Geospatial Preparedness Workshop Update - Barry Napier, DHS
The Interagency Geospatial Preparedness Team (IGPT) was chartered by FEMA in October 2002 with members from USGS, NIMA, USFS, etc. The IGPT was blazing a path towards improving State, local, tribal and Federal geospatial preparedness. When DHS was formed, Ryan Cast became the Geospatial Information Officer and the IGPT became part of DHS. In July 2003 the IGPT became part of DHS and the name went away. Five Geospatial Preparedness workshops are being held across the country in Kansas City, Seattle, Atlanta, Denver and the National Capitol Region. The workshop attendees will be from State, local and tribal governments as well as emergency responders and GIS people to develop an idea of their needs and capabilities and examine their data and resource issues. Also examined will be the operational processes at those levels of government and the associated information needs and how they are spatially dependant. They will examine how counties deal with municipalities and State offices and see if these relationships become barriers to the processes.
Q: Do Interagency GIS Teams play a role in this exercise?
A: The workshop audience has been IGPT, regional FEMA folks as well as the interagency incident command people that are deployed during an emergency. There has been mixed Federal representation - it is mostly focused on the State and local level.
The DHS Strategy for Geospatial Preparedness will be pulled from these workshops and will encompass all Homeland Security issues. The drafts from the five workshops will be circulated after the workshops have been completed in December 2003.
Persistent findings include:
- Discover and data sharing issues such as documentation, metadata, consistency, sharing across multi-jurisdictional areas, licensing and use restrictions, and institutional barriers between layers of government.
- GIS practitioners use FTP sites to move data so we need consistency in file naming conventions
- Data triage during a large event involves every level of government (such as during the Space Shuttle recovery). This is a chaotic environment with information grabbling.
Everglades Restoration Data Management Program - Rick Miessau, South Florida Water Management District
The Everglades is a unique subtropical ecosystem that is impacted by severe droughts and floods. At the turn of last century the land was considered uninhabitable but today the area contained in the 16 southern Florida counties is inhabited by many people as well as endangered species, and is subjected to urban and agricultural growth. The water management system built years ago by USACE has problems meeting growing demands for resources. A five year study completed in 1999 quantified problems based on 50 years of operating the system. The 2000 Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) has goals to deliver the right amount of water at the right time and to restore the historical flows to the Everglades. Project management of the CERP was authorized in early 2002 and to manage the project they work with USGS, tribes, EPA and others. Major data products include: data standards, data catalogue, data warehouse, management plans, common spatial framework, and data architecture. They identified extensive data standards and public guidelines for data interchange. USGS's South Florida Information Access (SOFIA) Project holds a lot of promise for them and they will use this in their effort (http://sofia.usgs.gov). CERP is trying to decide what to do with the broad environmental data; the financial data was much easier to track. CERP will become a NSDI node in the future and will implement a data Clearinghouse, vertical datum modernization, procedures and guidance, data/system architecture, and increased information awareness. This is an all encompassing effort, not just a spatial data plan. CERP will need a project delivery team and will have more outside participation. CERP will examine and leverage work done by other data efforts including SOFIA and Chesapeake Bay Restoration. For more information please visit the CERP website at (www.evergladesplan.org).
Action 5: Please contact Rick Miessau with any words of wisdom or feedback regarding his Everglades Restoration Data Management presentation (rmiessau@sfwmd.gov) or 561-682-6521.
[ PowerPoint 2.69MB]
Next Coordination Group meeting:
November 4, 2003
Hosted by Department of Transportation / Bureau of Transportation Statistics
400 7th Street, S.W.
Washington, DC 20590
Meeting Room: 8236-40
(An agenda will be forwarded in late October)