Action 1: If you would like to have your agency activities showcased in the annual report – through success stories, graphics or photos of your activities on the ground - please contact Roxanne Lamb (rhlamb@usgs.gov).
Action 2: If you have not done so, please submit your annual report to Roxanne Lamb (rhlamb@usgs.gov) by December 12.
Action 3: The CG will get fact review on lead article on Friday COB – emergency response, preparedness, recovery efforts – emergency response success stories are highlighted within the article.
Action 4: The Annual Report writing team will glean information from the emergency preparedness and response presentations from the October Steering Committee meeting. http://www.fgdc.gov/participation/steering-committee/meeting-minutes/oct-2006/index_html
Action 5: The annual report draft will be sent to the CG for their review and comments on January 2.
Action 6: Please contact Gita Urban-Mathieux to serve as CAP proposal reviewer. (baurbanma@fgdc.gov)
Action 7: Please contact Doug Nebert if you are interested in attending the meetings or learning more about the activities of the OGC. (ddnebert@fgdc.gov)
Action 8: Please contact Brian Brisco (brian.brisco@nrcan.gc.ca) if you would like to collaborate with CCRS on the RADARSAT activity.
Action 9: Those interested should register for the Coastal Geotools Conference, to be held in Myrtle Beach from March 5 – 8. Early bird registration ends on January 8. www.csc.noaa.gov/geotools
Action 10: The ISO Draft Work Item Proposal: Geographic information - Core Cadastral Domain Model (CCDM) will be posted with the minutes for CG member information. [draft]
Action 11: Please contact Tony LaVoi (Tony.Lavoi@noaa.gov) if you would like to participate in the Marine and Coastal Spatial Data Subcommittee or Marine Boundary Working Group.
Action 12: Nancy Blyler will provide an in depth SDSFIE briefing at the January or February Coordination Group meeting.
Action 13: Please provide comments on the draft charter of the FACA Committee to John Mahoney by January 12 (jmahoney@usgs.gov). Please look at membership categories and provide thoughts on getting good mix of the people on the committee, including the issue of whether we should include Federal members. When sending your edits, please do not alter the standardized format of the charter.
Action 14: John Mahoney will review sample decision-making bylaws and report back to the group on their similarities at the January 15 CG meeting.
Action 15: If your agency has a standard approach to decision-making bylaws, please send them to John Mahoney (jmahoney@usgs.gov) by January 15.
Action 16: John Mahoney will contact the ethics officers regarding restrictions placed on the FACA.
Action 17: Ivan DeLoatch and John Mahoney will request guidance from the solicitor’s office on the issue of where the subcommittees will reside. They will report back to the Coordination Group on January 16.
Action 18: Ivan will send the Coordination Group and Task Force members an alert when the benefits doc is released to your agency for comment.
Announcement
We are sorry to pass along the sad news that Fred Broome succumbed to cancer last weekend. We have lost a vibrant friend and FGDC champion. Fred was the mainstay of the work we have done over the years. He will be deeply missed – and we would like to offer our condolences to his family. His memorial service will be held this Saturday (12/9/06) -- Alison will send the specifics to the CG listserve for those who wish to pay their respects.
Action Items from Last Meeting – Alison Dishman, FGDC
Annual Report Update – Roxanne Lamb, USGS and Tricia Gibbons, LEAD Alliance
[presentation] [table of reports received]
Action 1: If you would like to have your agency activities showcased in the annual report – success stories, graphics or photos of your activities on the ground - please contact Roxanne Lamb (rhlamb@usgs.gov).
We are happy to have received many of your reports – 21 submitted to date. We have also received many success stories and graphics. Thank you.
We need photos, success stories from collaborating partners, surveys we are missing from agencies, concrete 06 accomplishments and highlights. Your photos should be 300 dpi.
Action 2: If you have not done so, please submit your annual report to Roxanne Lamb (rhlamb@usgs.gov) by December 12.
Brett Gilroy has been contracted to write the report. He may need to contact you for clarification when he writes the piece on your agency.
Action 3: The CG will get fact review on lead article on Friday COB – emergency response, preparedness, recovery efforts – emergency response success stories are highlighted within the article.
Action 4: The Annual Report writing team will glean information from the emergency preparedness and response presentations from the October Steering Committee meeting. http://www.fgdc.gov/participation/steering-committee/meeting-minutes/oct-2006/index_html
Action 5: The annual report draft will be sent to the CG for their review and comments on January 2.
CAP Update – Gita Urban-Mathieux
Action 6: Please contact Gita to serve as a reviewer of the CAP proposals. (baurbanma@fgdc.gov)
To view the CAP schedule and grant categories please visit: http://www.fgdc.gov/grants/2007CAP/2007CAPschedule
The USGS grants office will have extra requirements this year due to a recent audit. We also may be affected by the appropriations process – there may be a continuing resolution through February. We will stay assertive in this area to receive the resources we have requested.
DHS will be making a contribution to Category 3: Fifty States Initiative.
OGC Update – Doug Nebert, FGDC
[presentation] www.opengeospatial.org
Action 7: Please contact Doug Nebert if you are interested in attending the meetings or activities of the OGC. (ddnebert@fgdc.gov)
Please see Doug’s presentation for upcoming meetings, testbeds, and activities.
Doug votes for the FGDC at the OGC, but other Federal members participate individually and are also permitted to vote.
The OGC would like more local government participation. The academic community is currently the largest sector of membership.
Comment: The DNI CIO has mandated OGC standards for geospatial information. This is positive. NGA chairs the geospatial working group and has pushed FGDC and OGC standards for geospatial intelligence work. They are still trying to get the rest of DoD to use standards. There is a big move in intelligence community to use these standards – especially since they have been adopted by private sector. They work; standards are making a tremendous difference.
There is a general resistance to promote dozens of new specs rather then make a profile of an existing standard. The vendors want to limit their code base to support as many standards as possible.
Intellectual property review needs to be done for anything that comes in. Don’t often have face to face votes – there are 30 to 60 day IPR reviews, so we mostly do electronic ballots. The face to face meetings are essential for building consensus – we encourage your participation at the OGC meetings.
RADARSAT – Brian Brisco – Canada Centre for Remote Sensing
[presentation]
Canada Center for Remote Sensing is using RADARSAT 1 and 2 for an inventory of wetland and surface water mapping.
Canada is a huge country with a large amount of wetlands encompassing wide range of land covers and land types – forested wetland mapping works better with radar. RADARSAT incorporates optical data to classify vegetation – shows the difference between land that is flooded or just saturated. Radar is also useful since Canada is dark three months out of the year. The satellites are all polar orbiting. This is an advantage for covering arctic region every three days, all of Canada every seven days.
Radar is a water seeker, shows discontinuity based on water change. However there are problems encountered when using radar – water, roads and pasture appear dark in imagery; flooded vegetation has higher backscatter – but it may be hard to discriminate between flooded and non flooded vegetation.
The Canadian Government would like to reduce duplication of effort. After the Red River flood about 90 different government units purchased the same imagery from the same provider. They are working to ensure that something this does not occur again.
There is an archive of data collected by RADARSAT-1. RADARSAT-2 will be available soon – its innovations include 3 meter ultra-fine resolution; multichannel capabilities to see vegetation and water; routine left or right-looking direction for quicker revisit time; and user-selectable polarization. The minimum mapping unit is a hectare.
Different modes have different resolutions – there are a wide range of scales and information content as a function of that.
The program uses Landsat and radar data and DEM. Achieve 90% accuracy but sometimes have fragmented small-scale areas or flooded vegetation in forested areas, still trying to improve there.
Q: Do you have fidelity data for this technique?
A: Trying to achieve 90% accuracy for wetland, still working on some areas. We plan on implementing the program starting in 2007 with the first Canadian-wide map to be completed by 2010.
CCRS is establishing collaboration with USGS and is in talks with FWS. They hope to extend this activity to cover all of North America to achieve seamless cross border mapping. CCRS is looking for additional Federal government collaboration.
Action 8: Please contact Brian Brisco (brian.brisco@nrcan.gc.ca) if you would like to collaborate with CCRS on the RADARSAT activity.
Q: When do you expect RADARSAT-3 to be implemented?
A: Phase 1 is funded. We are in the design stage. It would be a constellation of satellites, first launched in 2011. Not sure how much of the polarmetric mode will be maintained on RADARSAT-3.
Q: Is GEOSS participating in any of the RADARSAT activities?
A: GEOSS Secretariat is in the same building and is playing a supporting role.
Marine and Coastal Spatial Data SC and Marine Boundaries WG Update – Tony LaVoi, NOAA/CSC
For all documents and information please visit:
www.csc.noaa.gov/mbwg (working group)
www.csc.noaa.gov/mcsd (subcommittee)
Action 9: Those interested should register for the Coastal Geotools Conference, to be held in Myrtle Beach from March 5 – 8. Early bird registration ends on January 8. www.csc.noaa.gov/geotools
The 2002 Revision of A-16 added eight themes of marine and coastal interest. FGDC has a role in coordinating coastal and marine spatial data. Mapping the marine environment is difficult and requires a strong geospatial component.
The Coastal Metadata Reference Guide and training program has gone a long way towards promoting the NSDI.
The subcommittee is struggling with stewardship and its broad responsibility. There is a focus on marine boundary issues in the working group, but a subgroup or working group may also need to be created to address shoreline and bathymetry issues.
In January The National Shoreline Data Content Standard will be forwarded to Julie Maitra for review.
The Marine Boundary Working Group was formed in 2001 – Steven Kopach (MMS) and Cindy Fowler (NOAA) cochair – and its focus is finding ways to define legal and geospatial descriptions of marine boundaries. The working group has 25 members, and 100 on the group’s listserve. The group created the “Marine Managed Areas: Best Practices for Boundary Making Handbook” (http://www.fgdc.gov/fgdc-news/mb-handbook/) and is engaging the States on this topic.
Comment: ISO TC 211 put out proposal for new work item to develop a cadastral data model – not sure if it’s just onshore or onshore and offshore. The US ought to play a key role in this. [link to ISO proposal]
Action 10: The ISO Draft Work Item Proposal: Geographic information - Core Cadastral Domain Model (CCDM) will be posted with the minutes for CG member information.
Action 11: Please contact Tony LaVoi (Tony.Lavoi@noaa.gov) if you are interested in participating in the Marine and Coastal Spatial Data Subcommittee or Marine Boundary Working Group.
SDSFIE – Nancy Blyler, USACE
[diagram]
The Spatial Data Standard for Facilities, Infrastructure, and Environment (SDSFIE) has been managed by the USACE for at least a decade. It began as a paper manual data dictionary, then a CD, and recently the management for the development of the standard was contracted out to Northrop Grumman TASC, as the prime. Bill Ryder, USACE is the COTR.
The SDSFIE will be made easier to implement, and the DoD standards issues will be harmonized with the NGA Standards Working Group and the DISR.
Action 12: Nancy Blyler will provide an in depth SDSFIE briefing at the January or February Coordination Group meeting.
Q: Principles – are you moving away from database model?
A: We will go into the DISR looking for UML modeling and restructuring at a high level to harmonize with DoD Architecture. We are working on GML implementation as well.
FACA Update – John Mahoney
[presentation] [draft FACA charter]
Action 13: Please provide comments on the draft charter of the FACA Committee to John Mahoney by January 12 (jmahoney@usgs.gov). Please look at membership categories and provide thoughts on getting good mix of the people on the committee, including the issue of whether we should include Federal members. When sending your edits, please do not alter the standardized format of the charter.
Membership categories listed in the draft charter were derived from the Future Directions report. We will request membership nominations from the community when the charter is approved. A draft call for nominations will be distributed for your review prior to the February 15 Steering Committee meeting.
Q: What is the term of the individual chosen to represent the organizations? Do you have flexibility in defining the term – what if they move on?
A: It is generally a two year term. A FACA committee can only be chartered for two years at a time. Representation is generally limited to three consecutive terms. If the representative must resign, the Secretary of the sponsoring agency may appoint a new member in their stead.
Q: What is the timeline between draft charter and implementing the call for nominations?
A: We would like to present the package to Steering Committee in February and implement afterwards. The package will consist of the final charter, membership application letters, a draft Federal Register notice, and justification/clarification. The Federal Register requires a 15 day review period before the charter is filed with GSA Office of Committee Management.
Subcommittee meetings established under the committee might not be public meetings – and do not require Federal Register notices.
Department of the Interior has over 100 FACAs, generally pertaining to national park areas and wildlife refuges. The charter is a brief document about the scope and purpose – and then the bylaws developed by committee itself have more information.
Action 14: John Mahoney will review sample decision-making bylaws and report back to the group on their similarities at the January 15 CG meeting.
Action 15: If your agency has a standard approach to decision-making bylaws, please send them to John Mahoney (jmahoney@usgs.gov) by January 15.
Action 16: John Mahoney will contact the ethics officers regarding restrictions placed on the FACA.
The target size for the FACA is approximately 20 members, we would like to have a manageable group.
Q: Would the subcommittees be under the purview of the FACA or FGDC?
A: We might not have to move the existing subcommittees and working groups under the FACA. We are looking for guidance from the solicitor’s office to make sure we don’t run afoul of the guidelines. There might also be subcommittees established under the FACA to deal with certain issues in the short term.
Action 17: Ivan DeLoatch and John Mahoney will request guidance from the solicitor’s office on the issue of where the subcommittees will reside. They will report back to the Coordination Group on January 16.
The FACA Committee would report to chair of the FGDC. Operating costs would be supported by DOI for supporting travel expenses for nonFed travel expenses.
Q: Would you really need a federal member on the FACA?
A: Some FACAs have only nonfed members or non-voting fed members. We left that open in the draft charter. The meetings are all public so voting is really the issue. Depending on the mix of the group we could have federal members participating as non-voting members, enabling them to be involved in the conversation.
The chair of the committee would be appointed by the chair of the FGDC from among the FACA committee membership.
Subgroups established under the committee as a whole could examine specific issues. Although you could pull in nonmembers with particular expertise, you need the recommendations to be adopted formally by the committee as a whole.
A Federal officer will be responsible for maintaining FACA records. It may be Ivan.
Voting process – there was typically a cutoff point – 75% and then majority view and minority view and then the lead could evaluate the views.
Q: Are there legal restrictions that would prevent someone to serve as representative indefinitely, as long as they hold their position?
A: We can tacitly do that and then go back to the well and get someone from that same community to replace them but it isn’t formally stated in the document.
Bylaws – recommendations need to be made by the majority of attending members – need to have a quorum.
Line of Business Update – Ivan DeLoatch
The benefits document will be shared with us within the next week.
Action 18: Ivan will send the Coordination Group and Task Force members an alert when the benefits doc is released to your agency for comment.
Stacie Boyd has taken a job at NSF and will no longer participate in the LoB activity. Rebecca Ferguson, OMB, will work with us on the LoB during a six month detail.
The LoB Task Force will discuss the Passback language at its next meeting. We also need to discuss milestones – they will be helpful in identifying common solutions.
Q: The new person replacing Stacie is on a six month detail?
A: Ivan will discuss this when he meets with Ms. Ferguson. Tim will continue to be actively involved as well.
Comment: Rebecca will be helpful in determining the cost benefits of the LoB, since she has been involved in the other LoBs. This is positive.
The next Coordination Group meeting will be held on January 16. In February we will return to our regular meeting schedule of the first Tuesday of the month.