At GIS in the Rockies, a panel session was convened to allow U.S. Federal agencies an opportunity to give the audience an update on what their efforts have produced. Some quick remarks (some of this may be old news to many):
USGS/FEMACarol Giffin of the USGS/FEMA team offered that new updates for critical infrastructure data have been delivered to FEMA in May 2007 including updated locations of hospitals & schools:
Nearly 10,000 updated schools including 800 that were new;
Nearly 1000 updated hospitals including 100 new;
In progress are updated locations of fire stations, police headquarters and emergency operation centers.
U.S. Census
Jim Castagneri of the Census Bureau noted that many changes are ongoing:
The last TIGER/Line file was released Spring 2007
TIGER has been completely re-designed in-house to reside in an Oracle database; Geographic products are produced from a subset "product database." Prior to 2006,TIGER could not be modeled because of the lack of topology; TIGER/Line files are being replaced by TIGER Shape files in fall 2007
TIGER/GML – based on GML and intended to support the OGC standards for data exchange; sample data will be on the web soon.
WebTIGER – uses TIGER/GML; A WFS interface allowing requests for geographic features across the web using the XML-based GML for data exchange.
Castagneri also noted that the impact of these changes on Local Governments will include:
Fewer paper-based programs;
Easier to submit feature & boundary updates via digital files;
More positionally accurate TIGER data will ease demographic data integration into local GIS;
TIGER & National Map data (USGS) will more closely resemble GIS data.
National Geodetic Survey
Pam Fromhertz from the National Geodetic Survey informed attendees that part of their 10-year plan includes the modernization of the Continuously Operating Reference System (CORS), to improve gravity modeling, and the NAD 83 National Readjustment (a readjustment within the original NAD 83 framework).
Fifty-States Initiative
A NSGIC AND FDGC partnership to clearly define the authority that exists for statewide coordination of geospatial information and technology. A full-time paid coordinator position is designated and has the authority to implement the strategic plans. This person is authorized to coordinate with local governments, academia and private sector. The federal government will work through the statewide coordinating authority. In the past the local agencies have been able to work directly with the federal agencies. Now with this statewide coordinating body, the local governments have agreed to work through this council to coordinate GIS activities. [APB has covered this previously.]
