Tuesday, March 9. 2010

#NSGICMidyear: NOAA, Census, USACE, DOT Panel

David Kennedy is the Assistant Administrator at National Ocean Service (NOS), part of NOAA. NOS covers coasts, climate and economy. He sees all kinds of opportunities due to many drivers - lots of acts (laws) and task forces and a looming strategic plan. Key national priorities: climate change/sea level rise, hazards and community resilience, coastal and marine spatial planning, place-based decision making, regional ocean governance. The organizational challenges include a huge requirement and lots of folks doing some of the work and not a lot of money. Kennedy continues to see this as an opportunity, to among other things, figure out requirements and who’s already providing some of the datasets, solutions... but, he noted, it is hard to work with many agencies. There are many partnership opportunities, including:

- a new vertical datum from GRAV-D (Gravity for the Redefinition of the American Vertical Datum) .
Digital Coast
Integrated Ocean and Coastal Mapping (report coming)
State grants - CZM, conservation, Sea Grant, Gulf of Mexico Regional Ocean Governance

The 2010 Budget is up 3.5% mostly focusing on coastal issues. Most of ARRA money is out and the 2011 has budget increases, again focussed on coast issues.

Tim Trainor from Census spoke to his Bureau’s 2011 funding request aimed at updating the master address list for 2020. Instead of canvassing (which Census did 2010, visiting every address) it wants a targeted canvassing for 2020 (visiting just selected addresses). Between 2003-8 Census’ MAF/TIGER update took place. It worked really well to update the data and needs to be kept up to date. The new focus is on coverage (completeness).

Currently Census uses USPS delivery sequence file (USPS delivery info) and field updates as the basis of the address list. It’s looking for new sources to add. It needs rural addresses to be better - it has info on how to get to these locations, but no standard addresses for them, or their road networks (to put them on a map). Imagery is a major part of Census work for 2010 but not in previous years. [Interesting!]

Doing a targeted address canvas will shift things, per Trainor, because local governments will need to know the Bureau has a good address list.

The 2011 budget is in Congress. Census did an offsite and are forming teams for the 2001 vision. How can NSGIC/MAPPS help? By developing strong relationship with Census regional offices, working with local gov partners, sharing info on new addressing initiatives in your geography (E-911, USPS, parcel data...).

Nancy Blyler is the geospatial coordinator from the Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). She focused on federal initiatives. The corps has nine divisions divided into 45 district offices. Each district has a GIS lead.

Inland Electronic Navigational Chart - scheduled to be completed at end of fiscal year 2010 - then goes into maintenance mode. Got $3M in ARRA funds.

National Inventory of Dams (84,000 dams) - now you can view it, but not download it (after Sept 11) but is available via HSIP and other ways.

Modeling Mapping and Consequences Production Center - mapping and modeling for dam failures. USACE is doing 60 dams per year so it’ll be a while to cover 6000 dams it manages. Now done in house, but likely will be outsourced.

National Levee Database - Funded in 2000 to map the levees. Just Corps-owned levees, but will include non-Corps levees, in time, too.

Reservoir/Data Control Database - just begun, akin to “stream gauges” - want to pull together for a national database.

Costal Mapping Program (in conjunction with NOAA, USGS) - coast LiDAR every three years, except 2009 when the program is doing all of the coasts (from ARRA funds).

Updating Vertical Data - U-SMART, USACE Survey Monument Archival and Retrieval Tool will document project control over time.

Conclusion: “We are getting our data in place and now can use it for decision support more easily.”

Steve Lewis is GIO for US Dept of Transportation. GIS programs within the many agencies of DOT. I point you to the agency webpages to explore them since he went really fast!

ARRA prompted DOT to put together a team to give out its money. Among other things produced an app to map where the money goes.

The rest of DOT is working with FAA (one of its agencies!) to get DOT into ESRI ELA (since FAA got it itself...). DOT doesn’t outsource much and has little funding for R&D, but it may dry up even further.

Q: The Corps owns land. Do we have maps of that?
A: (USACE) In some places its in good shape, others not so good. We are adding geospatial to our real estate management database. That data will be shared.

Q: Addressing collected up is really good. Can we keep it in the public domain so we can use it (within the spirit of the law).
A: (Census) The address file is a national resource. There is a law on confidentiality of that data. We are searching for ways to make that data available. We need to look at inventive ways. The administration is interested in that data. We are looking at policy (13). Where this will go? Don’t know. We hear you and ourselves.

Q: Is there a timeframe to make this happen with address database? How do we help?
A: (Census) For targeted canvas must decide by 2015. NSGIC and MAPPS have made a difference in their interest. Keep it on the agenda or folks will forget.

Q: Concern about state DOT buying aircraft and sensors and competing with the private sector. There’s a law against that. What’s being done to ensure compliance?
A: (DOT) News to me. We didn’t get a letter. Send a letter to Secretary LaHood.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in NSGIC 10 Mid-Year at 14:21 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

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