Wednesday, March 10. 2010

Wanted: Keynote Speaker for Regional GIS Conference

I get calls all the time asking for suggestions for "someone" to talk about "something" geo as the keynote speaker at a conference. I want to crowdsource the latest one to get some new faces and ideas out there!

Here's the basic outline of what's requested:

The organizer wants someone to speak about the future of geospatial, "where the train is heading." With all that Google and Microsoft and other players are doing, with 3D and all the new data collection, where are we going? While I don't have all the details, these gigs typically cover travel, conference attendance, and food. Some have stipends (but that's rare). The request is for someone in the eastern US to simplify travel and limit costs.

So, if you think you have the cred (or know someone who does) to pull off a 45 minute or so keynote, drop me a line via the via the brown "suggestions" button above and I'll pass the info on.

The organizer and I thank you in advance.

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.

#NSGICMidyear: USDA, DOI, EPA GIO Panel

Stephen Lowe is the GIO for USDA. He addressed the move and exploration of the agency toward an enterprise GIS solution that offers services. USDA has 100,000 employees with 10 agencies using GIS in their day to day workings, while others take advantage of GIS and geospatial thinking but not as formally or often.

There are five strategic priorities for USDA:

- creating of wealth in rural communities
- conservation, restoration and resilience of national forests and private working lands
- access for children to healthy food
- be sure constituents know what we offer
- missed one

USDA is looking toward software as a service but need a strong data management solution to power it.

Opportunities for partners include addressing:
Sensor Networks - human and automated
Geospatial-Economic Modeling - develop good science of performance, what are the metrics
Facilitate Equity - getting agile “apps” out to everyone
Customer/Partner Relationship Management
Production Process Management - make sure we are using right tools
Map Alternative Views Outcomes - using GIS sociologically

Karen Siderelis is GIO of DOI. She notes these key trends she's observed:

- move from only coordination and standards toward shared operation capacity
- move from base data (collection) to geo-enabling everything
- move from data to places and issues of importance

The DOI GIO Portfolio includes external responsibilities FGDC chair, NGAC oversight, Geospatial Line of Business (GLOB) oversight and internal responsibility including managing nine bureaus, geospatial data and tech use, “enhanced geospatial governance” (secretarial order from DOI).

DOI Mission and Programs: “we protect America’s natural resources and cultural heritage” (Salazar) via nine bureaus (Indian Affairs, Indian Education, Bureau of Reclamation, USGS, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife, Bureau of Land Management, Minerals Management Service, Office of Mining). The DOI website says there are eight bureaus and a different list.

DOI 2010 activites: ARRA, Data.gov, Let’s Move, Place Based Initiative, Emergency Operations, Coordinated Land Acquisition, Great Outdoors, Youth in Nat. Resources, New Management Capabilities which are being launched with geo capabilities.

FY 2011 Budget was release Feb 1 and reflected "making tough choices in hard times" per Secretary Salazar. Thus the focus is on strategic investments in high priority goals. Data integration and collaboration are key. The budget is .3% below 2010 enacted budget.

Highlights in the budget (for Interior):

New Energy Frontier (investment in renewable energy on public lands)
Climate Change Adaptation
Empowering Tribal Nations
WaterSMAART
Treasured Landscapes
Youth in Natural Resources - CCC-like org

Smaller highlights: Wildfire Management, Wild Horses, Landsat Data Continuity Mission ($13 M+), National Geospatial Program (decrease in funding)

"Investments will be based on business need..."

Jerry Johnston GIO at EPA spoke to the National Environmental Information Exchange Network (NEIEN), a place where we can really work together. Formed in 2002 to solve some business problems like asking for same data over and over, funding data sharing, maintaining high quality data. It involved a $150 million investment.

The network has a community defined XML schema. Those SML packages are shared securely and operated on via services. It’s operational in 50 states and several Tribes are working to join.

NEIEN has a grant program! EPA wants to expand the network to support environmental decision making and better serve customer needs. In 2010 the program had $10M for 40-50 2 year grants of $50-250K. Those will be announced this month. The priorities are to finish any missing key system data (required by law), to geospatially enable data, to move from one way to two way data distribution - by publishing OGC services.

What’s next? More guided grant funding, guidance/implementation of geospatial interoperability. There is open source node software. Big question: How do we work as a community to move these forward.

Q: Abuse of GSA schedule update? A letter was sent to you.
A: (DOI) No resolution. In Work.

Q: Challenge Grants - will they be open to more entities in future? We have to wait for lead entity to decide if they are going to bid....
A: (EPA) I can’t answer with authority. So far community is limited to state DEPs and DEQs - but we need to invite more people.

Q: (John P) Is there recognition in gov that we don’t have an NSDI to monitor climate change? What are we doing about that?
A: (USDA) Plant hardiness map had to go through vetting through internal science community and administration. Took a while. Would be worse if had to go through all those agencies. (DOI) We know we don’t have a good capability here, but pooled could be more than the sum of the parts. Some collaborative centers will help, but there is no comprehensive approach - but it should be through the Geospatial Platform. Climate is a business driver. Over the last two years there’s been a significant step in FGDC and other collaboration, so that’ll help, too. (EPA) I agree with what you are saying. We don’t have high res coastal elevation data. There are data gaps that have hamstrung us. Positive: Some of the language in government is getting agencies to talk together. There’s been movement toward working together. I agree the Geospatial Platform is the place to take this forward.

Q: Speak to cuts in Nat Geo Program cuts and what we can do.
A: Cut is about $3M. “tough decisions in hard economic times” “budgets change”

Q: Are the goals of USGA and DOI aligning in the cuts?
A: I hear you.

(USDA) It’s huge to have three GIOs sitting next to each other. We are working to mitigate risks of our constituents (like the budget). Now we can present a different (united) business case. [More than one person pointed out to me that these DOI should sit down together regularly, but based on their presentations, they do not.]

Q: What are opportunites to link your network to data.gov?
A: (EPA) Looking at Web Services APIs. No concrete plan - but state partners want to publish their data, takes burden off them.

Q: Budget cuts - COGO is preparing a letter.

#NSGICMidyear : DHS, NGA, FEMA Panel

Jeff Booth gave an update on the Geospatial Management Office of DHS. The office “geoenables” the DHS mission. The department spends about 3/4 of its (IT?) budget on enterprise scale software. While a goal is to serve the 1% that use geospatial, the rest of the goal is to get the “business owners” to use geospatial more indirectly, that is, to get answers to their questions. Priorities for 2010 for operational data: HSIP Program Leadership, Data Collection of Federal Buildings, WFS for HSIP data, and one more I could not get in time before the slide changed. DHS is working on an imagery acquisition capability - beyond programs in place to get the data - which are slow. Now there’s a “quick way” to get imagery acquisition ready to go for an event or non-event (say an expected hurricane or the SuperBowl). That way planes can be in place to capture imagery in time.

The Geospatial Information Infrastructure (GII) is underlying structure for geo-enabling the Office. It involves search and discovery and data, but DHS does not want to invest in infrastructure - and is looking toward the cloud.

In 2010-11 the priorities are program management, software enterprise license agreements, enterprise imagery collection, base imagery, geocoding, position, navigation and timing support, GIS Emergency CONOPS, GII enhancements. At the bottom of the list were “discretionary investments”: Fusion Center Starter Kits, OGC membership and NSGIC support.

There are 14 grant programs in DHS - many have geospatial dollars in them.

Bill Nellist, GEOINT Analyst an NGA updated the attendees on the 133 cities program (haven’t heard of that in a while!). That program was initiated in 2002 - and is now a partnership effort resultingith a 4 or 5 to 1 ratio of savings. Minimum requirements are 12” pixels, natural color, ortho, leaf-off, cloud free, refreshed 2-4 years. The program has collected over 190 datasets, many are available via USGS Seamless Server.

Paul Rooney from FEMA provided an update from that agency’s flood map updating. In the course of going digital, 92% of flood maps in the US have been updated. The next phase is Risk MAP, that is, continuing to provide quality data to increase public awareness in order to encourage risk reduction. The new maps will offer more information (not just in or out of flood plain) but predicted water levels. Map updates will be prioritized by risk and organized by watershed. The new tools will provide more assessment products built using HAZUS. Every state has to have a Hazard Mitigation Plan to be eligible for grants and aid; local governments, too. Part of FEMA’s Risk MAP work is getting core data to state and locals so they can prepare these plans. Elevation data is key to all of these efforts and the ability communicate about these efforts. Part of the goal is to get citizens to work locally to mitigate and plan for response.

The elevation strategy (confirmed by National Academy Study) involves $20M spending in 2010. First efforts will be in most hazardous areas, but FEMA will be frugal and use existing LiDAR when possible. FEMA will split the collection from processing - so will only process floodplains initially. Partners are welcome and can enable production of specific products from the data. Initial actions include creating an inventory, determine priority areas for FY10, establishing partnership framework and developing updated elevation specifications. There’s a need for a new QA process for the raw point clouds. The acquisition strategy will use existing contracts and agreements with other agencies. FEMA is working on a Congressionally requested plan for floodplain acquisition.

Q: FIRM maps were developed for an insurance program, so they are based on historical record. But a 100 year storm may soon be a 25 year storm due to climate change. So, what does FEMA think of a modeling these sorts of changes.
A: FEMA is doing a study on climate change and flooding (available next year). The goal is to look for how to change our models. Could we enable users to do that sort of thing? Yes, we are moving to archiving all the raw data in digital form, so you can get that data. We probably won’t be looking to provide user tools for that.

Q: Does DHS have interest in mapping underground utilities? As part of NSDI?
A: Office of Infrastructure Protection has expressed an interest. Referred NSDI to USGS folks.

Q: Recommendations for standard data layers for Homeland Security Common Operating Picture (COP) and symbolization?
A: NOP was funded to develop its new structure for COP. (Lots of acronym jokes got in the way of understand response...) Symbology: ANSI (415) set one up built by FGDC, but no one used it. Why? How could we do better? A study is underway (Penn State is doing it). Maybe the solution is to address this in a domain specific way.

Q: FEMA is offering buy ups for LiDAR. Could FEMA fund higher resolution even if it just paid as though for resolution it needed?
A: Sure, anything is possible But if it meets our needs, should be fine. Tricky part if giving enough guidance and flexibility.

Q: Partnerships with USGS and liaisons. How does those work for you and implications for 2011 budget cuts?
A: (NGA) I could not do my job without the liaisons. (repeated 2x!) Budget cuts will have an impact; I don’t know what it will be to me yet. Find a way to cope and adapt. (FEMA) Our regional offices have a small staff; liaisons are key resource.

Q: Speak more to Position Navigation Timing (PNT) use in DHS.
A: PNT is important in response, tracking from where outages come from, has a commerce impact. How do we monitor and track these outages and response. It has a fairly significant impact on us. These are services like GPS, Loran, e-Loran. No procurement information at this time.

Q: Can a nationwide enterprise geocoding service tie back to state ones. (WV just put up a statewide one to building footprint.)
A: (DHS) It’s a challenge - because it’s different for different missions. Is the solution and appliance inside our firewall? Batch processing? Would we do cascading with states? Probably not - would go to private sector for a service.

Q: Any new business models for data acquisitions? Non-public domain?
A: (DHS) Licensed data is extremely important to us. Save FEMA, we are not public facing missions - but we can share licensed data with partners. We’d like to get away from licensed data, but if it helps our mission, we’ll license it. We generally lean toward conservative... (NGA) Our mission is not to put data into public domain; it’s to serve our partners. If that means licenses ok; if public domain, ok.

Q: US National Grid status?
A: (DHS) FEMA has endorsed it for search and rescue. You need different grids for land, water, air. For wide adoption, need training - FGDC CAP funded for that. April time frame for delivery of online training.

Monday, March 8. 2010

#NSGICMidyear: National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC) Update

Anne Hale Miglarese provided a "state of NGAC" presentation. There are new members to the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC) which provides advice and recommendations on federal geospatial policy and management issues and to share views representative of the geospatial community.

The current and emerging topics that NGAC is considering/working on/may work on:

- Place-based Policies Initiative
- Cloud Computing
- National Map Feeback
- Participation in FGDC Virtual Forum Initiative
- NSDI Markers
- Best Practices/Measures of Success

Next meeting March 24-25, Washington, DC includes review of guidance, committee structure and cloud computing.

Q: NGAC to broadcast meetings somehow?
A: We've done it twice, may do it again. It would be nice to do it more.

Q: ROI work?
A: We've discussed the need for a defensible document, but haven't been charged with that. FGDC put an ROI category in the CAP grants.

Q: What were the issues on The National Map?
A: The team presented the plan to NGAC last year. There was no clear path - but we created a subcommittee to explore how we could engage them and provide feedback. We are trying to help them with their strategic plan.

#NSGICMidyear: Corporate Leadership Council Session

The Corporate Leadership Council Session (aka sponsor talks) allows major sponsors to talk about their latest can greatest tech or projects. They each had eight minutes.

AECOM: There are public and private clouds and many providers. Clouds have many benefits (low resource requirements) and challenges (security, availability). AECOM takes a guarded approach (private clouds, mostly)

ESRI: A discussion of societal GIS and crowdsourcing. Examples: MD StateStat, Arkansas iPhone App, Haiti/Chile Earthquakes and Crisis Camps. We are moving from presentation to interaction (that is citizens can provide input). Tech for gathering this will be in ArcGIS 10.

Fugro EarthData: Most significant change in photogrammetry was from film to digital. A review of advances in digital of late: solid state storage, quicker CCD response, radiometric sensitivity. Latest change is the move to panoramic mapping systems - which increases field of view from 45 degrees to about 105 degrees. You can use multiple digital cameras at once or a sweeping lens (Fugro uses the latter.) With these you can capture orthos, but also obliques. Advantages: both vertical and oblique at once, 3” to 1’ GSD imagery, multiple oblique angles, true 3D building modeling. Advances in data exploitation: stereo compilation tools for non-experts.

Michael Baker: A discussion of mobile LiDAR, which is basically LiDAR on a van. It can capture data at 60 mph that can be used to model cityscapes.

NAVTEQ: NAVTEQ True(TM) a new data capture technology which uses mobile Lidar among things. The system can detail where the lane is and what the hours are of a store are.

Northrop Grumman: The latest in LiDAR developments.

North West Geomatics: Semi-automated digital surface model extraction techniques.

Sanborn: Applications of mobile and airborne LiDAR used together.

Surdex: Products that can be made from airborne LiDAR.