Friday, October 30. 2009

National Map Elevation and Imagery Funding Available

USGS has 15 discretionary grant opportunities to collect and process imagery and elevation maps to be included as part of the National Map. The funds are part of the Stimulus aka the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Awards run up to $500,000 are are open to institutions of higher education and non-federal government agencies.

A funding opportunity notice from the U.S. Geological Survey states: "Many organizations including state and local governments, private and non-profit firms, as well as many Federal government agencies use these data to support their applications and requirements planning, infrastructure improvements, resource assessments and scientific studies. The data collected under this announcement will become available to the public through The National Map. Priorities for the program include collecting elevation data over those coastal areas of United States most susceptible to storm and hurricane flooding, earthquake damage, and coastal erosion and also increasing coverage and availability of leaf-off high resolution orthoimagery."

The funding opportunity number is 10HQPA0014 (CFDA 15.817). It was posted Oct. 27 with an application closing date of Dec. 1.

via Targeted News

Tuesday, September 1. 2009

Why You Should Look at the NBII-SAIN Data Management Toolkit

Tom Burley from the USGS Texas Water Science Center in Austin, TX wrote to tell me about a new report from USGS that I think will be of interest to many readers.

I recently finished a USGS publication examining this incredibly broad issue of data and information management in the context of the natural resource management efforts of a high-elevation ecosystem. This stems from a two year study I co-directed that looked at how these issues were addressed. It's available here as a USGS Open File Report Publication: http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2009/1170/

We intended this to be applicable to all natural resource management contexts, but particularly, the on-the-ground scenarios and folks doing the real work and making the real decisions. We looked at a number of issues including everything from project planning to database design concepts to free FGDC metadata tools and example workflows. ... I think it is a good starting point at looking at these issues holistically.
...
It is a somewhat long publication, but I think pages 1-8 of the actual document along with the Table of Contents provide a good high-level overview and understanding of its content and relevance to issues everyone is dealing with today.

Tuesday, July 28. 2009

Podcast: The 2009 Federal Geospatial Data Management Oversight Hearing

Last week the House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources held an oversight hearing on "Federal Geospatial Data Management." The committee led by Rep. Jim Costa, heard testimony from federal, state, private industry and professional organization representatives. Our editors look at what was said and what the hearing may mean for the future.

Thursday, July 16. 2009

Obama to Tap Marcia McNutt to head USGS

President Obama announced last week that he will nominate McNutt, a professor of geophysics at Stanford, as the next director of the (USGS) and science advisor to the Secretary of the Interior. She'd be the first woman to lead the Survey, if confirmed.

She's been on the Stanford faculty for more than 20 years, and has worked with the USGS at its Menlo Park branch on earthquake studies.

- Stanford Daily

Tuesday, June 30. 2009

Podcast: Delivering Maps to the FBI

This past week two geospatial practitioners were cited for their good work by the FBI. What did they do? At the request of the Bureau, they went online and found some Digital Raster Graphics, scanned quad maps, printed them and gave them to agents working in their area. Is this how agents and others in the federal government, or even citizens, should get their geographic data? What does this scenario reveal about the FBI? The state of our geospatial infrastructure? The value of the geospatial workforce?


Subscribe to Podcast RSS

Listen Now (to download, right click on the link at left and choose "save target as")

Read the show notes

Missed any podcasts? Want to subscribe via iTunes, Yahoo, etc? Here's the index.

Tuesday, June 9. 2009

Digital USGS Quads Now Available from The National Map - Beta

When last we heard from USGS (February, at the NSGIC mid-year, APB post), the plan was to use The National Map as the engine to produce digital geoPDF quads. Well, the beta of this workflow is now available. It went up quietly last week. Luckily, Gary Price at Resource Shelf let me know when he found it. The latest news from USGS is from May 8. (Just sayin'; I know the USGS folks work very hard!)

Today, if you visit the Digital Map page of the TMN you'll learn of this beta. Basic info:

The "Digital Map - Beta" is the first step toward a new generation of digital topographic maps delivered by the U.S. Geological Survey. These maps are built from The National Map data, which are integrated from local, State, Federal, and other sources. The initial version of the "Digital Map – Beta" includes orthoimagery plus roads and geographic names in the traditional 7.5 minute quadrangle format. "Digital Maps - Beta" are available free on the Web in the GeoPDF format. File size is about 15 to 20 Megabytes.

Tools are available free for download. Users can turn data layers on and off, zoom in and out, and print the maps. As the "Digital Map - Beta" evolves, the USGS will add historical versions of the topographic maps and will incorporate other data layers including hydrography and contours. Use of the term "Beta" signifies that these maps are initial versions that do not yet contain the full content of the traditional USGS topographic quadrangle maps.

The USGS values your comments and suggestions about the new "Digital Map - Beta".