Tuesday, November 17. 2009

Geo Soft Launch Central

Last week USGS made public its new viewer for The National Map (TMN). It's build on NGA's Palanterra 3. I'm confused by the site which says: "Beta URL not ready for wide-distribution until stability testing is completed prior to the end of the calendar year." Thus, I'll not include the URL. Another concern: there's no form to submit suggestions after you test it out. I did contact USGS; I was encouraged to note the upcoming features that are planned (you'll find them noted on the site...) and to stress that it's beta. Expect big news on Dec 3, when USGS celebrates the 125th anniversary of the national mapping program.

Today ESRI soft launched a GIS wiki at wiki.gis.com. A tweet prompted Caitlin at GIS Lounge to explore it. Perhaps it will be formally announced on GIS Day? (Wednesday)

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in ESRI, USGS at 14:34 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

Monday, November 16. 2009

Office of Federal Procurement Policy Admin Nominee Ponders A-76

Daniel Gordon is the nominee to be the administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP to insiders, which I am not!). He'll have to deal with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-76 (the geospatial one) and its public-private competitions for federal work. FCW's blog has interview with him about it.

- @mappsorg

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in USGS at 06:00 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0) |

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

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in USGS, Stimulus at 07:56 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0) |

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.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in USGS at 06:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |

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.

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in USGS, Directions on the News Podcast, Geospatial Business at 01:00 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0) |

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

Posted by Adena Schutzberg in USGS at 11:38 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) |