Agencies Charged with the U.S. Federal Response in Times of Crisis [#GITA 2010]

During the second day of the GITA 2010 conference, a panel was convened to review the agencies responsible for providing data and coordinating response by the U.S. government in the event of a national emergency. The panel was led by Justin Serin of Booz Allen Hamilton who provided a foundation for the discussion by focusing on domestic infrastructure data gathering and sharing efforts. Sherin is one of the leads for the Homeland Infrastructure Foundation Level Data (HIFLD) Working Group. HIFLD is an inter-agency coordination committee to share best practices so that there are no redundant efforts. They support policy and standards, standards implementation in support of operations and help with integration efforts across the agency’s membership in support of field operations.

According to Sherin, HIFLD is the result of requests coming from the National States Geographic Information Council to help the states acquire data and information at little or no cost through federal funding efforts.

In support of this request, the Homeland Security Infrastructure Program (HSIP) was established and is led by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to provide satellite imagery and elevation data. The HSIP Gold program has data that are available to all federal organizations and now available to be viewed by all states and cities so long as they are getting the service from federal server. The NGA has acquired license agreements to make this all possible.

HSIP Freedom is a subset of HSIP Gold and contains 190 layers available. It is available online within Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN) portal. Information about HSIP Freedom can be requested from the help desk.

Jennifer McCarron, the Homeland Security deputy branch chief, data management branch of the infrastructure information collection division, discussed the next generation of the Integrated Common Analytical Viewer (iCAV), a secure, web-based geospatial visualization tool.

DHS is trying to reduce the number of redundant geospatial systems and build only certain specific, but functional support systems on a SOA architecture including ACAMS (automated critical asset Management System), iCAV (Integrated Common Analytical Viewer), DHS Earth (a Google Earth-based viewer), VCAT (voluntary chemical assessment tool), IST (Infrastructure Survey Tool), and RSAT (Risk Self-Assessment Tool).

Tod Spangler, of the Department of Defense’s (DoD), Critical Infrastructure Office, Office of the Asst. Sec. of Defense, Homeland Defense & Americas Office, discussed the Defense Critical Infrastructure Program (DCIP). DCIP looks at the risk of critical assets to perform DoD missions. It determines which assets, public or commercial (power lines, water Infrastructure, etc.) may be at risk and subject to vulnerabilities. His office provides situational awareness of risks around the globe, as well, for military installations and other assets.  The DoD manages the Defense Industrial Base CIP Mission Assurance Assessments where by the National Guard Bureau Assessment Team conducts on-site assessments of Defense Industrial Base (DIB) facilities.

DoD has their own visualization tools (imagery & maps) which support risk management and resource allocation decisions:
• TRITON
• Knowledge Display Aggregation System (KDAS)
• Strategic Mission Assurance Data System (SMADS)

All are ESRI based systems. Why so many systems? Spangler says it is to meet specific needs within the organization. Spangler thinks there cannot be just one system

Spangler was followed by Joe Toland, Geospatial Unit Leader, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) National Incident Management Team. "Who we are…is kind of a big question," said Toland. "We are a management agency." FEMA helps with geospatial staffing and support of operational issues and to bring in experts from other agencies when needed.

Rounding out the panel discussions was Ivan DeLoatch, Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) executive director. "The challenge is that (geospatial data) is relevant in just about everything we do," said DeLoatch."Coordination [among agencies] is very challenging and to be successful you have to have very senior level participation and buy-in."

DeLoatch commented on the efforts to sustain a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). He said that it is still a vision that member agencies can still rally behind and that it is useful to revisit the mission. "NSDI has evolved quite a bit," said DeLoatch. "The technology is moving quickly."

He sees that with the current administration that there is a call for more transparency and that the administration is very interested in using geospatial information for programs such as the Place-based Policy, and tracking stimulus money (Data.gov; Recovery.gov). DeLoatch said that the key challenge is spending $80 billion in IT and need to spend money more efficiently. Finally, he mentioned a new, forthcoming initiative to build a "Geocloud sandbox"  to understand how to use cloud architectures and share data