Future Roles and Opportunities for the U.S. Geological Survey (2001) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
The Past and Present as a Prologue
The Past and Present as a Prologue
Pages 19-36
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From page 19... ...
Beyond the 13 colonies was a vast area of public lands. After the Louisiana Purchase in 1802, the federal government ~ The USGS was formed later than 20 foreign geological surveys and many U.S.
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From page 20... ...
The General Mining Law allowed persons to stake claims on the federal lands of the western United States without payment of royalty to the federal government and without acquiring title to the land itself. Consequently, the development of natural resources over much of the nation proceeded in an uncoordinated and at times thoughtless fashion that led eventually to calls for more
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From page 21... ...
Two years later and under the direction of John Wesley Powell, the agency's purview was extended to include the eastern states as well as the West. And in 1897, the USGS did its first foreign work, in conjunction with the planning and design of the Panama Canal.
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From page 22... ...
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From page 24... ...
1879 to 1920 During these years, railroads replaced inland waterways as the major determinant of American settlement growth and expansion. Coal supplanted wood as the main energy source.
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From page 25... ...
In this period, the USGS exercised leadership as the provider of critical earth science information. It produced accurate, detailed geologic and topographic maps that were needed for the appraisal and analysis of resources; for industrial development, land reclamation, utility projects, and highway construction; and for improving regional urban planning and decision making.
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From page 26... ...
Political and economic reforms in the former Soviet Union and Central Europe ended the Cold War, and market reform and democratization in many areas resulted in generally open trade. Evidence of ozone depletion increased awareness of global environmental change, and signs of rapid changes in the worId's physical environment (e.g., land and water pollution, deforestation, soil erosion)
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From page 27... ...
The agency continued with traditional pursuits such as monitoring streamflow and water quality, and conducting energy, volcano hazard, and earthquake hazard assessments. However, new techniques and technologies aided this work.
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From page 28... ...
The USGS responded by setting its own research agenda with relatively little intervention from government. A culture of entitlement arose among some USGS scientists, who adopted the academic philosophy that what matters is the quality of scientific achievements and not the choice of scientific problems to be solved.
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From page 29... ...
According to Gordon Eaton (2000~: As a long-standing institution that had grown to look inward as it planned its future, the USGS occupied a conspicuous place on a hit list of allegedly unresponsive or irrelevant agencies that some in Congress wanted to eliminate. Absent concern for or understanding of the potential effect of such a move, these policyrnakers argued that work of the USGS was basically finished and that elimination of the agency would free federal funds, help lower the federal deficit, and facilitate tax cuts.
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From page 30... ...
By World War II, a new round of reorganization resulted in an agency consisting of four branches: Geologic, Water Resources, Topographic, and Conservation. In the early 1980s, the name of the Topographic Division was changed to the National Mapping Division, reflecting the expanded responsibilities in geography and GIS, and the Conservation Division became a separate agency, the Minerals Management Agency.
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From page 31... ...
, Water Resources Division (WRD) , National Mapping Division (NMD)
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From page 32... ...
32 8 ,` ~ ~ to UJ E ~ ° ~ ~ ~ 2 ,~ ~~ a.
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From page 33... ...
Number of full-time equivalent personnel in the Geologic and National Mapping Divisions for the period 1984 to 1999. SOURCE: Data supplied by the USGS.
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From page 34... ...
USGS budget in real-year dollars, 1975-1999. Source: Data supplied by the USGS.
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From page 35... ...
1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 Fiscal Year Figure 2.5 (b) USGS budget in constant-year dollars, 1975-1999 SOURCE: Data supplied by the USGS.
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From page 36... ...
By 2005, the level of effort applied to these goals will be different from the 1997 level. To achieve its scientific mission in the new millennium, the USGS will have to anticipate and respond in a timely manner to a broad array of complex and intellectually demanding national, international, and global science problems, many of which involve whole systems.
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