A Research Agenda for Geographic Information Science at the United States Geological Survey (2007) / Chapter Skim
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2 USGS Needs for GIScience Capabilities
2 USGS Needs for GIScience Capabilities
Pages 23-42
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BUREAU-WIDE GISCIENCE RESEARCH NEEDS Multidisciplinary research is a central goal of the USGS science strategy (NRC, 2001; USGS, 2007)
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This broad and deep reliance on geospatial content and solutions points to a rich opportunity for CEGIS to contribute to the other USGS disciplines, especially through an improved National Map. Examples are cited in the following paragraphs.
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Access to Real-Time Data Access to real-time geospatial and other data is a rapidly growing requirement for managing the nation's natural resources. The human health direction identifies a strategic action requiring real-time analysis and challenges the USGS to "develop an online atlas of potential environmental health threats, which consolidates USGS data and information and provides real-time data for researchers and public-health agencies to enhance the Nation's ability to respond quickly to current threats and anticipate potential future threats." Management of natural hazards is also highly dependent on timely data dissemination.
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"The USGS is the only Federal agency that combines scientific expertise in biology, hydrology, geology and geography." This creates unique capabilities such as in hazard forecasting, for example: "These accomplishments [hazard forecasting, monitoring, diagnosis] are all possible because the USGS is able to bring a unique combination of disciplines––biology, geology, hydrology, geography, and geospatial information technology––to bear on all these hazards." The key ingredient for success is data integration, captured in the strategy for the climate direction: "Our breadth of multidisciplinary scientific expertise .
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However, this can be considered an opportunity for NGPO and CEGIS. As shown above, for the USGS disciplines to successfully implement their science strategy, there are numerous challenges that are inherent to GIScience, including issues with scale, temporal analysis of geospatial data, improving access to real-time data, and developing the standards and data integration techniques that will allow true multidisciplinary analysis.
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However, the needs of the USGS disciplines of water, geology, biology, and geography can be directly assessed by CEGIS and included in the research agenda to ensure that The National Map will meet their important needs with appropriate priority. Consequently, a dedicated initial focus by CEGIS on The National Map will achieve three broad USGS goals: 1.
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The National Map is often thought of as the electronic evolution of the topographic map.2 However, the current National Map does not deliver fully on the concept of the traditional topographic map nor has it fully embraced a broader concept of topographic information representation and delivery in other than map form. Despite the impressive data access and manipulation features of The National Map, the topographic map "brand" has been diluted.
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. The National Map databases are accessed and used by The National Map web server, the National Atlas database, and the Geospatial One-Stop portal.
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USGS's original intent was that the data would retain the characteristics appreciated by users of USGS topographic maps, including consistent feature identification and classification and comprehensive national coverage. In addition, the data would be seamless (not interrupted by arbitrary edges introduced by the data production process)
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In exchange for partners' data, USGS has provided value in the forms of funding, data, data models, data collection software tools, and access to contracts and related management and quality assurance processes, information technology, web and other data management services, and expertise. Data use: The "build once, use many" approach of The National Map supports up to three models of data use.
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, USGS science strategy documents and other published material, and informal testing by the committee, a general consensus about its current state was reached. While the concept of The National Map, drawing its content from local, reliable sources, and integrating those data for consistent access by all, is an excellent process for serving the nation's geospatial needs, implementation of The National Map requires improvement in three key areas.
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Finally, with this foundation of superb data and integration, the committee believes that The National Map can take mapping to a new level of knowledge access and understanding, even beyond simple mapping. This requires significant restructuring of the data models in The National Map but it could be the key to being a world-class resource that integrates data not only over broad geographies but across varying semantics and time as well.
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• As the nation's civilian mapping agency, the USGS mission is to lead in the development and maintenance of this common set of basic spatial data. Requirements feature heavily in the initial phase of the USGS's implementation plan for The National Map (USGS, 2003)
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The National Map must be the trusted geospatial information source for all of these constituencies and applications. The measure of the success of The National Map will be the extent to which these diverse users embrace and depend on the product.
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4. Continuously updated: While the original goal of The National Map was to have all data current to seven days, it is more practical to im plement a continuously updatable database with processes to automate data ingestion, validation, and integration.
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This knowledge base is • Knowledgeable about geographic features as they exist in the world, not just their carto graphic representations; • Beginning to accumulate process knowledge about how these features interact and how they change over time; • Capable of responding to a range of different queries that might be posed by users seek ing geographic information; • Capable of delivering not just current information but information on past states and histories of features; • In certain cases capable of making projections of future states; and • Aware of the quality of its information and capable of communicating variation in quality and uncertainty to users. Topographic maps and their digital counterparts play a key role in the spatial integration of information by providing a common spatial reference framework.
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The feature database is complimented by a layer database that organizes features seamlessly into their expected connectivity with other features. Differentiation USGS topographic maps have always maintained recognized standards of quality, and the updated National Map maintains the highest-quality data as embodied in standards for classification schemes (e.g., land use classifications, stream orders)
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Performance Evaluation The National Map is now designed for better performance evaluation. National Map web services track usage statistics including which features, features types, geographic regions, and information products (maps on demand, topographic maps, fact queries)
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Its realization will require focused work and resources, but a dedicated effort has the potential to ensure a continued role for USGS as the preeminent distributor of topographic information. The new knowledge base model for The National Map, enabling widely diverse queries over time as well as over geography, along with highly flexible product generation means that The National Map has gone far beyond being just a map.
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