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Geospatial Preparedness Critical to Homeland Security
Governments depend on a common set of base information that
describes the earth’s surface and locates features. This
information is a tool for economic and community
development, land and natural resource management,
health and safety services, emergency management, defense, and
environmental protection. Private industry, non-governmental
organizations, and individual citizens also use the same geographic
data, which underpins a large part of the national economy.
In essence, geo-technologies—integrated with disaster planning,
response, and recovery systems—create lifelines for emergency
managers, planners, and first responders, which creates an urgency
to establish a geospatial preparedness. Unfortunately,
the number of places in the country are rare where the data
is of high quality, current, well-documented according
to federal standards, commercially-accepted in terms of
GIS, and created with open interfaces and standards to facilitate
sharing and interoperability. Such jurisdictions must serve
as models for what the country needs to build and maintain the
geospatial capacity critical to saving lives and protecting
property.
The National Map
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and its many partners are
developing The National Map—designed to be a seamless, continuously
maintained, and national consistent set of online, public domain,
geographic base information—as the starting point for meeting
homeland security and other needs of the Nation. Ideally, The
National Map will help bridge inconsistencies among existing
data developed for different jurisdictions, such as data not
aligning because of different methods and standards, and not
being current because of the complexity and cost of data revision.
It will also eliminate gaps for those places where data is lacking.
In partnership with the National Mapping and Imagery Agency
(NIMA) the USGS is working with state, local and regional agencies
to provide updated imagery and mapping information needed to
prepare for and respond to terrorist attacks. The events of
September 11 heightened the need for updated mapping and imagery
of 133 of the Nation’s cities identified as potential targets
for terrorist attacks. These cities are home to more than 180
million Americans. The National Map will include digital
orthorectified imagery, elevation data, vector data for
hydrography, transportation, boundary, and structure features,
geographic names, and land cover information.
The data will also be the source of revised paper topographic
maps.
The USGS is working with first responders to identify critical
map information. This includes high-resolution map data, true
color imagery, information about critical infrastructure, evacuation
routes, medical facilities and their capabilities, and Web information
that can be used for computer analysis and mapping.
Through this process, the role of the USGS is de-emphasizing
data production and evolving to become:
-- Guarantor of the national data completeness, consistency,
and accuracy;
-- Organizer of component activities;
-- Catalyst and collaborator for partnerships and business relationships;
-- Integrator and certifier of data from all sources;
-- Data producer and owner when no other source exists; and,
-- Leader in the development and implementation of national
geospatial data standards.
Geospatial Preparedness
The NIMA white paper, “Geospatial Preparedness: Building Geospatial
Information Capacity for the Nation, the Emergency Management
Business Case,” attempts to address what it will take to establish
national geospatial preparedness. “The Interagency Geospatial
Preparedness Team (IGPT) is sponsored by DHS/FEMA, and currently
consists of geospatial experts from, NIMA, USGS, US Department
of Agriculture Forest Service, NOAA, and FEMA working inside
the emergency management community to assess their geospatial
information technology needs and capabilities. The IGPT is working
in close partnership with the Geospatial One-Stop and the efforts
of the Federal Geographic Data Committee; the DHS Office of
the Chief Information Officer, the National States Geographic
Information Council; and the Spatial Technologies Industry Association
(STIA) to leverage partnerships, knowledge and expertise in
those organization’s activities. The IGPT is open to other mutually
beneficial partnerships in the public sector, academia and the
private sector. Partnerships—next to technical interoperability—are
the most important ingredient for making the best use of limited
resources to build geospatial capacity for the nation, and so,
too, for emergency management applications. . . It is significant
to note that we are not starting from a blank slate.”
“The national strategy for geospatial preparedness, planned
to be delivered by the IGPT in the first quarter of 2004, will
address three critical elements: an assessment of needs and
current capabilities, a finance strategy for filling the gap
between needs and capabilities and sustaining the investment
over time, and recommendations for possible new policies needed
to promote intergovernmental partnering and data sharing. The
heart of the strategy is the needs and capabilities assessment.
This will be developed with state and local government and academia
representatives through facilitated workshops across the country.”
Geospatial One-Stop
The National Map and the NSDI Clearinghouse have traditionally
been the focal point of the nation’s geospatial preparedness
initiatives. However, most recently the Geospatial One-Stop
Portal seems to be getting the most political traction.
The Geospatial One-Stop initiative is one of 24 major e-government
initiatives under the White House “Expanding Electronic Government”
reform program. The goals are to provide fast, reliable access
to geospatial information needed for government services, facilitate
government to government activities such as homeland security,
align data responsibilities and resources, and establish the
process for multi-sector participation in developing and implementing
data and service standards. According to the FGDC, Geospatial
One-Stop accelerates the completion of essential elements of
the National Spatial Data infrastructure over the next 24 months
and unifies programs delivering government geospatial initiatives
A Geospatial One-Stop Web Portal will be developed as an extension
to the NSDI clearinghouse network and provide an around-the-clock
“One Stop” access point to dependable standards-based geographic
data and Web services distributed throughout many government
organizations.
More than a couple members of the FGDC acknowledge that the
Geospatial One-Stop is a new initiative and even they are unsure
as to how it fits with the NSDI objective. Does it detract from
the efforts to establish The National Map? Will this now create
another mapping bureaucracy within the federal government? It
is too early to tell.
Although touted to improve federal agency coordination and avoid
the tendency toward Federal ‘stove-piping’ of information in
order to work more effectively with local governments, the Geospatial
One-Stop is seen by some as just another federal “stove-pipe.”
However, it clearly has the backing of key Administration officials.
Steven Cooper, special assistant to the President for homeland
security addressed the Federal Geographic Data Committee at
their fall meeting in Washington D.C. He stressed how homeland
security brings additional urgency and focus to the need for
geospatial data. After discussions with parties involved in
the World Trade Center response, it was clear to him that all
accessible geospatial information was used in response, while
information that wasn’t available cost lives and property.
More funding is needed for geospatial activities, across all
levels of government and the private sector. Mr. Cooper said
that in 2004, the Department of Homeland Security will work
with the office of Management and Budget to spearhead collaborative
efforts, such as the Geospatial One-Stop E-Government initiative
currently in progress, to provide a single access point for
national geospatial data sets. Mr. Cooper repeatedly emphasized
the need for collaboration across the geospatial community as
well as for an accelerated schedule for the completion of infrastructure
building and acquisition projects. In his role within the Office
of Homeland Security, Mr. Cooper is responsible for guiding
the development of information integration architectures within
the federal government—enabling the sharing of homeland security
information with state, local and relevant private sector entities.
What is difficult to determine is where one initiative stops
and another begins. This may be the cause of the skepticism
among other important stakeholders.
From the perspectives of state and local governments there is
very little coordination among the efforts. In fact, the efforts
seem to be performing overlapping data collection, conducting
redundant programming, and competing for the same information
from nonfederal groups. Each federal initiative is interested
in cooperation from state and local entities. However, cooperation
means shared data and resources. But, state and local budgets
are hemorrhaging red ink and federal funds are not forthcoming.
There are some within the state and local government sector
who feel that up to this point there has been no effort for
the federal agencies to coordinate their outreach and information
gathering needs and present them jointly to the local and state
entities. At the same time, there has been little concerted
effort by state and local organizations to assert their needs
to the Feds in a unified manner.
The problem is that state and local governments are being told
on one hand that they are full partners in the process, but
on the other hand they are not receiving information and resources,
nor are they called upon in the development or implementation
of the projects. State and local governments need to engage
with the development and implementation of federal GIS initiatives.
To do this, they need dedicated resources and not ad hoc good
will and vague reference of resources to come in the future.
Conclusion
I suppose the old adage, “What’s in a name?” applies to the
various initiatives pursuing what seems to be the same objective.
Whether it be The National Map, Geospatial One-Stop, or the
NSDI Clearinghouse is probably irrelevant so long as they produce
the desired result. However, conflicting messages, the appearance
of competing initiatives, and numerous government agencies vying
for attention, pursuing different strategies to achieve the
same goal only serves to waste resources and credibility amongst
the myriad constituencies.
We know what the objective is, and we know how to achieve it;
now we need a unified voice to pull together the various constituencies
to make it happen. National geospatial preparedness: A spatially-enabled
national emergency management infrastructure where the best
data is available for those who need it, when they need it,
and where they need it. The creation of a digital database that
will provide a single, consistent, mapping framework for the
country that will form the basis for integrating, sharing, and
using data easily is needed for effective, rapid deployment
of first responders at all levels in an emergency. The bottom
line is that it needs to be sufficiently funded for immediate
practical implementation, consistently updated, and relevant
for use in perpetuity. For as long as America exists, this type
of information is as critical to the realization of the American
way of life as is a strong national defense.
Until next time, cheers!
Roland Mangold
Editor and Publisher
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