EOM April 2005 > SHARING IN GEOTECHNOLOGIES

Continued

Let Everyone Contribute
Response to a critical incident requires coordination of many different resources. Further, different responders may have conflicting requirements. In order to derive value from geospatial technologies, anyone on a team must be able to contribute if they feel that by doing so they add value. A geospatial response system should allow the contributions to be made freely. Contributions may range from simple notes on a digital map that are shared, to fully detailed plume analysis of hazards. The key is that anyone who can add value should be able to contribute. However, in the event individuals are compromising a situation map to the detriment of others, the team should be able to either limit those individuals or, in the extreme case, remove them from the team.

Lessons Learned
Federal and Local Partnerships Are Possible. However, all involved must be willing to compromise. The federal agencies did not get everything they wanted in this case, but they did achieve most of their objectives, with limited cost. Federal entities were accommodating to Metro's existing data relationships and in the withholding of distribution to honor Metro's commitments. This type of give and take is essential for building a productive relationship.

Everyone Should Be Willing To Contribute To the Project. This project provided an excellent example of the savings that could be accomplished through a partnership instead of attempting cost recovery through data sales. Everyone obtained the data they needed with much lower administrative overhead and for about half of what it would have cost in dollars had the collections been done individually. By contributing significantly to the project, USGS and NGA were not clients, but partners. This fosters a long term relationship that can lead to substantial cost savings for all involved.

Nashville's diverse and ever changing landscape is revealed in a traditional neighborhood development (Lennox Village) in south Davidson County within an approximately 12 month time period. The 2003 image is on the left, 2004 on the right.

Facilitate Local Data. If the federal government hopes to populate The National Map "from the bottom up," it will need to facilitate the creation of data suitable for local needs. Data can always be re-sampled or generalized to meet the needs of a smaller scale, but you can't go the other way. The plus side is that the federal agencies will have access to data far more accurate than they ever had before.

Organize Federal Players. The federal government still has a lot of organizational work to do. Even after Metro delivered data to USGS in 2003, at least two other federal agencies approached staff for the same data. The federal government is still too disjointed in its geospatial organization. Even with all the work at streamlining how federal agencies share data, it was apparent there was still a significant lack of inter-agency communication. The federal government probably has more to gain from Geospatial One-Stop than local governments do, if they will use it.

Build State-Level Partnerships. The most effective partnerships for the federal agencies will probably be at the state level. NGA really needed regional imagery, but Metro was unable to provide that due to its contracting limitations. On the other hand, the state did not have the organizational infrastructure to facilitate the partnerships that USGS and NGA really needed. Tennessee will need to rectify that if it hopes for any federal help on its statewide GIS efforts in the future. If the state had been in a position to facilitate a regional partnership, the overall cost to everyone would have been even lower and the federal participants would have obtained the regional data they originally sought.

Recruit More Partners. "The more the merrier," certainly applies to data partnerships. Metro did not even begin to approach utilities or the private sector for the original ortho project. Each additional partner reduces the amount each participant has to pay. If you combine that with the cost savings gained through regional or statewide imagery capture, it rapidly becomes very much a "win-win" situation for all involved. However, to broaden the partnership, the idea of recovering cost through commercial sales or licensing probably ought to be abandoned. Government entities will save more money with less effort through a partnership arrangement than by charging for data. Data sales for the purpose of cost recovery will probably discourage partnerships, rather than foster them.

2003 imagery shows a portion of downtown Nashville. Building lean was removed from this portion of the imagery, resulting in a true ortho image for an area containing a number of very tall buildings. The state capitol is in the upper left corner.

Conclusion
By partnering with Metropolitan Nashville, USGS and NGA obtained some very good data at low cost, with nominal effort. This project has established a precedent for what is possible at the state level. The steps taken at this local level will lead to some great accomplishments at the state and ultimately, the national level, where we are all truly looking to read from the same map.

About the Author

Kim McDonough, GISP, currently works for the Tennessee Department of Transportation in GIS strategic initiatives. Previously, he worked for the Planning Department of Metropolitan Nashville / Davidson County, Tennessee and has more than 20 years of GIS experience. Return to Table of Contents

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