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OCR for page 52
5
Conclusion
The basic sciences of surveying and geodesy provided the foundation for the
engineering profession. Mapping and charting grew through the exploration
and control of the lands and seas. All of these areas are now widely recog-
nized as individual and separate sciences and professions.
Since surveying and mapping have always provided critical support to a
wide variety of national programs, most countries have given their national
programs si - ficant visibility by establishing central agencies, such as that of
Surveyor General, with wide responsibility. The United States has tended to
permit proliferation of its national program through many agencies. Since this
proliferation tends to reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of these critical
support programs, there have been many attempts through U.S. history to
bang greater order. For example, earlier in this century a Federal Board of
Surveys and Maps was established, and for a time the Executive Office of the
President had a Survey and Maps Coordinator in the Office of Management
and Budget (OMB, then the Bureau of the Budget). This latter function faded
away since it did not fit into the budget/program review structure that is the
basis for current OMB organization and operations.
Without an overall program manager, there has been no overview of the
total federal surveying and mapping program for many years, even though the
scope of the program has greatly expanded, spurred on by increasing national
needs for data on one hand and by surging scientific and technological prog-
ress in these areas on the other.
Without a central manager, the growth of surveying and mapping capabili-
ties took place through the years in many federal agencies to provide the
52
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OCR for page 53
Conclusion
53
specific survey data, maps, and charts they needed to support their own pro-
grams. A principal example is the growth of topographic mapping in the Geo-
logical Survey of the U.S. Department of the Interior. As other agencies
learned of these products and recognized their value to their programs, ar-
rangements were made to assign responsibility for production that would
meet the needs of other agencies as well as those of the producing agency.
Such coordination of programs has been useful. However, with the control of
resources remaining subordinate to the interests of the principal functions of
the agencies, it is unlikely that resources allocated to surveying and mapping
would ever be consistent with the real national requirements for services and
production.
To a large extent, federal surveying and mapping have been responsive to
current particular project support requirements or to a particular product
need identified by individual user agencies or by specific public or state or
local government user groups. In many instances, the cost of work needed to
meet such specific needs would not be greatly increased if all national require-
ments were accommodated in desigrung and carrying out the work. A signifi-
cant waste of resources is suffered when the work done for one purpose must
be repeated to meet other requirements. A central manager responsible for
determining all national requirements and for developing technology, facili-
ties, and programs to meet them should be able to eliminate this waste. Fur-
thermore, all the national interests that depend on surveying and mapping
services would realize gains in their effectiveness, efficiency, and economy
from the improved availability of this critical data base.
The 1973 Task Force report noted that a major improvement has already
been realized in U.S. military surveying and mapping as a result of the Presi-
dent's decision to eliminate organizational proliferation and centralize pro-
gram direction by establishing the Defense Mapping Agency. This Panel is
convinced that similar benefits would derive from the transfer of surveying
and mapping and related functions of the several federal civilian agencies to
a Federal Surveying and Mapping Administration.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
national requirements
