STANDARDIZATION ACTIVITIES OF THE FEDERAL GEOGRAPHIC DATA COMMITTEE *
Penny Capps
U.S. Army Topographic Engineering Center
BACKGROUND
Revised OMB Circular A-16 establishes a process to foster the development of a national spatial framework for an information-based society with the participation of Federal, State, and local governments, and the private sector, and to reduce duplication of effort.
The circular establishes the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) to promote the coordinated development, use, sharing, and dissemination of surveying, mapping, and related spatial data. Fourteen departments and independent agencies are members of the FGDC, including the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, State, and Transportation; the Environmental Protection Agency; the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Library of Congress; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the National Archives and Records Administration; and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Labor; the General Services Administration; and the National Capital Planning Commission participate on FGDC subcommittee and working groups. The Department of the Interior chairs the committee.
Governmentwide coordination leadership responsibilities are assigned to Federal departments for data categories. The categories (and lead departments) include base cartographic, cadastral, geologic, and wetlands (Interior); bathymetric, geodetic, and cultural and demographic (Commerce); ground transportation (Transportation); soils and vegetation (Agriculture); and international boundaries (State). The FGDC works with the Interagency Advisory Committee on Water Data for coordinate spatial water data issues.
* The information presented was taken from descriptive literature published by the Federal Geographic Data Committee. |
ACTIVITIES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Among the accomplishments of the FGDC are the following:
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Development of a proposal for multiagency participation to develop a basic cartographic framework for the Nation. The proposal recognizes the effects of new technologies, the increasing needs for data, and potential contributions from various sources.
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Assistance in completing the Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) which reduces technical barriers to data sharing. The SDTS, which was developed with the contributions of ideas from academia; the private sector; and Federal, State, and local governments, was approved in July. The committee is working with other contributors to implement the standard by developing profiles for topologically-structured vector and raster data and by co-sponsoring workshops.
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Identification of options for long-term cooperation between the Federal and non-Federal communities. The FGDC is working with representatives of State, regional, and local governments to plan how various sectors can better engage in geographic data projects. The FGDC is working with the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations as part of this activity.
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Publication of a “Manual of Federal Geographic Data Products” which describes publicly-available Federal geographic data sets.
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Establishment of a clearinghouse for spatial data. Activities include developing functional requirements and operating principles, and evaluating prototype efforts. Envisioned as an electronic, distributed mechanism accessible over a wide-area communication network, the clearinghouse initially will include indices to and metadata about spatial data. Later efforts will provide access to data sets and means of stating requirements for and seeking partners to collect new data.
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Adoption of standard definitions for geographic features and related attributes commonly used by the community.
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Sponsorship of the development of a standard for spatial metadata to be used in documenting each data set in the clearinghouse. Among the characteristics are:
IDENTIFICATION—general data content, spatial extent and use
PROJECTION—horizontal and vertical coordinate systems
DATA CUSTODIAN—point-of-contact
ACCESS—details about the means and conditions for accessing the data
STATUS—state of, maintenance cycles for, and policies on availability of the data
DATA DICTIONARY AND SCHEMA—definitions and characteristics of features
SOURCE—documents used to compile the data
PROCESSING STEPS—procedures and parameters used to convert the source materials