Geospatial Information
Better Coordination Needed to Identify and Reduce Duplicative Investments Gao ID: GAO-04-703 June 23, 2004From homeland security to tracking outbreaks of disease, to investigating the space shuttle disaster to responding to natural disasters, the collection, maintenance, and use of location-based (geospatial) information has become critical to many federal agencies' abilities to achieve their goals. Local governments and the private sector also rely on such data to support essential functions. GAO was asked to determine the extent to which the federal government is coordinating the sharing of geospatial assets, including through oversight measures in place at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in order to identify and reduce redundancies in geospatial data and systems.
OMB, individual federal agencies, and cross-government committees and initiatives such as the Federal Geographic Data Committee and the Geospatial One-Stop project have taken actions to coordinate the government's geospatial investments across agencies and with state and local governments. However, these efforts have not been fully successful in reducing redundancies in geospatial investments for several reasons. First, a complete and up-to-date strategic plan for doing so has not been in place. Second, agencies have not consistently complied with OMB guidance that seeks to identify and reduce duplication. Finally, OMB's oversight of federal geospatial activities has not been effective because its methods--the annual budget review process, the federal enterprise architecture effort, and the Federal Geographic Data Committee's reporting process--are insufficiently developed and have not produced consistent and complete information. As a result of these shortcomings, federal agencies are still independently acquiring and maintaining potentially duplicative and costly data sets and systems. Until these problems are resolved, duplicative geospatial investments are likely to persist.
RecommendationsOur recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.
Director: Team: Phone:GAO-04-703, Geospatial Information: Better Coordination Needed to Identify and Reduce Duplicative Investments
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Report to Congressional Requesters:
June 2004:
Geospatial Information:
Better Coordination Needed to Identify and Reduce Duplicative
Investments:
[Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-703]:
GAO Highlights:
Highlights of GAO-04-703, a report to congressional requesters
Why GAO Did This Study:
From homeland security to tracking outbreaks of disease, to
investigating the space shuttle disaster to responding to natural
disasters, the collection, maintenance, and use of location-based
(geospatial) information has become critical to many federal agencies‘
abilities to achieve their goals. Local governments and the private
sector also rely on such data to support essential functions.
GAO was asked to determine the extent to which the federal government
is coordinating the sharing of geospatial assets, including through
oversight measures in place at the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB), in order to identify and reduce redundancies in geospatial data
and systems.
What GAO Found:
OMB, individual federal agencies, and cross-government committees and
initiatives such as the Federal Geographic Data Committee and the
Geospatial One-Stop project have taken actions to coordinate the
government‘s geospatial investments across agencies and with state and
local governments. However, these efforts have not been fully
successful in reducing redundancies in geospatial investments for
several reasons. First, a complete and up-to-date strategic plan for
doing so has not been in place. Second, agencies have not consistently
complied with OMB guidance that seeks to identify and reduce
duplication. Finally, OMB‘s oversight of federal geospatial activities
has not been effective because its methods”the annual budget review
process, the federal enterprise architecture effort, and the Federal
Geographic Data Committee‘s reporting process”are insufficiently
developed and have not produced consistent and complete information.
As a result of these shortcomings, federal agencies are still
independently acquiring and maintaining potentially duplicative and
costly data sets and systems. Until these problems are resolved,
duplicative geospatial investments are likely to persist.
Entities That May Be Involved in Geospatial Data Collection and
Processing Relating to a Single Geographic Location or Event:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
What GAO Recommends:
GAO is making recommendations to the Director of OMB and the Secretary
of the Interior to direct development of a national geospatial
strategic plan, and recommendations to the Director of OMB to develop
criteria for assessing interagency coordination on proposals for
potential geospatial investments, and strengthen its oversight of
geospatial projects. In providing oral comments on a draft of this
report, OMB and Department of the Interior officials generally agreed
with its content and recommendations.
www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-04-703.
To view the full product, including the scope and methodology, click on
the link above. For more information, contact Linda D. Koontz at (202)
512-6240 or koontzl@gao.gov.
[End of section]
Contents:
Letter:
Results in Brief:
Background:
Although Steps Have Been Taken to Coordinate Geospatial Activities,
Redundant Investments Remain:
Conclusions:
Recommendations for Executive Action:
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Objective, Scope, and Methodology:
Appendix II: Selected Agencies' Geospatial Activities:
Appendix III: Key Federal Laws, Policies, and Guidance Affecting
Geospatial Information and Systems:
Appendix IV: OMB Circular A-16 Data Themes, Descriptions, and Lead
Agencies:
Appendix V: Glossary:
Tables:
Table 1: Summary of the NSDI, Geospatial One-Stop, and National Map
Programs:
Table 2: FEA Reference Models:
Table 3: Selected Geospatial Activities at Federal Agencies:
Table 4: OMB Circular A-16 Data Themes, Descriptions, and Lead Agencies:
Figures:
Figure 1: GIS Layers or Themes:
Figure 2: Columbia Recovery Map:
Figure 3: Hurricane Isabel Tracking Map:
Figure 4: Conceptual Diagram of Multiple Geospatial Data Collections and
Processing Associated with a Single Geographic Location:
Figure 5: Multiple Street Centerline Data Sets Covering the Same
Location in Texas:
Abbreviations:
BLM: Bureau of Land Management:
BTS: Bureau of Transportation Statistics:
DHS: Department of Homeland Security:
DOC: Department of Commerce:
DOD: Department of Defense:
DOI: Department of the Interior:
DOT: Department of Transportation:
EPA: Environmental Protection Agency:
FEA: Federal Enterprise Architecture:
FEMA: Federal Emergency Management Agency:
FGDC: Federal Geographic Data Committee:
FWS: Fish and Wildlife Service:
GIS: geographic information system:
GPS: Global Positioning System:
GSA: General Services Administration:
HHS: Department of Health and Human Services:
HUD: Department of Housing and Urban Development:
IT: information technology:
MMS: Minerals Management Service:
NILS: National Integrated Land System:
NOAA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:
NRCS: Natural Resources Conservation Service:
NSDI: National Spatial Data Infrastructure:
NSGIC: National States Geographic Information Council:
OMB: Office of Management and Budget:
TIGER: Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing:
USACE: U.S. Army Corp of Engineers:
USCB: U.S. Census Bureau:
USDA: U.S. Department of Agriculture:
USFS: U.S. Forest Service:
USGS: U.S. Geological Survey
Letter June 23, 2004:
The Honorable Adam H. Putnam:
Chairman, Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census:
Committee on Government Reform:
House of Representatives:
The Honorable Pete Sessions:
House of Representatives:
The federal government collects, maintains, and uses geospatial
information--information linked to specific geographic locations--to
help in decision making and to support many functions, including
national security, law enforcement, health care, the environment, and
natural resources conservation. States, counties, cities, tribal
governments, and the private sector also use geospatial information to
support essential functions. Among the many activities that can depend
on critical analysis of geospatial information are conducting the
decennial census, the maintenance of roads and other critical
transportation infrastructure, and actions in response to natural
disasters such as floods, tornadoes, and fires.
Federal agencies, states, and local governments may each provide
services at the same geographic locations and may independently collect
similar geospatial information about those locations, thus raising the
question of how well the nation's geospatial assets[Footnote 1] are
coordinated. You requested that we determine the extent to which the
federal government is coordinating the sharing of geospatial assets,
including through oversight measures at the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB), in order to identify and reduce redundancies in federal
geospatial data and systems. To address this objective, we identified
key federal geospatial projects and reviewed capital asset plans,
project plans, and other project documentation; conducted interviews
with agency and OMB officials; and conducted focus groups with state,
local, and private-sector representatives. Details of our objective,
scope, and methodology are provided in appendix I. We conducted our
work from October 2003 through May 2004 in accordance with generally
accepted government auditing standards.
Results in Brief:
OMB, individual federal agencies, and cross-government committees and
initiatives such as the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) and
the Geospatial One-Stop project have each taken actions to coordinate
the government's geospatial investments across agencies and with state
and local governments. FGDC, Geospatial One-Stop, and other cross-
government entities have established Internet-based information-
sharing portals to support development of the National Spatial Data
Infrastructure (NSDI); one goal of this effort is to address redundancy
and incompatibility of geospatial information collected by many
different organizations and stored and maintained at many different
physical locations. In addition, FGDC has led geospatial standards-
setting activities, and conducted various outreach activities.
Individual federal agencies have also taken steps to coordinate
specific geospatial investments in certain cases--the Departments of
Agriculture (USDA) and the Interior (DOI), for example, have
collaborated on a land management system. Finally, OMB has attempted to
oversee and coordinate geospatial investments by collecting and
analyzing relevant agency information.
However, these efforts have not been fully successful in reducing
redundancies in geospatial investments for several reasons:
* A complete and up-to-date strategic plan has not been in place. The
government's existing strategic plan for the NSDI is out of date and
does not include specific measures for identifying and reducing
redundancies.
* Federal agencies have not always fully complied with OMB direction to
coordinate their investments. Many agency geospatial data holdings are
not compliant with FGDC standards or are not published through its
Internet clearinghouse.
* OMB's oversight methods have not identified or eliminated specific
instances of duplication. The processes used by OMB to identify
potentially redundant geospatial investments have not been effective,
because the agency has not been able to collect key investment
information from all agencies in a consistent way so that it could be
used to identify redundancies.
As a result of these shortcomings, federal agencies are independently
acquiring and maintaining potentially duplicative and costly data sets
and systems. Without better coordination, such duplication is likely to
continue.
We are making recommendations to the Director of OMB and to the
Secretary of the Interior to direct the development of a national
geospatial data strategy with outcome-related goals and objectives; a
plan for how the goals and objectives are to be achieved;
identification of key risk factors; and performance measures. We are
also making recommendations to the Director of OMB to encourage better
agency compliance with Circular A-16 by developing criteria for
assessing the extent of interagency coordination on proposals for
potential geospatial investments; and to strengthen oversight actions
to better ensure that agencies do not invest in potentially redundant
geospatial systems or data gathering efforts.
We received oral comments on a draft of this report from
representatives of OMB's Offices of Information and Regulatory Affairs
and Resource Management and from the Assistant Secretary of the
Interior--Policy, Management, and Budget. Both agencies generally
concurred with the content of our report and our recommendations. In
addition, the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services, and
the Bureau of the Census provided technical comments, which have been
incorporated into the final report where appropriate.
Background:
Geospatial information describes entities or phenomena that can be
referenced to specific locations relative to the Earth's surface. For
example, entities such as houses, rivers, road intersections, power
plants, and national parks can all be identified by their locations. In
addition, phenomena such as wildfires, the spread of the West Nile
virus, and the thinning of trees due to acid rain, can also be
identified by their geographic locations.
A geographic information system (GIS) is a system of computer software,
hardware, and data used to capture, store, manipulate, analyze, and
graphically present a potentially wide array of geospatial information.
A GIS combines the disciplines of geography, cartography, computer
science,
and mathematics to permit users to query and analyze the
attributes[Footnote 2] of any entity or phenomenon that has been
identified by its geographic location, providing a powerful ability to
integrate different kinds of location-based information. A fully
functional GIS includes hardware and software to support data input,
output, storage, retrieval, display, and analysis. A variety of
platforms support GIS processing, ranging from large mainframe
computers and minicomputers to scientific workstations and personal
computers. In many cases, hardware used to support other applications
(e.g., payroll, accounting, and digital image processing) can also be
used.
A variety of technologies, including remote sensing systems and the
Global Positioning System (GPS), are used to collect the geospatial
data in a GIS.[Footnote 3] Remote sensing systems collect data that are
either emitted or reflected by the Earth and the atmosphere from a
distance--such as from a satellite, airplane, or balloon. The GPS is a
constellation of orbiting satellites that provides navigational data to
military and civilian users around the world. With the proper
equipment, users can receive signals from these satellites to calculate
time, location, and velocity. GPS equipment is now being used on
aircraft, ships, and land-based vehicles, and mobile hand-held units
provide individuals with these capabilities as well.
The primary function of a GIS is to link multiple sets of geospatial
data and display the combined information as maps with many different
layers of information. Assuming that all of the information is at the
same scale and has been formatted according to the same standards,
users can potentially overlay spatial information about any number of
specific topics to examine how the layers interrelate. Each layer of a
GIS map represents a particular "theme" or feature, and one layer could
be derived from a data source completely different from the others. For
example, one theme could represent all of the streets in a specific
area. Another theme could correspond to all of the buildings in the
same area, and others could show vegetation or water resources. As long
as standard processes and formats have been used to facilitate
integration, each of these themes could be based on data originally
collected and maintained by a separate organization. Analyzing this
layered information as an integrated whole can significantly aid
decision makers in considering complex choices, such as where to locate
a new department of motor vehicles building to best serve the greatest
number of citizens.
Typical geospatial data layers (or themes) include cadastral--
describing location, ownership, and other information about real
property; digital orthoimagery--containing images of the Earth's
surface that have the geometric characteristics of a map and image
qualities of a photograph; and hydrography--describing water features
such as lakes, ponds, streams and rivers, canals, oceans, and
coastlines. Figure 1 portrays the concept of data themes in a GIS.
Figure 1: GIS Layers or Themes:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Geographic Information Systems and Data Provide a Broad Range of
Benefits:
State and local government agencies rely on geographic information
systems to provide vital services to their customers. For example,
local fire departments can use geographic information systems to
determine the quickest and most efficient route from a firehouse to a
specific location, taking into account changing traffic patterns that
occur at various times of day. Highway departments use geographic
information systems to identify intersections that have had a
significant number of personal injury accidents to determine needs for
improved traffic signaling or signage.
The usefulness of a GIS in disaster response situations was also
demonstrated in connection with the Space Shuttle Columbia recovery
effort. After the loss of Columbia on February 1, 2003, debris was
spread over at least 41 counties in Texas and Louisiana (see fig. 2).
Analysis of GIS data was critical to the efficient recovery and
documentation of that debris. The Texas state GIS program provided
authorities with precise maps and search grids to guide field
reconnaissance and collection crews. Officials in charge of the effort
used maps of debris fields, combined with GIS data about the physical
terrain, to carefully track every piece of debris found.
Figure 2: Columbia Recovery Map:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
A GIS can also be an invaluable tool in helping to ensure homeland
security by facilitating preparedness, prevention, detection, and
recovery and response to terrorist attacks. For example, according to a
March 2002 Gartner report,[Footnote 4] New York City's GIS system was
pivotal in the rescue, response, and recovery efforts after the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The city's GIS provided real-
time data on the area around the World Trade Center, so that the mayor,
governor, federal officials, and emergency response agencies could
implement critical rescue, response, and recovery efforts.
Specifically, daily flyovers were performed to monitor changes in the
elevation of the site to detect weaknesses in the underground
structure. In addition, thermal imagery was compared with underground
infrastructure maps to determine the locations where fires were still
smoldering and to help the New York City Fire Department and emergency
crews in detecting potential new explosion sites from nearby flammable
substances. Further, maps generated by geospatial information systems
were used to transmit critical information to the public and emergency
personnel and provided the Army and Police Department with critical
data on other potential terrorist targets such as bridges, tunnels,
and reservoirs.
Another use for GIS is in the tracking and responding to natural
disasters such as hurricanes. For example, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) used its GIS capabilities and those of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to generate maps
to track hurricane Isabel in September 2003. FEMA officials generated
maps that estimated Isabel's track, and used a hurricane wind model to
produce maps of projected damage-prone areas in affected states. These
officials also produced wind damage estimates for structures and
infrastructures, such as sewage treatment plants, nursing homes,
schools, and hospitals. Further, the officials performed various
demographic analyses that estimated the population and number of
housing units in affected counties or other areas. Figure 3 shows an
example of a hurricane-tracking map.
Figure 3: Hurricane Isabel Tracking Map:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Similarly, many other federal departments and agencies use GIS
technology to help carry out their primary missions. Examples include
the following:
* The Department of Housing and Urban Development worked with the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop an enterprise
geographic information system, which combines information on community
development and housing programs with other types of data, including
environmental and transportation data. The program provides homeowners
and prospective home buyers with ready access to detailed local
information about environmental hazards and other information that
otherwise would likely be difficult to obtain.
* The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) uses GIS technology
for a variety of public health functions, such as reporting the results
of national health surveys. In addition, there are a variety of GIS-
based atlases of national mortality from causes such as injury,
cardiovascular disease, cancer, and reproductive health problems. Other
GIS activities focus on disease surveillance and prevention of
infectious diseases that are caused by environmental exposure. A
variety of mapping tools are published on the Web to facilitate citizen
access to public health resources and other information.
* The Census Bureau maintains the Topologically Integrated Geographic
Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) database to support its mission to
conduct the decennial census and other censuses and surveys by
spatially locating all habitations within the United States and
reporting the resulting census estimates and counts. Census provides
the spatial information (not individual addresses) in this publicly
accessible database through its Web site at [Hyperlink,
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/index.html].
* NOAA provides access to maps and other geospatial information on
subjects such as the weather and climate, oceans and fisheries, and
satellite imagery used for global weather monitoring at [Hyperlink,
http://www.noaa.gov].
* EPA maintains a variety of databases with information about the
quality of air, water, and land in the United States. EPA's Envirofacts
system [Hyperlink, http://www.epa.gov/enviro/index.html] provides
public access to selected EPA environmental data.
Appendix II provides additional examples of federal geospatial
activities.
Coordination of Federal Geospatial Activities:
The federal government has for many years taken steps to coordinate
geospatial activities both within and outside the federal government.
In 1953, the Bureau of the Budget[Footnote 5] first issued its Circular
A-16, encouraging expeditious surveying and mapping activities across
all levels of government and avoidance of duplicative efforts. In 1990,
OMB revised Circular A-16 to, among other things, establish FGDC within
the Department of the Interior, to promote the coordinated use,
sharing, and dissemination of geospatial data nationwide.
Building on that guidance, the President in 1994 issued Executive Order
12906, assigning to FGDC the responsibility to coordinate the
development of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) to
address redundancy and incompatibility of geospatial information. The
infrastructure is defined by FGDC as the technologies, policies, and
people necessary to promote sharing of geospatial data throughout all
levels of government, the private and nonprofit sectors, and the
academic community. The NSDI's goals are to reduce duplication of
effort among agencies; to improve quality and reduce costs related to
geographic information; to make the benefits of geographic data more
accessible to the public; and to establish key partnerships with
states, counties, cities, tribal nations, academia, and the private
sector to increase data availability.
Further, in August 2002, OMB again revised Circular A-16 to reflect
changes in geographic information management and technology and to more
clearly define agency and FGDC roles and responsibilities. In addition
to the responsibilities identified for FGDC, Circular A-16 outlines
responsibilities and reporting requirements for individual federal
agencies to help ensure that geospatial resources are used efficiently
and contribute to building the NSDI. Among other things, the circular
requires that agencies prepare geographic information strategies, use
FGDC data standards, and coordinate and work in partnership with
federal, state, and local governments and the private sector. These
responsibilities are assigned to all agencies that collect, use, or
disseminate geographic information or carry out spatial data
activities.
More recently, in December 2002, the E-Government Act of 2002 was
signed into law, requiring OMB to coordinate with state, local, and
tribal governments as well as public-private partnerships and other
interested persons on the development of standard protocols for sharing
geographic information to reduce redundant data collection and promote
collaboration and the use of standards.[Footnote 6]
In addition to its responsibilities for geospatial information under
the E-Government Act, OMB has specific oversight responsibilities
regarding federal information technology (IT) systems and acquisition
activities--including GIS--to help ensure their efficient and effective
use. For example, the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996[Footnote 7] requires
the Director of OMB to promote and be responsible for improving the
acquisition, use, and disposal of information technology by the federal
government to improve the productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness
of federal programs. These requirements help to advance OMB's federal
IT management responsibilities under the Paperwork Reduction Act of
1995,[Footnote 8] which has a similar but more general requirement that
the Director of OMB oversee the use of information resources to improve
the efficiency and effectiveness of government operations to serve
agency missions. Appendix III provides brief descriptions of key
federal legislation, policies, and guidance that apply to IT and
geospatial information and systems investments.
To help carry out its investment oversight role, OMB established
requirements for the acquisition and management of IT resources in its
Circular A-11. The circular establishes policies for planning,
budgeting, acquisition, and management of federal capital assets.
Specifically, it requires agencies to submit business cases to OMB for
planned or ongoing major IT investments.[Footnote 9] These business
cases require agencies to answer questions to help OMB determine if the
investment should be funded. Agency business case submissions must also
include (1) the type of data used by the IT investment, including
geospatial data; (2) whether the data needed for the investment already
exist at the federal, state, or local level, and plans to gain access
to that data; (3) potential legal reasons why existing data cannot be
transferred; and (4) compliance with FGDC standards. According to
Circular A-11, agency responses to these questions are reviewed as part
of OMB's evaluation of the overall business case.
In addition to activities associated with Circulars A-11 and A-16, in a
June 2003 congressional hearing, OMB's Administrator, Office of
Electronic Government and Information Technology, stated that the
strategic management of geospatial assets would be accomplished, in
part, through development of a robust and mature federal enterprise
architecture. In 2001, the lack of a Federal Enterprise Architecture
was cited by OMB's E-Government Task Force as a barrier to the success
of the administration's e-government initiatives.[Footnote 10] In
response, OMB began developing the FEA, and over the last two years it
has released various versions of all but one of the five FEA reference
models. According to OMB, the purpose of the FEA, among other things,
is to provide a common frame of reference or taxonomy for agencies'
individual enterprise architecture[Footnote 11] efforts and their
planned and ongoing investment activities.
State and Local Government and Private-Sector Geospatial Information
and GIS Activities:
State and local governments and the private sector independently
provide information and services apart from those provided by the
federal government, including maintaining land records for nonfederal
lands, property taxation, local planning, subdivision control and
zoning, and direct delivery of many other public services. These
entities use geographic information and GIS to facilitate and support
delivery of these services. In fact, local governments often possess
more recent and higher resolution geospatial data than the federal
government, and in many cases private-sector companies collect these
data under contract to local government agencies.
For example, the state of New York hosts a Web site to provide citizens
with a gateway to state government services at [Hyperlink,
http://www.nysegov.com/map-NY.cfm]. Using this Web site, citizens can
access information about state agencies and their services, and locate
county boundaries, services, and major state highways. New York also
developed a clearinghouse [Hyperlink, http://www.nysgis.state.ny.us/]
to disseminate information about statewide GIS programs and provide
information and services including state maps, aerial photographs, and
a help desk to provide support for both general questions and specific
questions regarding the use of GIS software. Many other states, such as
Oregon [Hyperlink, http://www.gis.state.or.us/], Virginia [Hyperlink,
http://www.vgin.virginia.gov/index.html], and Alaska [Hyperlink,
http://www.asgdc.state.ak.us/], provide similar Web sites and services.
For local governments, GIS applications have become integral resources
for public works, and financial, public safety, and economic
developments. A 2003 survey sponsored by Interior showed that GIS
technology is recognized as an essential tool by many local
governments. For example, Fairfax County in Virginia developed GIS
applications to provide online products and services to the public that
include:
* a digital map viewer to see and download property, zoning,
topography, or contour maps;
* an aerial orthoimagery[Footnote 12] photo viewer to access aerial
photographs of specific parcels, areas of interest, or addresses;
* a department of tax administration parcel finder to locate detailed
information about a specific property and to view that parcel with the
parcel viewer; and:
* a map gallery that contains many common maps produced by the Fairfax
County GIS and Mapping Department. The maps are letter size and
available in many formats for downloading and printing.
The private sector also plays an important role in support of
government GIS activities because it captures and maintains a wealth of
geospatial data and develops GIS software. Private companies provide
services such as aerial photography, digital topographic mapping,
digital orthophotography, and digital elevation modeling to produce
geospatial data sets that are designed to meet the needs of government
organizations.
Figure 4 provides a conceptual summary of the many entities--including
federal, state, and local governments and the private sector--that may
be involved in geospatial data collection and processing relative to a
single geographic location or event. Figure 5 shows the multiple data
sets that have been collected by different agencies at federal, state,
and local levels to capture the location of a segment of roadway in
Texas.
Figure 4: Conceptual Diagram of Multiple Geospatial Data Collections
and Processing Associated with a Single Geographic Location:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Figure 5: Multiple Street Centerline Data Sets Covering the Same
Location in Texas:
[See PDF for image]
[End of figure]
Costs Associated with Gathering, Maintaining, and Using Geospatial Data
Are Significant:
Costs associated with collecting and maintaining geographically
referenced data and systems for the federal government are significant.
Specific examples of the costs of collecting and maintaining federal
geospatial data and information systems[Footnote 13] include:
* FEMA's Multi-Hazard Flood Map Modernization Program--estimated to
cost $1 billion over the next 5 years;
* Census's TIGER database--modernization is estimated to have cost over
$170 million between 2001 and 2004;
* Agriculture's Geospatial Database--acquisition and development
reportedly cost over $130 million;
* Interior's National Map--development is estimated to cost about $88
million through 2008;[Footnote 14]
* The Department of the Navy's Primary Oceanographic Prediction, and
Oceanographic Information systems--development, modernization, and
operation were estimated to cost about $32 million in fiscal year 2003;
and:
* NOAA's Coastal Survey--expenditures for geospatial data are estimated
to cost about $30 million annually.
In addition to the costs for individual agency GIS systems and data,
the aggregated annual cost of collecting and maintaining geospatial
data for all NSDI-related data themes and systems is estimated to be
substantial. According to a recent estimate by the National States
Geographic Information Council (NSGIC), the cost to collect detailed
data for five key data layers of the NSDI--parcel, critical
infrastructure, orthoimagery, elevation, and roads--is about $6.6
billion. The estimate assumes that the data collection will be
coordinated among federal, state, and local government agencies, and
the council cautions that without effective coordination, the costs
could be far higher.
Although Steps Have Been Taken to Coordinate Geospatial Activities,
Redundant Investments Remain:
OMB, individual federal agencies, and cross-government committees and
initiatives such as the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) and
the Geospatial One-Stop project have each taken actions to coordinate
the government's geospatial investments. FGDC and other cross-
government entities have established Internet-based information-
sharing portals to support development of the NSDI, led geospatial
standards-setting activities, and conducted various outreach
activities. In addition, individual federal agencies have taken steps
to coordinate specific geospatial investments in certain cases--
Agriculture and Interior have collaborated on a land management system.
Finally, OMB has attempted to oversee and coordinate geospatial
investments by collecting and analyzing relevant agency information.
However, these efforts have not been fully successful in reducing
redundancies in geospatial investments for several reasons. First, a
complete and up-to-date strategic plan has not been in place. The
government's existing strategic plan for the NSDI is out-of-date and
does not include specific measures for identifying and reducing
redundancies. Second, federal agencies have not always fully complied
with OMB direction to coordinate their investments. Many agency
geospatial data holdings are not compliant with FGDC standards or are
not published through the National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse.
Third, OMB's oversight methods have not identified or eliminated
specific instances of duplication. The processes used by OMB to
identify potentially redundant geospatial investments have not been
effective, because the agency has not been able to collect key
investment information from all agencies in a consistent way so that it
could be used to identify redundancies.
As a result of shortcomings in all three of these domains, federal
agencies are independently acquiring and maintaining potentially
duplicative and costly data sets and systems. Without better
coordination, such duplication is likely to continue.
FGDC and Others Have Taken Steps to Coordinate GIS Activities
Governmentwide, but Lack a Complete and Up-to-Date Strategic Plan to
Guide Them:
Both Executive Order 12906 and OMB Circular A-16 charge FGDC with
responsibilities that support coordination of federal GIS investments.
Specifically, the committee is designated the lead federal executive
body responsible for (1) developing, implementing, and maintaining
spatial data standards; (2) promoting and guiding coordination among
federal, state, tribal, and local government agencies, academia, and
the private sector in the collection, production, sharing, and use of
spatial information and the implementation of the NSDI; (3)
communicating information about the status of infrastructure-related
activities via the Internet; and (4) preparing and maintaining a
strategic plan for developing and implementing the NSDI.
According to OMB Circular A-16, FGDC is to develop standards, with
input from a broad range of data users and providers. Geospatial
standards are intended to facilitate data sharing and increase
interoperability among automated geospatial information systems. In
addition, according to Circular A-16, the committee is to adopt
national and international standards in lieu of federal standards,
whenever possible, and restrict its standards-development activities to
areas not covered by other voluntary standards-consensus bodies.
To address these responsibilities, FGDC has created a standards working
group that includes federal agencies, states, academia, and the private
sector. The working group has developed, and the committee has
endorsed, a number of different geospatial standards, including
metadata[Footnote 15] standards, and are working to continue developing
additional standards. The committee's working group also coordinates
with national and international standards bodies to ensure that
potential users support their work.
Regarding coordination with federal and other entities and development
of the NSDI, FGDC has taken a variety of actions. It established a
committee structure with participation from federal agencies and key
nonfederal organizations such as NSGIC, and the National Association of
Counties, and established several programs to help ensure greater
participation from federal agencies as well as other government
entities. The committee structure is composed of (1) a steering
committee that sets the high-level strategic direction for FGDC and (2)
agency-led subcommittees and working groups. The subcommittees and
working groups provide the basic structure for institutions and
individuals to interact and coordinate with each other during the
implementation of the NSDI. FGDC membership includes 19 federal
agencies, with the Secretary of the Interior and the Deputy Director
for Management, OMB, serving as Chair and Vice-Chair, respectively.
Key actions taken by FGDC to develop the NSDI include implementing a
National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse and establishing a framework of
data themes. The clearinghouse is a decentralized system of Internet-
based servers that contain descriptions of available geospatial data--
over 300,000 metadata records, and information on over 2 million
digital images are currently available through the clearinghouse. It
allows individual agencies, consortia, or others to promote their
available geospatial data. The framework of data themes is a
collaborative effort in which commonly used data "layers" are
developed, maintained, and integrated by public and private
organizations within a geographic area. Local, regional, state, and
federal organizations and private companies can use the framework as a
way to share resources, improve communications, and increase
efficiency. Appendix IV provides detailed descriptions of the framework
data themes and other geospatial data layers.
OMB Circular A-16 also calls for FGDC to communicate information, via
the Internet, about its activities related to NSDI development;
committee memberships; and the status of agencies' work on committees,
subcommittees, and working groups. FGDC is also to provide a collection
of technical publications, articles, and reports related to the NSDI.
To address these responsibilities, FGDC has established a Web site at
[Hyperlink, www.fgdc.gov] w [Hyperlink, http://www.fgdc.gov]
ww.fgdc.gov that provides information on its organizational structure
and agencies' activities on its committees and subcommittees--including
minutes of meetings for each. The Web site also provides, among other
information, technical articles, fact sheets, newsletters, and news
releases.
In addition to FGDC's programs to support developing and implementing
the NSDI, two other efforts are under way that aim to coordinate and
consolidate geospatial information and resources across the federal
government--the Geospatial One-Stop initiative and the National Map
project.
Geospatial One-Stop. Geospatial One-Stop is intended to accelerate the
development and implementation of the NSDI to provide federal and state
agencies with a single point of access to map-related data, which in
turn will enable consolidation of redundant geospatial data. OMB
selected Geospatial One-Stop as one of its e-government
initiatives,[Footnote 16] in part to support development of an
inventory of national geospatial assets, and also to support reducing
redundancies in federal geospatial assets. The Department of the
Interior was designated as the managing partner to lead the project,
with development support from various other federal agencies. As of
April 2004, over 9,000 metadata records were accessible through the
Geospatial One-Stop portal, located at [Hyperlink, www.geodata.gov].
According to the initiative's executive director, the portal will
continue to add metadata records by implementing a metadata
"harvesting" program to actively gather metadata from many sources,
beginning with the clearinghouse. In addition, the portal includes a
"marketplace" that provides information on planned and ongoing
geospatial acquisitions for use by agencies that are considering
acquiring new data to facilitate coordination of existing and planned
acquisitions.
The National Map. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is developing and
implementing The National Map as a database to provide core geospatial
data about the United States and its territories, similar to the data
traditionally provided on USGS paper topographic maps. Through this
project, USGS maintains an archive for the historic preservation of
data and science applications; provides products and services that
include paper maps, digital images, data download capabilities, and
scientific reports; and promotes geographic integration and analyses.
USGS relies heavily on partnerships with other federal agencies as well
as states, localities, and the private sector to maintain the accuracy
and currency of the national core geospatial data set as represented in
The National Map.
According to Interior's Assistant Secretary--Policy, Management, and
Budget, FGDC, Geospatial One-Stop, and The National Map are
coordinating their efforts in several areas, including developing
standards and framework data layers for the NSDI, increasing the
effectiveness of the clearinghouse, and making information about
existing and planned data acquisitions available through the Geospatial
One-Stop Web site.
Table 1 summarizes the NSDI, Geospatial One-Stop, and National Map
programs.
Table 1: Summary of the NSDI, Geospatial One-Stop, and National Map
Programs:
Description;
National Spatial Data Infrastructure: The technology, policies,
standards, human resources, and related activities necessary to
acquire, process, distribute, use, maintain, and preserve geospatial
data;
Geospatial One-Stop: An e-government initiative sponsored by OMB to
enhance government efficiency and improve citizen service;
The National Map: A resource to enable and communicate information
related to geographic science.
Purpose;
National Spatial Data Infrastructure: To ensure that geospatial data
from multiple sources (federal, state, local, and tribal governments,
academia, and the private sector) are available and easily integrated
to enhance the understanding of our physical and cultural world;
Geospatial One-Stop: To develop a geospatial portal to make easier,
faster, and less expensive access to geospatial information available
for all levels of government and the public;
The National Map: To provide trusted, integrated, seamless, and
continually maintained geospatial base data and archives, along with
related models and applications.
Data collected;
National Spatial Data Infrastructure: Data themes that include geodetic
control, orthoimagery, elevation, transportation, hydrography,
cadastral, and government units;
Geospatial One-Stop: Seventeen data categories, representing all NSDI
data themes;
The National Map: Eight base data themes, including five NSDI framework
themes, and related scientific models and applications.
Standards;
National Spatial Data Infrastructure: Common and repeated rules,
conditions, guidelines, or characteristics for data and related
processes. NSDI standards are developed and promulgated by FGDC using
an established process with input from a broad range of data users and
providers;
Geospatial One-Stop: Adopts, adapts, or develops standards and Internet
protocols necessary for effective implementation of the NSDI; currently
completing work on FGDC information content standards for the NSDI
framework data themes;
The National Map: Encourages and promotes the use of standards for
database creation and developing and assuring conformance to standards,
guidelines, and characterizations of technology.
Web site;
National Spatial Data Infrastructure: www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/nsdi.html;
Geospatial One-Stop: www.geo-one-stop.gov;
The National Map: www.nationalmap.usgs.gov.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
In addition to its other responsibilities, OMB Circular A-16 charges
FGDC with leading the preparation of a strategic plan for the
implementation of the NSDI. Such a plan could ensure coherence among
the many geospatial coordination activities that are under way and
provide ways to measure success in reducing redundancies. In 1994, FGDC
issued a strategic plan that described actions federal agencies and
others could take to develop the NSDI, such as establishing data themes
and standards, training programs, and partnerships to promote
coordination and data sharing. In April 1997, FGDC published an updated
plan--with input from many organizations and individuals having a stake
in developing the NSDI--that defined strategic goals and objectives to
support the vision of the NSDI as defined in the 1994 plan. No further
updates have been made.
As the current national geospatial strategy document, FGDC's 1997 plan
is out of date. First, it does not reflect the recent broadened use of
geospatial data and systems by many government agencies. In conjunction
with EPA, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), for
example, now makes geospatial information about housing available to
potential home buyers over the Internet. This is one of several agency
geospatial projects that did not exist in 1997. Second, significant
governmentwide geospatial efforts--including the Geospatial One-Stop
and the National Map projects--did not exist in 1997 and are therefore
not reflected in the strategic plan. Finally, the 1997 plan does not
take into account the increased importance that has been placed on
homeland security in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Geospatial data and systems have a key role to play in supporting
decision makers and emergency responders in protecting critical
infrastructure and responding to threats.
In addition to being out of date, the 1997 document lacks important
elements that should be included in an effective strategic plan.
According to the Government Performance and Results Act of
1993,[Footnote 17] such plans should include a set of outcome-related
strategic goals, a description of how those goals are to be achieved,
and an identification of risk factors that could significantly affect
their achievement. The plans should also include performance goals and
measures, with resources needed to achieve them, as well as a
description of the processes to be used to measure progress.
While the 1997 NSDI plan contains a vision statement and goals and
objectives, it does not include other essential elements. For example,
FGDC's plan does not include a set of outcome-related goals, with
actions to achieve those goals, that would bring together the various
actions being taken to coordinate geospatial assets and achieve the
vision of the NSDI. Specifically, the plan does not include a
description of how the development and implementation of geospatial
standards could foster coordination of national geospatial investments,
and what actions FGDC is taking to help ensure that standards are
implemented to effectively support such coordination. The plan also
does not identify how the programs that FGDC uses to promote
coordination among federal agencies and other entities fit together in
a cohesive approach to support and facilitate collaboration.
In addition to not developing a plan that integrates each of FGDC's
activities to ensure that the actions it takes effectively contribute
to its vision, the strategy does not identify key risk factors that
could significantly affect the achievement of the goals and objectives.
Identifying such risk factors would be the first step in mitigating
them, helping to ensure that the plan's goals and objectives are
achievable.
Finally, the current plan does not include performance goals and
measures to help ensure that the steps being taken are resulting in the
development of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure. Performance
goals and measures, with processes in place to measure progress, are
important factors to ensuring the overall effectiveness of the plan and
whether the objectives of the plan are being met.
FGDC officials, in consultation with the executive director of
Geospatial One-Stop, USGS, and participating FGDC member agencies, have
initiated a "future directions" effort to begin the process of updating
the plan. However, this activity is just beginning, and there is no
time frame as to when a new strategy will be in place. Until a complete
and up-to-date national strategic plan, with measurable goals and
objectives for developing the NSDI, is in place, coordination will
continue to be limited, resulting in unnecessary duplication of
geospatial assets and activities.
Individual Federal Agencies Have Coordinated Specific Geospatial
Investments, but Have Not Fully Complied with OMB Guidance:
OMB Circular A-16 directs federal agencies to coordinate their
investments to facilitate building the NSDI. The circular lists 11
specific responsibilities for federal agencies, including:
* preparing, maintaining, publishing, and implementing a strategy for
advancing geographic information and related spatial data activities
appropriate to their mission, in support of the NSDI;
* using FGDC standards, including metadata and other appropriate
standards, documenting spatial data with relevant metadata; and:
* making metadata available online through a registered NSDI-compatible
clearinghouse site.
In certain cases, federal agencies have taken steps to coordinate their
specific geospatial activities. For example, Agriculture's U.S. Forest
Service and Interior's Bureau of Land Management (BLM) collaborated to
develop the National Integrated Land System (NILS), which is intended
to provide land managers with software tools for the collection,
management, and sharing of survey data, cadastral data, and land
records information. BLM and the Forest Service signed a formal
interagency agreement at the outset of the project, coordinated project
planning and management, and shared project funding. At an estimated
cost of about $34 million, a single GIS--NILS--was developed that can
accommodate the shared geospatial needs of both agencies, eliminating
the need for each agency to develop a separate system. In another
example, HUD and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) worked
together to develop an enterprise GIS that combines information on
HUD's community development and housing programs with EPA's
environmental data, as well as other agencies' data, to provide
homeowners and prospective home buyers with ready access to detailed
local information about environmental hazards and other pertinent
information, including data about roadways, population, and local
landmarks.
However, despite such examples of coordination, agencies have not
always complied with OMB's broader geospatial coordination
requirements. For example, only 10 of the 17 agencies that provided
reports to FGDC reported having published geospatial strategies as
required by Circular A-16. In addition, agencies' spatial data holdings
are generally not compliant with FGDC standards. Specifically, the
annual report shows that, of the 17 agencies, only 4 reported that
their spatial data holdings were compliant with FGDC standards. Ten
agencies reported being partially compliant, and 3 agencies provided
answers that were unclear as to whether they were compliant. Finally,
regarding the requirement for agencies to post their data to the
clearinghouse,[Footnote 18] only 6 of the 17 agencies indicated that
their data or metadata were published through the clearinghouse, 10
indicated that their data were not published, and 1 indicated that some
data were available through the clearinghouse.
According to comments provided by agencies to FGDC in the annual report
submissions, there are several reasons why agencies have not complied
with their responsibilities under Circular A-16, including the lack of
performance measures that link funding to coordination efforts.
According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, few incentives
exist for cross-agency cooperation because budget allocations are
linked to individual agency performance rather than to cooperative
efforts. In addition, according to the USGS, agencies' activities and
funding are driven primarily by individual agency missions and do not
address interagency geospatial coordination. In addition to the
information provided in the annual report, Department of Agriculture
officials said there are no clear performance measures that link
funding to interagency coordination.
OMB's Oversight of Federal Geospatial Assets and Activities Has Not
Identified Redundant Investments:
OMB has recognized that potentially redundant geospatial assets need to
be identified and that federal geospatial systems and information
efforts need to be coordinated. To help identify potential
redundancies, OMB's Administrator of E-Government and Information
Technology testified in June 2003 that the agency uses three key
sources of information:
* business cases for planned or ongoing IT investments, submitted by
agencies as part of the annual budget process;
* comparisons of agency lines of business with the Federal Enterprise
Architecture (FEA); and:
* annual reports compiled by FGDC and submitted to OMB.
In addition, OMB has asked for detailed information from federal
agencies on specific types of geospatial information and systems assets
as an additional means of identifying and minimizing redundant IT
investments.
None of OMB's major oversight processes--the annual review process
associated with development of the federal budget, the FEA effort, and
the FGDC-administered Circular A-16 reporting process--have been
effective tools to help OMB identify major redundancies in federal GIS
investments. According to OMB officials responsible for oversight of
geospatial activities, the agency's methods have not yet led to the
identification of redundant investments that could be targeted for
consolidation or elimination. The OMB officials said they believe that,
with further refinement, these tools will be effective in the future in
helping them identify redundancies. However, until more effective
oversight measures are in place, duplicative and potentially costly
geospatial data and projects are likely to continue, resulting in
inefficient use of limited resources.
IT Investment Business Cases Do Not Completely Describe Geospatial Data
Assets:
In their IT business cases submitted annually as part of the budget
process, agencies must report the types of data that will be used,
including geospatial data. According to OMB's branch chief for
information policy and technology, OMB reviews these business cases to
determine whether any redundant geospatial investments are being
funded. Specifically, the process for reviewing a business case
includes comparing proposed investments, IT management and strategic
plans, and other business cases, in an attempt to determine whether a
proposed investment duplicates another agency's existing or already-
approved investment.
However, business cases submitted to OMB under Circular A-11 do not
always include enough information to effectively identify potential
geospatial data and systems redundancies because OMB does not require
such information in agency business cases. For example, OMB does not
require that agencies clearly link information about their proposed or
existing geospatial investments to the spatial data categories (themes)
established by Circular A-16. Geospatial systems and data are
ubiquitous throughout federal agencies and are frequently integrated
into agencies' mission-related systems and business processes. Business
cases that focus on mission-related aspects of agency systems and data
may not provide the information necessary to compare specific
geospatial investments with other, potentially similar investments
unless the data identified in the business cases are categorized to
allow OMB to more readily compare data sets and identify potential
redundancies.
For example, FEMA's fiscal year 2004 business case for its Multi-Hazard
Flood Map Modernization project indicates that topographic and base
data are used to perform engineering analyses for estimating flood
discharge, develop floodplain mapping, and locate areas of interest
related to hazard areas. However, FEMA does not categorize these data
according to standardized spatial data themes specified in Circular A-
16, such as elevation (bathymetric or terrestrial), transportation, and
hydrography. As a result, it is difficult to determine whether the data
overlap with other federal data sets. Similarly, Census's fiscal year
2005 business case for its MAF/TIGER Enhancement project indicates that
state, local, tribal, and private-sector spatial data are used for the
realignment of the street centerlines and other features. However, like
the Flood Map Modernization business case, the MAF/TIGER Enhancement
business case does not categorize these data according to the Circular
A-16 data themes, which would allow OMB to compare them with other
agencies' holdings. Without categorizing the data using the standard
data themes as an important step toward coordinating that data,
information about agencies' planned or ongoing use of geospatial data
in their business cases cannot be effectively assessed to determine
whether it could be integrated with other existing or planned federal
geospatial assets.
The Federal Enterprise Architecture Is Not Yet Effective in Identifying
Potentially Redundant Geospatial Investments:
An FEA is being constructed that, once it is further developd, may help
identify potentially redundant geospatial investments. It will comprise
a collection of five interrelated "reference models" designed to
facilitate cross-agency analysis and the identification of duplicative
investments, gaps, and opportunities for collaboration within and
across federal agencies. According to recent GAO testimony on the
status of the FEA, although OMB has made progress on the FEA, it
remains a work in process and is still maturing.[Footnote 19] The five
FEA reference models are summarized in table 2.
Table 2: FEA Reference Models:
Reference model: Business Reference Model;
Description: Describes the business operations (lines of business) of
the federal government independent of the agencies that perform them,
including defining the services provided to state and local
governments;
Status: Version 2.0 released June 2003.
Reference model: Service Component Reference Model;
Description: Identifies and classifies IT service (i.e., application)
components that support federal agencies and promote the reuse of
components across agencies;
Status: Version 1.0 released June 2003.
Reference model: Technical Reference Model;
Description: Describes how technology is supporting the delivery of
service components, including relevant standards for implementing the
technology;
Status: Version 1.1 released August 2003.
Reference model: Performance Reference Model;
Description: Provides a common set of general performance outputs and
measures for agencies to use to achieve business goals and objectives;
Status: Version 1.0 released September 2003.
Reference model: Data and Information Reference Model;
Description: Describes, at an aggregate level, the types of data and
information that support program and business line operations, and the
relationships among these types;
Status: Not yet released.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
OMB has identified multiple purposes for the FEA. One purpose cited is
to inform agencies' individual enterprise architectures and to
facilitate their development by providing a common classification
structure and vocabulary. Another stated purpose is to provide a
governmentwide framework that can increase agencies' awareness of IT
capabilities that other agencies have or plan to acquire, so that they
can explore opportunities for reuse. Still another stated purpose is to
help OMB decision makers identify opportunities for collaboration among
agencies through the implementation of common, reusable, and
interoperable solutions. GAO supports the FEA as a framework for
achieving these ends.
According to OMB's branch chief for information policy and technology,
OMB reviews all new investment proposals against the federal
government's lines of business in its Business Reference Model to
identify those investments that appear to have some commonality. Many
of the model's lines of business include areas in which geospatial
information is of critical importance, including disaster management
(the cleanup and restoration activities that take place after a
disaster); environmental management (functions required to monitor the
environment and weather, determine proper environmental standards, and
address environmental hazards and contamination); and transportation
(federally supported activities related to the safe passage,
conveyance, or transportation of goods and people).
The Service Component Reference Model includes specific references to
geospatial data and systems. It is intended to identify and classify IT
service components (i.e., applications) that support federal agencies
and promote the reuse of components across agencies. The model includes
29 types of services--including customer relationship management and
visualization service, which defines capabilities that support the
conversion of data into graphical or picture form. One component of
visualization service is associated with mapping, geospatial,
elevation, and GPS services. Identification of redundant investments
under the visualization service could provide OMB with information that
would be useful in identifying redundant geospatial systems
investments.
Finally, the Data and Information Reference Model would likely be the
most critical FEA element in identifying potentially redundant
geospatial investments. According to OMB, it will categorize the
government's information along general content areas and describe data
components that are common to many business processes or activities.
Although the FEA includes elements that could be used to help identify
redundant investments, it is not yet sufficiently developed to be
useful in identifying redundant geospatial investments. While the
Business and Service Component reference models have aspects related to
geospatial investments, the Data and Information Reference Model may be
the critical element for identifying agency use of geospatial data
because it is planned to provide standard categories of data that could
support comparing data sets among federal agencies. However, this model
has not yet been completed and thus is not in use. Until the FEA is
completed and OMB develops effective analytical processes to use it, it
will not be able to contribute to identifying potentially redundant
geospatial investments.
FGDC-Administered Agency Reporting Does Not Provide Adequate
Information for Identifying Redundant Geospatial Investments:
OMB Circular A-16 requires agencies to report annually to OMB on their
achievements in advancing geographic information and related spatial
data activities appropriate to their missions and in support of the
NSDI. To support this requirement, FGDC has developed a structure for
agencies to use to report such information in a consistent format and
for aggregating individual agencies' information. Using the agency
reports, the committee prepares an annual report to OMB purportedly
identifying the scope and depth of spatial data activities across
agencies.
For the fiscal year 2003 report, agencies were asked to respond to a
number of specific questions about their geospatial activities,
including (1) whether a detailed strategy had been developed for
integrating geographic information and spatial data into their business
processes, (2) how they ensure that data are not already available
prior to collecting new geospatial data, and (3) whether geospatial
data are a component of the agency's enterprise architecture. However,
additional information that is critical to identifying redundancies was
not required. For example, agencies were not requested to provide
information on their specific GIS investments or the geospatial data
sets they collected and maintained. According to the FGDC staff
director, the annual reports are not meant to provide an inventory of
federal geospatial assets. As a result, they cannot provide OMB with
sufficient information to identify redundancies in federal geospatial
investments.
Further, because not all agencies provide reports to FGDC, the
information that OMB has available to identify redundancies is
incomplete. Eight of the FGDC partner agencies, including the
Departments of Energy, Justice, and Homeland Security, and the National
Science Foundation, did not provide reports for fiscal year 2003. In
addition, nonpartner agencies, including the Departments of Education,
Labor, Veterans Affairs and the Treasury, did not provide reports,
although all agencies that collect, use, or disseminate geospatial
information, regardless of whether they are FGDC partners, are required
to do so. According to OMB's program examiner for the Department of the
Interior, OMB does not know in detail how well agencies are complying
with the reporting requirements in Circular A-16. Until the information
reported by agencies is consistent and complete, OMB may not be able to
effectively use what information they do have to identify potential
geospatial redundancies.
OMB's Supplemental Data Requests Have Not Provided Sufficient
Information to Identify Potentially Redundant Investments:
In addition to the three tools OMB uses to identify potentially
redundant geospatial investments, it has also issued special requests
to agencies to report on their geospatial investments to help support
its oversight function for geospatial information, as required by OMB
Circular A-16. For example, as part of the 2004 budget cycle, OMB
initiated a pilot project to collect detailed cost information on one
geospatial data theme--elevation data. Despite specifying criteria for
identifying elevation data, the pilot encountered problems.
FGDC developed criteria for this pilot process, but OMB did not follow
it. Budget examiners at OMB modified the criteria to take into account
the agencies' widely varying missions, and broadened the criteria for
individual agencies to make it easier for them to identify elevation
data in the same way they tracked the data internally. As a result,
elevation data were not reported consistently and could not be compared
across agencies.
A data collection effort associated with the fiscal year 2005 budget
process raised the same questions as the 2004 effort about its
effectiveness to support OMB's oversight responsibilities. As part of
the fiscal year 2005 budget cycle, OMB again requested supplemental
information from federal agencies to identify which agencies are
collecting geospatial data, for what purposes, and covering which
geographic areas; federal expenditures related to data collection and
the extent of leveraging of those expenditures; the extent of sharing
of and public access to federal geospatial data; and the use of
standards. Specifically, OMB asked agencies that spend $500,000 or more
on any geospatial data to report information on all types of geospatial
data, with a focus on the seven types of framework data identified by
FGDC. However, because the earlier problems have not been addressed,
the 2005 supplemental data request is also unlikely to provide useful
information for OMB to identify redundant federal geospatial
investments.
Federal Agencies Continue to Collect and Maintain Duplicative Data and
Systems:
Without a complete and up-to-date strategy for coordination or
effective investment oversight by OMB, federal agencies continue to
acquire and maintain duplicative data and systems. According to the
initial business case for the Geospatial One-Stop initiative, about 50
percent of the federal government's geospatial data investment is
duplicative. Such duplication is widely recognized. Officials from
federal and state agencies and OMB have all stated that unnecessarily
redundant geospatial data and systems exist throughout the federal
government. The Staff Director of FGDC agreed that redundancies
continue to exist throughout the federal government and that more work
needs to be done to specifically identify them. DHS's Geospatial
Information Officer also acknowledged redundancies in geospatial data
acquisitions at his agency, and said that DHS is working to create an
enterprisewide approach to managing geospatial data in order to reduce
redundancies. Similarly, state representatives to the National States
Geographic Information Council have identified cases in which they have
observed multiple federal agencies funding the acquisition of similar
data to meet individual agency needs.
We found that USGS, FEMA, and the Department of Defense (DOD) each
maintain separate elevation data sets: USGS's National Elevation
Dataset, FEMA's flood hazard mapping elevation data program, and DOD's
elevation data regarding Defense installations. FEMA officials
indicated that they obtained much of their data from state and local
partners or purchased them from the private sector because data from
those sources better fit their accuracy and resolution requirements
than elevation data available from USGS. Similarly, according to one
Army official, available USGS elevation data sets generally do not
include military installations, and even when such data are available
for specific installations, they are typically not accurate enough for
DOD's purposes. As a result, DOD collects its own elevation data for
its installations. In this example, if USGS elevation data-collection
projects were coordinated with FEMA and DOD to help ensure that the
needs of as many federal agencies as possible were met through the
project, potentially costly and redundant data-collection activities
could be avoided. According to the USGS Associate Director for
Geography, USGS is currently working to develop relationships with FEMA
and DOD, along with other federal agencies, to determine where these
agencies' data-collection activities overlap.
In another example, officials at the Department of Agriculture and the
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) both said they have
purchased data sets containing street-centerline data from commercial
sources, even though the Census Bureau maintains such data in its TIGER
database. According to these officials, they purchased the data
commercially because they had concerns about the accuracy of the TIGER
data. The Census Bureau is currently working to enhance its TIGER data
in preparation for the 2010 census, and a major objective of the
project is to improve the accuracy of its street location data.
However, despite Agriculture and NGA's use of street location data,
Census did not include either agency in the TIGER enhancement project
plan's list of agencies that will be affected by the initiative.
Without better coordination, agencies such as Agriculture and NGA are
likely to continue to need to purchase redundant commercial data sets
in the future.
Further, in a recent report on coastal mapping and charting, the
National Research Council cited numerous examples of redundant activity
in coastal mapping, including aerial imaging, shoreline mapping, and
habitat mapping.[Footnote 20] The council noted that redundancy in data
collection is of most concern, as it is by far the most expensive of
geospatial activities, and concluded that agencies do not have an
efficient means of determining whether an area of interest has been
previously mapped. Without better-coordinated activities, federal
agencies are likely to continue to duplicate data collection.
Conclusions:
The longstanding problem of effectively coordinating federal geospatial
investments to reduce unnecessary redundancies and their concomitant
costs has not yet been resolved. A number of activities have been
initiated with the aim of better coordinating geospatial investments,
including the OMB-required activities of FGDC, as well as the
Geospatial One-Stop initiative and other projects such as The National
Map. In addition, individual agencies have collaborated on specific
geospatial projects, and OMB has adopted several processes for
identifying redundant geospatial investments.
However, these efforts have not been very successful in reducing
redundancies in geospatial investments. A complete and up-to-date
strategic plan to coordinate the government's various geospatial
activities is lacking, and federal agencies have not fully complied
with OMB's Circular A-16 guidance. Similarly, OMB's processes for
identifying duplicative federal geospatial investments have not proven
effective.
Until a comprehensive national strategy is in place, the current state
of ineffective coordination is likely to remain, and the vision of the
NSDI will likely not be fully realized. In addition, without effective
oversight by OMB, agencies might not have adequate incentives to fully
coordinate their geospatial activities, and OMB will not be able to
identify potentially duplicative geospatial investments. Until these
shortcomings are addressed, cost savings from eliminating duplicative
geospatial investments will not materialize.
Recommendations for Executive Action:
In order to encourage more coordination of geospatial assets, reduce
needless redundancies, and decrease costs, we recommend that the
Director of OMB and the Secretary of the Interior, in coordination with
the FGDC, establish milestones for the development of an updated
national geospatial data strategic plan, ensuring that the plan
includes:
* outcome-related strategic goals and objectives;
* a plan for how the goals and objectives are to be achieved;
* identification of key risk factors that could significantly affect
the achievement of the general goals and objectives and a mitigation
plan for those risk factors; and:
* performance goals and measures that will be used to ensure that the
goals and objectives of the NSDI are being met.
To encourage better agency compliance with Circular A-16, we also
recommend that the Director of OMB develop criteria for assessing the
extent of interagency coordination on proposals for potential
geospatial investments. Based on these criteria, funding for potential
geospatial investments should be delayed or denied when coordination is
not adequately addressed in agencies' proposals.
Finally, we recommend that the Director of OMB strengthen the agency's
oversight actions to more effectively coordinate federal geospatial
data and systems acquisitions and thereby reduce potentially redundant
investments. Specifically, OMB should:
* require that information about planned geospatial data acquisitions
provided in agencies' business cases include specific categorizations
of all geospatial data according to the standardized data themes
defined by FGDC and described in OMB Circular A-16; and:
* require that all federal agencies submit annual reports to FGDC on
their GIS investments, including geospatial systems and data sets
already in place.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation:
We received oral comments on a draft of this report from
representatives of OMB's Offices of Information and Regulatory Affairs
and Resource Management and from the Assistant Secretary of the
Interior--Policy, Management, and Budget. The officials from both
agencies generally agreed with the content of our draft report and our
recommendations and provided technical comments, which have been
incorporated where appropriate. In addition, the Departments of Defense
and Health and Human Services and the Bureau of the Census also
provided oral technical comments, which have been incorporated where
appropriate.
Concerning our recommendation that OMB strengthen its oversight to more
effectively coordinate federal geospatial data and systems
acquisitions, the OMB representatives stated that they are planning to
institute a new process to collect more complete information on
agencies' geospatial investments by requiring agencies to report all
such investments through the Geospatial One-Stop Web portal. OMB
representatives told us that reporting requirements for agencies would
be detailed in a new directive that OMB expects to issue by the end of
summer 2004.
The Department of the Interior's Assistant Secretary of the Interior--
Policy, Management, and Budget noted that our report emphasizes
geospatial investments rather than the broader and more comprehensive
geospatial strategies outlined in OMB Circular A-16, and pointed out
that encouraging the growth of a national spatial data infrastructure-
-versus tracking geospatial investments and minimizing duplication--
required different approaches. In the department's view, activities by
FGDC and the Geospatial One-Stop initiative to develop an
infrastructure for information sharing have established business
practices that can result in sound investments. We agree with the
department that these are valuable activities that can promote sound
investments. Moreover, a detailed strategic plan, coupled with improved
oversight and agency compliance with coordination guidance, remain
critical steps to achieving the objective of reducing duplication in
federal geospatial investments.
We are sending copies of this report to the Chairman and Ranking
Minority Member, House Committee on Government Reform, and the Ranking
Minority Member, Subcommittee on Technology, Information Policy,
Intergovernmental Relations and the Census. In addition, we are
providing copies to the Director of OMB and the Secretary of the
Interior, and the report is available at no charge on the GAO Web site
at [Hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov].
Should you have any questions about this report, please contact me at
(202) 512-6240 or John de Ferrari, Assistant Director, at (202) 512-
6335. We can also be reached by e-mail at [Hyperlink, koontzl@gao.gov]
and [Hyperlink, deferrarij@gao.gov], respectively. Other key
contributors to this report were Michael Holland, Steven Law, and
Elizabeth Roach.
Signed by:
Linda D. Koontz:
Director, Information Management Issues:
[End of section]
Appendixes:
Appendix I: Objective, Scope, and Methodology:
Our objective was to determine the extent to which the federal
government is coordinating the sharing of geospatial assets, including
through oversight measures in place at the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB), in order to identify and reduce redundancies in federal
geospatial data and systems.
To address this objective, we reviewed relevant federal guidance and
legislation, including The E-Government Act of 2002; The Clinger-Cohen
Act of 1996; The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995; Executive Order
12906: Coordinating Geographic Data Acquisition and Access; OMB
Circular A-11: Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the Budget;
OMB Circular A-16: Coordination of Geographic Information and Related
Spatial Data Activities; and OMB Circular A-130: Management of Federal
Information Resources. Appendix III provides additional information
about each. We also reviewed agency IT business cases, known as Exhibit
300s, submitted as part of the annual budget process. In addition, we
evaluated the Federal Enterprise Architecture reference models and
various FGDC documents and interviewed officials from the following
federal agencies in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area:
* Department of Agriculture;
* Department of Commerce, including the Census Bureau and the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration;
* Department of Defense, including the National Geospatial-Intelligence
Agency;
* Department of Health and Human Services;
* Department of Homeland Security, including the Federal Emergency
Management Agency;
* Department of the Interior, including the Bureau of Land Management
and the U.S. Geological Survey;
* Environmental Protection Agency; and:
* Office of Management and Budget.
We interviewed program officials representing key federal geospatial
projects, including the Federal Geographic Data Committee, Geospatial
One-Stop, The National Map, and the TIGER Modernization project. For
these projects, we reviewed key documents such as capital asset plans,
project plans, and other project documentation.
To better understand federal efforts to coordinate with state and local
governments and the private sector, we interviewed state and local
government and private sector officials at several conferences,
including the ESRI Federal User Conference and the National Association
of Counties Legislative Conference. In addition, we conducted focus
groups at three national conferences in March 2004: (1) The National
League of Cities Congressional City Conference; (2) the Management
Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors Federal Programs
Conference; and (3) the National States Geographic Information Council
Midyear Conference. At these focus groups we asked state and local
government and private sector officials for their views on what the
federal government was doing to coordinate its geospatial activities
with them and what could be done to improve the coordination of federal
geospatial activities. A total of 34 state and local government and
private sector officials attended these focus groups.
In addition, to determine the extent of state and local participation
in the National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse and the Geospatial One-
Stop portal, we obtained information from FGDC officials about the
metadata records contained in the clearinghouse and conducted analyses
of the data referenced in the Geospatial One-Stop portal.
We conducted our work from October 2003 through May 2004 in accordance
with generally accepted government auditing standards.
[End of section]
Appendix II: Selected Agencies' Geospatial Activities:
Many federal agencies have established geospatial activities to help
them achieve their specific goals and objectives. Table 3 highlights
selected federal geospatial activities at certain agencies. The table
is not intended to be a comprehensive list of agency geospatial
activities.
Table 3: Selected Geospatial Activities at Federal Agencies:
Agency: Department of Agriculture (USDA)/Forest Service;
Activities: The Forest Service uses GIS to provide information on
vegetation, water, fire, and soil for specified forests. The agency
also develops digital orthophoto quad images and maintains a
clearinghouse with geospatial metadata. In addition, the Forest Service
is working with Interior's Bureau of Land Management to develop the
National Integrated Land System, to support the management of cadastral
records and land parcel information.
Agency: USDA/National Cartography and Geospatial Center (NCGC);
Activities: NCGC Internet Mapping offers Web access to view samples of
hydrography, digital orthophotography, digital topographic data, and
other integrated data layers. In addition, NCGC supports an Aerial
Photography Field Office with a library of over 10 million images
dating from 1955 to the present.
Agency: USDA/Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS);
Activities: The NRCS Geospatial Data Gateway provides easy and
consistent access to natural resource data by geographic area such as
county or state. Users can search for data by theme, such as digital
orthoimagery, digital elevation models, or soils.
Agency: USDA/Farm Service Agency (FSA);
Activities: The FSA is implementing software that will be important in
the maintenance of the Common Land Unit (CLU), which will track all
farming activity across the country. The CLU should be completed
nationwide in fiscal year 2005.
Agency: Department of Commerce (DOC)/Census Bureau;
Activities: The Census Bureau developed the Topologically Integrated
Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) database, which automates
the mapping and related geographic activities required to support the
decennial census and the bureau's sample survey programs. Census is
also working on the Master Address File/TIGER (MAF/TIGER) Accuracy
Improvement Project, which seeks to improve accuracy in TIGER by
acquiring and using, as a first priority among data sources, digital
files prepared and provided by state, local, and tribal governments.
In addition, Census maintains the TIGER Enhancement Database, which
includes metadata about state and local geospatial data. Census also
conducts the Boundary and Annexation Survey to update the information
it has about the legal boundaries, names, governmental status, and
types of municipalities in the United States.
Agency: DOC/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA);
Activities: NOAA makes extensive use of GIS technology to store the
large quantity of data it collects. For example, the Pacific Marine
Environmental Laboratory and the Alaska Fisheries Science Center
collect data about the physical and biological characteristics of the
Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska, which are then stored in a GIS. In
addition, NOAA's Coastal Services Center develops products and services
through project partnerships that address specific technical needs and
capacities of the coastal management community. These projects
typically focus on data access and distribution, Internet mapping, and
spatial data analysis and visualization as a means of addressing
coastal hazards, smart growth, marine protected areas, or coastal
permitting issues.
Agency: Department of Defense (DOD)/National Geospatial Intelligence
Agency (NGA);
Activities: NGA provides timely, accurate, global aeronautical,
topographical, and maritime geospatial information in support of
national security objectives.
Agency: DOD/Army Corps of Engineers;
Activities: The Army Corps of Engineers collects hydrographic data
along the Inland Waterway to ensure that navigation channels are
dredged to authorized depths; aerial photography and elevation data of
authorized projects to support a variety of planning-and construction-
related activities, and uses geospatial technologies as part of its
water control, real estate, planning and reconnaissance studies,
emergency management, regulatory, environmental restoration,
engineering and reconstruction missions.
Agency: DOD/Navy;
Activities: The Navy's Oceanographic Information System collects,
analyzes, processes, manages, produces, and distributes classified and
unclassified oceanographic data and products. In addition, the system
functions as the initial collection and processing entity for mapping
and charting geodesy data and information.
Agency: Department of Energy (DOE)/Los Alamos National Laboratory;
Activities: The Los Alamos National Laboratory's GISLab supplies
geospatial information for internal and external users of geospatial
data. Current projects include fire-related spatial data, floodplain
mapping and hydrological modeling, field mapping for forest management,
and mesoscale climate change modeling.
Agency: DOE/National Renewable Energy Laboratory;
Activities: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory site provides
dynamically generated maps of renewable energy resources that determine
which energy technologies are viable solutions in the United States.
These maps include GIS Clean Cities Map, Wind Map, Transportation
Technologies Map, Map of Indian Lands, Solar Maps, and Federal Energy
Management Program Maps.
Agency: Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)/Agency for Toxic
Substances and Disease Registry;
Activities: The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
manages a geospatial data warehouse that contains base map,
sociodemographic, emergency response, environmental, hazard, and health
resource data.
Agency: HHS/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention;
Activities: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention engages in a
variety of GIS activities that serve disease surveillance and
prevention themes. The National Center for Injury Prevention and
Control publishes Web-based maps on injury statistics and mortality
atlases; the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Heath
Promotion uses GIS to analyze and publish geospatial data, such as
mapping risk factor data and the prevalence of fluoridated water
systems, cardiovascular mortality atlases, etc; and the National Center
for Environmental Health (NCEH) has recently deployed the Environmental
Public Health Geography Network, a system designed to publish and share
geospatial data, metadata and maps. NCEH also deployed the Spatial
Epidemiology and Emergency Management System, a Web-based system to
provide easy and rapid access to and mapping of geospatial data;
Agency: HHS/National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute;
Activities: The National Cancer Institute maintains the Cancer
Mortality Maps & Graph Web Site, which provides information on
geographic patterns and time trends of cancer death rates from 1950 to
1994 for more than 40 types of cancer.
Agency: Department of Homeland Security (DHS);
Activities: Various DHS components are frequent users of geospatial
information, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),
the Bureau of Transportation Security, the Coast Guard, and the Secret
Service.
Agency: DHS/Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA);
Activities: FEMA provides a full range of GIS services to all FEMA
program offices, including storm tracking and damage prediction maps,
remote sensing maps, maps of federally declared counties in an
affected state, basic census demographics about an affected area by
county and census block, street locations, and summaries of
teleregistered and service center applicants, housing inspection
numbers, Help-line calls, disaster unemployment claims, Small Business
Administration applicants, etc. In addition, FEMA's Flood Map
Modernization Program will update FEMA's current stock of flood maps
in order to produce more accurate and accessible digital flood maps and
make those maps accessible via the Internet.
Agency: Department of the Interior (DOI)/Bureau of Land Management
(BLM);
Activities: BLM uses GIS to store and analyze public land and
administrative jurisdiction information. In addition, BLM is working
with the Forest Service to develop the National Integrated Land System
(NILS) to provide business solutions for the management of cadastral
records and land parcel information in a GIS environment.
Agency: DOI/Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS);
Activities: The Fish and Wildlife Service uses GIS technology to:
maintain wetlands data, as referenced in OMB Circular A-16, and share
that data through a cooperative agreement with The National Map; create
and share a variety of information on endangered species, fisheries and
habitat conservation, and national wildlife refuges; make metadata
available on the NSDI through a cooperative agreement with USGS; and
share an interactive mapping application with basic information on
Fish and Wildlife Service offices through Geospatial One-Stop.
Agency: DOI/National Park Service;
Activities: The National Park Service uses geospatial data to enhance
preservation of park resources with scientific spatial analysis and
modeling, enhance visitor experiences with GPS tools and tips; provide
an Interactive Map Center to deliver base maps and park brochure maps
for geographic reference and navigation to and within parks; and
provide search and rescue maps.
Agency: DOI/U.S. Geological Survey (USGS);
Activities: USGS's Cooperative Topographic Mapping program works with
partners in other federal agencies; in state, county, and local
governments, and in the private sector to ensure that accurate,
current, and complete data that locate and describe the Earth's
features are available and that products such as the USGS topographic
series maps are kept up to date. The Geographic Analysis and Monitoring
program conducts research to understand the rates, causes, and
consequences of landscape change over time and uses that research to
model change processes for predicting future conditions. The Land
Remote Sensing program, working with NASA, NOAA, commercial satellite
companies, state and local governments, and international programs,
collects, maintains, and distributes millions of images acquired from
satellite and aircraft sensors. In addition, USGS provides a site that
serves as a node of the NSDI for finding and accessing USGS spatial
data related to hydrography. In addition, USGS is developing and
implementing The National Map as a database to provide core geospatial
data about the United States and its territories similar to the data
provided on USGS paper topographic maps. Through this project, USGS
maintains an archive for the historic preservation of data and science
applications; provides products and services that include paper maps,
digital images, data download capabilities, and scientific reports;
and promotes geographic integration and analyses.
Agency: Department of Justice/Justice Programs Office for Victims of
Crime;
Activities: Uses GIS to map crime victim services.
Agency: Department of Transportation (DOT)/Bureau of Transportation
Statistics (BTS);
Activities: The Bureau of Transportation Statistics maintains the
National Transportation Atlas Data Shapefile Download Center, which is
a set of transportation-related geospatial data for the United States,
including transportation networks, transportation facilities, and other
spatial data used as geographic reference.
Agency: DOT/Volpe National Transportation Systems Center;
Activities: The Volpe National Transportation Systems Center uses GIS
to identify data such as county boundaries, roadways, and railroads,
measure ambient noise levels, and search for locations such as historic
beacon sites and environmental data.
Agency: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA);
Activities: EPA uses a variety of geospatial data in order to support
its mission to protect human health and the environment. Specific
examples of activities supported by geospatial information include:
conducting analyses to help manage urban/suburban growth, responding to
oil spills and other emergency situations, identifying sources of
pollution for source water protection, tracking toxic substances,
cleaning up and monitoring Superfund sites, detecting and evaluating
landscape patterns and changes, analyzing the relationship between
health and environmental contaminants, and monitoring water quality.
EPA also maintains the Environmental Information Management System
(EIMS), the EPA node on the Federal Geographic Data Committee
Clearinghouse. Users can obtain metadata about EPA Geospatial data
through EIMS.
Agency: Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the
Environmental Protection Agency;
Activities: The Enterprise Geographic Information System combines
information on HUD's community development and housing programs with
EPA's environmental data, and other agencies' data, to provide
location, type, and performance of HUD-funded activities in every
neighborhood across the country and select EPA information on
brownfields, hazardous wastes, air pollution, and wastewater
discharges. It also provides information on population, transportation
and roadways, and local landmarks.
Agency: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA);
Activities: NASA's Global Change Master Directory enables users to
locate and obtain access to Earth science data sets and services
relevant to the global change and Earth science research. The database
holds more than 15,000 descriptions of Earth science data sets and
services covering all aspects of Earth and environmental sciences.
Agency: Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA);
Activities: The TVA provides an interactive map of the entire TVA
power system, a network of reservoirs and power plants.
Source: GAO.
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix III: Key Federal Laws, Policies, and Guidance Affecting
Geospatial Information and Systems:
The E-Government Act of 2002, Section 216: Common Protocols for
Geographic Information Systems. The purposes of this section are to (1)
reduce redundant data collection and information and (2) promote
collaboration and use of standards for government geographic
information. It requires the Director of OMB to oversee (1) an
interagency initiative to develop common geospatial protocols; (2) the
coordination with state, local, and tribal governments, public private
partnerships, and other interested persons of effective and efficient
ways to align geographic information and develop common protocols; and
(3) the adoption of common standards.
The Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996. The Clinger-Cohen Act directs the OMB
Director to promote and improve the acquisition, use, and disposal of
information technology by the federal government to improve the
productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness of federal programs,
including through dissemination of public information and the reduction
of information collection burdens on the pubic.
The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. This legislation directs the OMB
Director to oversee the use of information resources to improve the
efficiency and effectiveness of government operations to serve agency
missions, including burden reduction and service delivery to the
public. This includes developing, coordinating, and overseeing the
implementation of federal information resources management policies,
principles, standards, and guidelines.
Executive Order 12906: Coordinating Geographic Data Acquisition and
Access. The National Spatial Data Infrastructure. This order,
originally issued in 1994 and revised in 2003, establishes FGDC as the
interagency coordinating body for the development of the NSDI and
directs FGDC to involve state, local, and tribal governments in the
development and implementation of the NSDI. The executive order also
establishes a National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse, directs FGDC to
develop standards for implementing the NSDI, and requires that federal
agencies collecting or producing geospatial data shall ensure that data
will be collected in a manner that meets all relevant standards adopted
through the FGDC process. In addition, the executive order requires the
Interior Secretary to develop strategies for maximizing cooperative
participatory efforts with state, local, and tribal governments, the
private sector, and other nonfederal organizations to share costs and
improve efficiencies of acquiring geospatial data.
OMB Circular A-11: Preparation, Submission, and Execution of the
Budget. Part 7, Planning Budgeting, Acquisition, and Management of
Capital Assets. This circular establishes policy for planning,
budgeting, acquisition, and management of federal capital assets and
instructs agencies on budget justification and reporting requirements
for major IT investments. It requires agencies to submit business cases
to OMB for planned or ongoing major IT investments[Footnote 21] and to
answer questions to help OMB determine if the investment should be
funded.
OMB Circular A-16: Coordination of Geographic Information and Related
Spatial Data Activities. This circular calls for a coordinated approach
to developing the NSDI, establishes FGDC and identifies its roles and
responsibilities, and assigns agency roles and responsibilities for
development of the NSDI. The document states that "implementation of
this Circular is essential to help federal agencies eliminate
duplication, avoid redundant expenditures, reduce resources spent on
unfunded mandates, accelerate the development of electronic government
to meet the needs and expectations of citizens and agency programmatic
mandates, and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public
management."
OMB Circular A-130: Management of Federal Information Resources. This
circular requires agencies to ensure that improvements to existing
information systems and the development of planned information systems
do not unnecessarily duplicate IT capabilities within the same agency,
at other agencies, or in the private sector. The OMB Director is
designated to provide overall leadership and coordination of federal
information resources management within the executive branch:
[End of section]
Appendix IV: OMB Circular A-16 Data Themes, Descriptions, and Lead
Agencies:
Table 4: OMB Circular A-16 Data Themes, Descriptions, and Lead
Agencies:
Data theme: Baseline (maritime);
Description: Baseline represents the line from which maritime zones
and limits are measured. Examples of these limits include the
territorial sea, the contiguous zone, and exclusive economic zone;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOC/NOAA, DOI/ MMS[C];
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Biological resources;
Description: This data set includes data pertaining to or descriptive
of (nonhuman) biological resources and their distributions and
habitats, including data at the suborganismal (genetics, physiology,
anatomy, etc.), organismal (subspecies, species, systematics), and
ecological (populations, communities, ecosystems, biomes, etc.) levels;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/USGS;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Buildings and facilities;
Description: Includes federal sites or entities with a geospatial
location deliberately established for designated activities;
a facility database might describe a factory, military base, college,
hospital, power plant, fishery, national park, office building, space
command center, or prison;
Lead department or agency[A]: GSA[C];
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Cadastral;
Description: Describes the geographic extent of past, current, and
future right, title, and interest in real property, and the framework
to support the description of that geographic extent;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/BLM;
Framework theme[B]: Yes.
Data theme: Cadastral (offshore);
Description: Offshore Cadastre is the land management system used on
the Outer Continental Shelf. It extends from the baseline to the
extent of U.S. jurisdiction;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/MMS;
Framework theme[B]: Yes.
Data theme: Climate;
Description: Climate data describe the spatial and temporal
characteristics of the Earth's atmosphere/hydrosphere/land surface
system. These data represent both model-generated and observed
environmental information, which can be summarized to describe
surface, near surface and atmospheric conditions over a range of
scales;
Lead department or agency[A]: USDA/NRCS, DOC/NOAA;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Cultural and demographic statistics;
Description: These geospatially referenced data describe the
characteristics of people, the nature of the structures in which they
live and work; the economic and other activities they pursue; the
facilities they use to support their health, recreational, and other
needs; the environmental consequences of their presence; and the
boundaries, names, and numeric codes of geographic entities used to
report the information collected;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOC/USCB[C];
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Cultural resources;
Description: The cultural resources theme includes historic places
such as districts, sites, buildings, and structures of significance in
history, architecture, engineering, or culture. Cultural resources
also encompass prehistoric features as well as historic landscapes;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/NPS;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Digital orthoimagery;
Description: Georeferenced images of the Earth's surface, where image
object displacement has been removed for sensor distortions,
orientation, and terrain relief;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/USGS;
Framework theme[B]: Yes.
Data theme: Earth cover;
Description: The Earth Cover theme uses a hierarchical classification
system based on observable form and structure, instead of function or
use. This system transitions from generalized to more specific and
detailed class divisions, and provides a framework within which
multiple land cover and land use classification systems can be cross-
referenced. This system is applicable everywhere on the surface of the
Earth. This theme differs from the vegetation and wetlands themes,
which provide additional detail;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/USGS;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Elevation bathymetric;
Description: Highly accurate bathymetric (i.e., the measurement of
water depths) sounding information;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOC/NOAA, DOD/USACE[C];
Framework theme[B]: Yes.
Data theme: Elevation terrestrial;
Description: Georeferenced digital representations of terrestrial
surfaces, natural or manmade, that describe vertical position above or
below a datum surface;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/USGS;
Framework theme[B]: Yes.
Data theme: Federal land ownership status;
Description: Federal land ownership status includes information
describing all title, estate, or interest of the federal government in
a parcel of real and mineral property;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/BLM;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Flood hazards;
Description: The National Flood Insurance Program has prepared flood
hazard data for approximately 18,000 communities. The primary
information prepared for these communities is for the 1 percent annual
chance (100-year) flood and includes documentation of the boundaries
and elevations of that flood;
Lead department or agency[A]: DHS/FEMA;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Geodedic control;
Description: Geodetic control provides a common reference system for
establishing coordinates for all geographic data;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOC/NOAA;
Framework theme[B]: Yes.
Data theme: Geographic names;
Description: This data set contains data or information on geographic
place names deemed official for federal use by the U.S. Board on
Geographic Names as pursuant to Public Law 80- 242. Geographic names
information includes both the official place name (current,
historical, and aliases) and direct (i.e., geographic coordinates) and
indirect (i.e., state and county where place is located) geospatial
identifiers. This information is categorized as populated places,
schools, reservoirs, parks, streams, valleys, and ridges;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/USGS;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Geologic;
Description: The geologic spatial data theme includes all geologic
mapping information and related geoscience spatial data (including
associated geophysical, geochemical, geochronologic, and paleontologic
data) that can contribute to the National Geologic Map Database as
pursuant to Public Law 106-148;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/USGS;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Governmental units;
Description: These data describe, by a consistent set of rules and
semantic definitions, the official boundary of federal, state, local,
and tribal governments as reported to the Census Bureau by responsible
officials of each government for purposes of reporting the nation's
official statistics;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOC/USCB;
Framework theme[B]: Yes.
Data theme: Housing;
Description: Geographic data on homeownership rates, including many
attributes such as HUD revitalization zones, location of various forms
of housing assistance, first-time home buyers, underserved areas, and
race;
Lead department or agency[A]: HUD;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Hydrography;
Description: Includes surface water features such as lakes, ponds,
streams and rivers, canals, oceans, and coastlines;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/USGS;
Framework theme[B]: Yes.
Data theme: International boundaries;
Description: Includes both textual information to describe, and GIS
digital cartographic data to depict, both land and maritime
international boundaries, other lines of separation, limits, zones,
enclaves/exclaves, and special areas between states and dependencies;
Lead department or agency[A]: Department of State;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Law enforcement statistics;
Description: Describes the occurrence of events (including incidences,
offenses, and arrests) geospatially located, related to ordinance and
statutory violations and the individuals involved in those
occurrences. Also included are data related to deployment of law
enforcement resources and performance measures;
Lead department or agency[A]: Department of Justice;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Marine boundaries;
Description: Marine boundaries depict offshore waters and seabeds over
which the United States has sovereignty and jurisdiction;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOC/NOAA, DOI/MMS;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Offshore minerals;
Description: Includes minerals occurring in submerged lands. Examples
of marine minerals include oil, gas, sulfur, gold, sand and gravel, and
manganese;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/MMS;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Outer Continental Shelf submerged lands;
Description: Includes lands covered by water at any stage of the tide--
as distinguished from tidelands, which are attached to the mainland or
an island and cover and uncover with the tide. Tidelands presuppose a
high-water line as the upper boundary, whereas submerged lands do not;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/MMS;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Public health;
Description: Public health themes relate to the protection,
improvement and promotion of the health and safety of all people. For
example, public health databases include spatial data on deaths and
births, infectious and notifiable diseases, incident cancer cases,
behavioral risk factor and tuberculosis surveillance, hazardous
substance releases and health effects, hospital statistics, and other
similar data;
Lead department or agency[A]: HHS;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Public land conveyance (patent) records;
Description: The records that describe all past, current, and future
rights, titles, and interest in real property;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/BLM;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Shoreline;
Description: Represents the intersection of the land with the water
surface. The shoreline shown on NOAA charts represents the line of
contact between the land and a selected water elevation;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOC/NOAA;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Soils;
Description: Consists of georeferenced map data, describing the
spatial distribution of the various soils that cover the Earth's
surface, and attribute data, describing the proportionate extent of the
various soils as well as the physical and chemical characteristics of
those soils. The physical and chemical properties are based on
observed and measured values, as well as model-generated values. Also
included are model-generated assessments of the suitability or
limitations of the soils to various land uses;
Lead department or agency[A]: USDA/NRCS;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Transportation;
Description: Transportation data are used to model the geographic
locations, interconnectedness, and characteristics of the
transportation system within the United States. The transportation
system includes both physical and nonphysical components representing
all modes of travel that allow the movement of goods and people
between locations;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOT/ BTS;
Framework theme[B]: Yes.
Data theme: Transportation (marine);
Description: The Navigation Channel Framework consists of highly
accurate dimensions (geographic coordinates for channel sides,
centerlines, wideners, turning basins, and river mile markers) for
every federal navigation channel maintained by the Army Corps of
Engineers. The navigation framework will provide the basis for the
marine transportation theme of the geospatial data framework;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOD/USACE;
Framework theme[B]: Yes.
Data theme: Vegetation;
Description: Describes a collection of plants or plant communities
with distinguishable characteristics that occupy an area of interest;
Lead department or agency[A]: USDA/USFS[C];
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Watershed boundaries;
Description: This data theme encodes hydrologic watershed boundaries
into topographically defined sets of drainage areas, organized in a
nested hierarchy by size and based on a standard hydrologic unit
coding system;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/USGS, USDA/NRCS;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Data theme: Wetlands;
Description: Provides the classification, location, and extent of
wetlands and deepwater habitats;
Lead department or agency[A]: DOI/FWS;
Framework theme[B]: No.
Source: OMB Circular A-16.
[A] Certain federal agencies have lead responsibilities for
coordinating the national coverage and stewardship of specific spatial
data themes. According to OMB Circular A-16, lead federal agencies are
responsible for (1) providing leadership and facilitating the
development and implementation of needed FGDC standards, (2) providing
leadership and facilitating the development and implementation of a
plan for nationwide population of each data theme, and (3) preparing
goals that support the NSDI strategy.
[B] According to OMB Circular A-16, framework themes are data themes
that provide the core, most commonly used set of base geospatial data.
[C] General Services Administration (GSA); Minerals Management Service
(MMS); U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE); U.S. Census Bureau (USCB);
and U.S. Forest Service (USFS).
[End of table]
[End of section]
Appendix V: Glossary:
Attribute:
A characteristic of an object or feature on a map.
Base map:
A map that shows the horizontal position of features on which
additional information may be placed.
Bathymetry:
The measurement and study of water depths.
Cadastral:
Pertaining to extent, value, and ownership of land.
Cartography:
The science and art of making maps and charts.
Digital elevation model:
A digital file containing an array of regularly spaced elevations.
Digital orthoimagery:
Georeferenced images of the Earth's surface, where image object
displacement has been removed for sensor distortions, orientation, and
terrain relief.
Ellipsoid:
A geometric surface whose plane sections are either ellipses or
circles.
Geodesy:
The science of the measurement and mathematical depiction of the size
and shape of the Earth and its gravitational field.
Geodetic control:
A set of surveyed features with their locations referenced to
particular survey monuments by latitude, longitude, and height above
the ellipsoid.
Geospatial data:
Information that pertains to the geographic location and character of
natural or constructed features and boundaries on the Earth.
Geographic information system:
A system of computer hardware, software, and data that collects,
manages, manipulates, analyzes, and displays a potentially wide array
of information associated with geographic locations.
Global Positioning System:
A constellation of orbiting satellites that provides navigation data to
military and civilian users around the world.
Hydrography:
The science dealing with the physical features of oceans, lakes,
rivers, and other surface waters often conducted in support of marine
navigation and nautical charting.
Metadata:
Data containing descriptive information about other data.
National Spatial Data Infrastructure:
A national structure of policies, standards, technologies, and human
resources that supports and facilitates the management and use of
geographic information.
Orthophotograph:
An image reproduction prepared from a perspective photograph in which
the displacement of features due to sensor tilt and terrain relief has
been removed.
Photogrammetry:
The science of obtaining reliable measurements or information from
images.
Raster data:
A row of descriptive elements, such as pixels, represented as a regular
two-dimensional arrangement of data values at discrete points, normally
arrayed line by line across a given surface or area.
Remote sensing:
Imaging or recording of physical phenomenon, at a distance, by
detecting emitted or reflected energy.
Remote sensing systems:
Remote sensing systems collect these data from a distance--such as from
a satellite or an aerial platform--that are either emitted or reflected
by the Earth and the atmospheres.
Rectification:
The process of removing displacement in a photograph caused by the tilt
of the recording device or variations in terrain relief.
Spatial data:
Geographically referenced features that are described by geographic
positions and attributes in an analog or computer-readable (digital)
form.
Topography:
The form of the physical features of a land surface or sea bottom; also
called relief.
Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing:
A database maintained by the Census Bureau that automates the mapping
and related geographic activities required to support the decennial
census and the bureau's sample survey programs.
(310391):
FOOTNOTES
[1] Geospatial assets include geographic information systems (GIS),
data, technology, and standards.
[2] Attributes describe the qualities or characteristics of an entity
or phenomenon.
[3] For more information on remote sensing systems, see U.S. General
Accounting Office, Geospatial Information: Technologies Hold Promise
for Wildland Fire Management, but Challenges Remain, GAO-03-1047
(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 23, 2003).
[4] B. Keller and G. Kreizman, To The Rescue: GIS in New York City on
Sept. 11 (Gartner Inc., Mar. 11, 2002), www.gartner.com (downloaded
Mar. 10, 2004).
[5] The Bureau of the Budget became the Office of Management and Budget
in 1970.
[6] P.L. 107-347, section 216.
[7] 40 U.S.C. § 11302(b).
[8] 44 U.S.C. § 3504(a)(1).
[9] According to OMB Circular A-11, a major IT investment means a
system or investment that requires special management attention because
of its importance to an agency's mission; the investment was a major
investment in the fiscal year 2004 submission and is continuing; the
investment is for financial management and spends more than $500,000;
the investment is directly tied to the top two layers of the Federal
Enterprise Architecture; the investment is an integral part of the
agency's modernization blueprint; the investment has significant
program or policy implications; the investment has high executive
visibility; or the investment is defined as major by the agency's
capital planning and investment control process. Investments that are
e-government in nature or use e-business technologies must be
identified as major investments regardless of their costs.
[10] OMB's E-Government Task Force identified 23 initiatives (two
additional initiatives were subsequently added) aimed at improving
service to individuals and businesses, intergovernmental affairs, and
federal agency-to-agency efficiency and effectiveness.
[11] An enterprise architecture is a blueprint, defined largely by
interrelated models, that describes (in both business and technology
terms) an entity's "as is" or current environment, its "to be" or
future environment, and its investment plan for transitioning from the
current to the future environment.
[12] Orthoimagery is imagery prepared from perspective photographs in
which the displacement of features due to sensor tilt and terrain
relief has been removed.
[13] The scope of these cost estimates varies and may include
development, operation, or both. The examples are for illustrative
purposes and are not intended to be compared.
[14] This figure does not include costs for data acquisition. Some
National Map data are acquired from Landsat satellites, which are
estimated to cost about $95 million to operate through 2008.
[15] Metadata refers to data that contain or define other data. For
geospatial information, metadata provides information about, among
other things, sources used, collection methods, and the date the data
were collected.
[16] U.S. General Accounting Office, Electronic Government: Selection
and Implementation of the Office of Management and Budget's 24
Initiatives, GAO-03-229 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 22, 2002).
[17] P.L. 103-62, section 3.
[18] According to Circular A-16, agencies are required to publish only
data that they are able to share with the public.
[19] U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: The
Federal Enterprise Architecture and Agencies' Enterprise Architectures
Are Still Maturing, GAO-04-798T (Washington, D.C. May 19, 2004).
[20] National Research Council, A Geospatial Framework for the Coastal
Zone: National Needs for Coastal Mapping and Charting (Washington,
D.C., 2004).
[21] According to OMB Circular A-11, a major IT investment means a
system or investment that requires special management attention because
of its importance to an agency's mission; the investment was a major
investment in the fiscal year 2004 submission and is continuing; the
investment is for financial management and spends more than $500,000;
the investment is directly tied to the top two layers of the Federal
Enterprise Architecture; the investment is an integral part of the
agency's modernization blueprint (EA); the investment has significant
program or policy implications; the investment has high executive
visibility; or the investment is defined as major by the agency's
capital planning and investment control process. Investments that are
e-government in nature or use e-business technologies must be
identified as major investments regardless of the costs.
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