Geoinformatics coordination
efforts between USGS and State
Geological Surveys in USA
Stephen M. Richard
Arizona Geological Survey
History
• National geologic mapping program
– State – federal cooperative program
– USGS-National Geologic Map Database
(NGMDB) project
• Geologic map catalog
• GeoLex
• Support data model development (NADM)
– No data integration within USGS or between
states/USGS
GEON, National Science Foundation
• Independent projects
• Focus on development of ontologies,
individual databases
• GEON portal— Implements standardized
data discovery mechanism
Evolution of interoperability efforts
• NADM 4.3-relational dB model
• Deliverable requirements for digital
products under National Geologic Mapping
Program
• FGDC Symbol standard
• Conceptual Model NADM C1
• Interchange markup language, developed
in international arena
Issues:
• Development of geoinformatics
infrastructure is an engineering process
• Social/cultural barriers– Data ownership issues
– Promotion/tenure based on research
– Lack of motivating factors to publish data
• Maintenance of infrastructure requires
long-term, stable funding
Current Activities
• Meeting of USGS managers and state geologists
Feb 21-22
• Presentation of results to USGS director and Chief
Geologist
• Presentation to liason meeting of state geologists
• Produce white paper presenting plan for role of
geological surveys in national geoinformatics system
• Meeting of state and federal survey representatives
with leaders in academic community to develop
shared vision and concrete plan for development
(March 14-15)
USGS – State Geologist workshop
recommendations
Federal and state geological surveys work
together to create a distributed national
geological information system
– Use common standards and protocols
– Respect distributed stewardship of data
– Build upon existing data systems
Surveys will benefit in multiple ways from
employing service-oriented architecture
• Information resources from each survey will be
available to the world audience
• Surveys will be able to take advantage of a
broader information base to better serve their
customers.
• Information resources will be more valuable
because they will be interoperable.
• Wide usage of standardized formats will promote
development of software using the formats,
reducing software cost
What defines geoinformatics
system?
• Standardized, documented transport
protocols (e.g. XML markup languages)
• Standardized service definitions
• Participation by implementing
standardized service definitions and
registering these in recognized directories
Geological surveys have mission
requirements and inherent partnerships for:
– Geologic maps
– Hazard data and maps
– Topographic data
– Resource data (minerals, energy, water etc.)
– Publications and bibliographies
– Samples, boreholes, and site information-observations and analytical measurements
– Legacy analog data (field notes, air photographs…)
• Surveys need to participate in decisions on
protocols and services based on this data
Proposed action
• Implement testbed(s) - proof of concept; determine
levels of effort and cost benefits; provide immediate
benefits.
– Geologic Maps
– Site-based data catalog
• Review and adopt standards and protocols for
developing the system (including metadata).
– New and existing systems should communicate with
an open source (OGC-based) protocol such as GML
to promote interoperability.
– Test and consider accepting GeoSciML as transport
protocol and proposing as a standard to FGDC.
Intellectual property
• Major stumbling block in development of
service-oriented architecture
• Solution: Community code of conduct that
respects data provenance and acknowledges
ownership.
– Respect intellectual property and data provenance
– Use “branding” in data services to acknowledge data
sources
– Develop usage metrics to utilize in clients and web
services and report to providers
Summary
By demonstrating national cooperation for
data access and interoperability among
the federal and state geological surveys,
we may be able to serve as a model for
broader cooperation in geoinformatics
across the Earth science community
http://www.geoinformatics.info
The End