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Standards and Data Coordination Work Group
Meeting Notes
October 21, 2008

Attendees
Albany, NY: Cheryl Benjamin (NYS CSCIC), Didem Cakmak (NYS PSC), Barbara Cruden (NYS DEC), Ed Freeborn (NLECTC-NE), Mark Giddings (NYS DOH), Tom Henderson (NYS CSCIC), Jeff Herter (NYS DOS), Bill Johnson (NYS CSCIC), Gwen LaSelva (NYS DOH), Michael Martel (NYS DA&M), Todd Nelson (NYS DCJS), Rob Rizzo (NYS DOT), Bob Scardamalia (Empire State Development), Frank Winters (NYS CSCIC)
By Teleconference: John Barge (Adirondack Park Agency), Alan Leidner (Booz Allen Hamilton), Dan O’Brien (NYS SEMO)

General
Upcoming Meetings - January 6

News Items
May GIS Coordinating Body Meeting - Cheryl Benjamin highlighted the following items:

• Office of Homeland Security Grants - Can now be used for GIS. CSCIC has available a short document on the "OHS Grant Funding Process".
• GISP Certification – The grandfather clause is valid on applications until December 2, 2008.
• GIS Coordinating Body Nominations – Should be submitted to committee members (Bob Breglio, Craig Cheeseman, Mark Storti, Joe Jones) for consideration before the 12/11/08 Coordinating Body meeting.
• USGS Graphics Program: The National Map - Mike Cooley and Paul Wise, USGS, discussed a new image mapping product that will be available beginning in 2009. The image maps are based on NAIP 1 meter imagery in 1:24,000 scale 7.5-minute format. Intended for emergency responders, the product will also be available to the public. NYS imagery capture is scheduled for Spring 2009 along the Canadian border. More information is available at http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3065/pdf/FS2008-3065.pdf.
• USGS Graphics Program: E-Topo Mapping – A map-on-demand system that currently uses leaf-on imagery.  Eventually this product, also in 1:24,000 scale 7.5-minute format, will transition to leaf-off imagery. Products will initially be available in GeoPDF and GeoTIFF formats with KML format a future consideration.
• National Geospatial Advisory Council (NGAC) - Zsolt Nagy, North Carolina, provided a high level overview of NGAC’s directive: to provide advice and recommendations on federal geospatial policy and management issues and to convey that are representative of partners in the geospatial community.  Initial tasks include guidance and recommendations on advancing the NSDI, creating public-private partnerships, management of federal geospatial resources, and data initiatives such as The National Map and Imagery for the Nation. More information is available at www.fgdc.gov/ngac.

GIS Clearinghouse Activities - Cheryl Benjamin announced that the GIS newsletter is now available (electronic only) and a limited number of hard copies of the GIS Strategic Plan are available by request.

NYSDOP Update - Cheryl Benjamin, on behalf of Ray Faught (rfaught@dhses.ny.gov), provided the following update:

• Status pages available at http://gis.ny.gov/gateway/orthoprogram. Expect to have map for 2010 up by Fall 2008
• Lot 8 underway
• LIDAR collection to support FEMA Flood Map updating by DEC (Albany County, Schenectady County, the western part of Putnam County, and part of Oneida County have been delivered and QA/QC is underway. Putnam acceptance expected soon.
• Orthoimagery of Erie and Niagara counties have been delivered and look very good so far.
• Chautauqua expected by the end of October and Kings and Queens counties in mid-November.
• Lot 9 outreach letters have been sent, and we are awaiting responses.
• NYSDOP web service through EROS has Lot 6 up and most of Lot 7 has been shipped except for Long Island. We are not sure of the time frame for imagery to be put on their servers, or for them to send more drives to load Long Island (1 TB)

NYS Streets & Address Data Update - Cheryl Benjamin announced:

• An October release of the NYS Streets data is now available on the NYS GIS Clearinghouse at http://gis.ny.gov/gisdata/inventories/details.cfm?DSID=932
• The NYS Streets Data Maintenance RFP had 4 bids from 3 vendors with NAVTEQ being tentatively selected. Contract award is pending final approval by the State Comptroller’s Office.

Update on FGDC Activities – Cheryl Benjamin noted the following:

• 2009 NSDI CAP – Proposals are due to FGDC by January 6, 2009. Over $1.3 million will fund an estimated 26 projects in 7 different categories. Details are available at www.fgdc.gov/grants.
• Geographic Information Framework Data Standards – FGDC officially endorsed this standard in May 2008 (http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/projects/FGDC-standards-projects/framework-data-standard/framework-data-standard-part5). The GIS Standards & Data Coordination Work Group reviewed and commented on the 7 NSDI Framework Data themes (Cadastral Data, Digital Orthoimagery, Elevation, Geodetic Control, Governmental Unit Boundaries, Hydrography, Transportation) several years ago. The Framework Data Standards specify a minimum level of data content for each theme to use for the interchange of framework data.
• Wetland Mapping Standard – FGDC released a final draft of this document. The draft, including the comments received from the 2007 public review, are now posted at http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/projects/FGDC-standards-projects/wetlands-mapping.
• Federal Trails Data Standard – A draft of this new standard was released during the summer for public review.  The standard, available at http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/projects/FGDC-standards-projects/trail-data-standard/trail-data-standards, is a data content and data transfer standard.
• Coastal and Marine Ecological Classification Standard – This is a newly proposed standard that already exists as a draft national standard developed by NOAA and NatureServe.  A draft standard is not yet available but the proposal can be reviewed at http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/projects/FGDC-standards-projects/cmecs-folder/cmecs-index-page.
• Cultural Resources Geospatial Data Content Standard – This newly proposed data content standard is not meant to address descriptive attribute data.  The proposal, available at http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/projects/FGDC-standards-projects/cultural-resources/cultural-resources-home, clearly states that there is no intent to create a national cultural dataset but the standard will allow more efficient data sharing.

On-Going Work Group Activities
GPS Data Collection Guidelines - Given the continual technology changes, the GPS Guidelines subcommittee will be reconvened sometime in the next several months to begin a review and update of the Guidelines.  Recommendations for new subcommittee members should be sent to Chery.

Spatial Data Reference Codes – The group reviewed the recent updates to the Spatial Data Reference Codes page (http://gis.ny.gov/coordinationprogram/workgroups/wg_1/related/spcodes). A few additional changes were identified and tasked to Work Group members.

Special Discussion – Census LUCA Program
Bob Scardamalia stressed that having an accurate housing unit count is critical, especially with current Census projections showing NYS losing two Congressional seats after the 2010 Census. Bob provided an overview of how Empire State Development (ESD) participated in the Local Update of Census Addresses (LUCA) program.  This was the first time States were allowed to review and comment on the Census Bureau’s Master Address File.  This is the list of housing unit and group quarters addresses that the Census Bureau will use to deliver the 2010 Census questionnaires. ESD focused on counties outside of NYC, submitting almost 425,000 addresses to the US Census Bureau. Additional addresses submitted directly by local governments through LUCA: NYC 170,000; Counties 186,000; local governments 83,000.

Special Demo – Critical Infrastructure Response Information System (CIRIS)
This was a follow-up to the August 28 Work Group Meeting discussion regarding sharing of GIS data for activities related to homeland security, emergency response, and disaster preparedness. 

Tom Henderson demonstrated New York State’s model for data sharing, the Critical Infrastructure Response Information System (CIRIS), and its robust search engine that makes it easy to find the data needed for analysis. A key feature of CIRIS is that the input data generally only requires datum and projection transformations.  It does not require loading into a standard data model.

Alan Leidner, who has been involved in the Homeland Infrastructure Foundation Level Database (HIFLD) Working Group, spoke about the DHS Geospatial Data Model [GDM], the federal data sharing model. GDM is comprised of pre-defined features that have pre-defined content. This requires existing local government data to be extracted, transformed, and loaded into the GDM before it can be used. GDM tends to be useful if you are creating a new data set but it is much more cumbersome to use if you already have an existing data set.

Alan inquired about how NYS and the federal government could further discussions on geospatial data sharing.  Bill Johnson, chair of the NYS GIS Coordinating Body, recommended that Alan have the appropriate people involved in the federal Department of Homeland Security contact their counterparts in the NYS Office of Homeland Security to open the discussions.

Next Meeting:  January 6, 2009
Location:  CSCIC, 30 South Pearl Street, 11th Floor, Albany, NY