New York State Office of Cyber Security
Geographic Information Systems Clearinghouse
Standards and Data Coordination Work Group
Meeting Notes
April 8, 2008
Attendees
Albany, NY: Cheryl Benjamin (NYS CSCIC), John Borst (NYS CSCIC), Didem Cakmak (NYS PSC), Rodger Coryell (NYS CSCIC), Steve Emerick (NYS CSCIC), Ray Faught (NYS CSCIC), Mark Giddings (NYS DOH), Eric Herman (NYS Thruway), Jeff Herter (NYS DOS), Frank Kenney (USGS), Gwen LaSelva (NYS DOH), Michael Martel (NYS DA&M), Todd Nelson (NYS DCJS), Michael Praeger (NYS CSCIC), John Wingfield (NY Power Authority)
By Teleconference: Ed Freeborn (NLECTC-NE), Dwight Hughes (USGS-GNIS), Cathy Keenan (USDA-NRCS), Linda Watson (University of Alabama)
General
Upcoming Meetings - July 15, September 30 & January 6.
Review/Approve 03/24/2007 Meeting Minutes - Added more details to the On-going Activities section of the meeting notes. Revised minutes approved for posting on the Clearinghouse.
News Items
March GIS Coordinating Body Meeting - The following items were noted:
- Coordinating Body Membership Changes – Two new members joined the Coordinating Body: Susan Hoskins (Cornell University) as a representative for Academia and Craig Cheeseman (Adirondack Nature Conservancy) as a representative for Non-Profits.
- NYS Surveyor Licensing Bill – Daren Morgan, president of NYSAPLS, spoke at the September GIS Coordinating Body meeting about the proposed legislation that had been introduced in the Senate (Senate bill S04396 http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=S04396&sh=t) and has been forwarded to the Education Committee. The members of the Coordinating Body posed several questions including concerns about the proposed wording not exactly following the national NCEES Model Law and Model Rules that were jointly developed by the national GIS and national surveying community.
- New York State’s Strategic and Business Plan in Support of the NSDI – Strategic Planning sessions were held around the state in July and October. Notes from the regional meetings and a discussion draft of the report are available on the NYS GIS Clearinghouse at http://gis.ny.gov/coordinationprogram/reports/straplan/index.cfm.
NYSDOP Update - Ray Faught (rfaught@dhses.ny.gov) provided the following update:
- Status pages available at http://gis.ny.gov/gateway/orthoprogram/index.cfm
- Status info for 2007 updated
- Upgrade maps for 2008
- Planned coverage for 2009
- Plan to get map for 2010 up by Summer 2008, once Lot 9 is confirmed
- Lot 7 orthoimagery in various stages (17 counties total)
- 9 Counties accepted and available through Clearinghouse (Nassau, Putnam, Saratoga, Seneca, Schenectady, Schuyler, Steuben, Tompkins, and Yates)
- 2 Counties accepted and should be available soon (Rensselaer and Cattaraugus)
- 5 Counties nearly finished (Albany, Allegany, Orange, Rockland, and Westchester)
- Western half of Suffolk is accepted; eastern half is being reprocessed
- Lot 8 field and flight work underway
- About 80% of NYC coverage has been flown
- Targeting in western 3 counties nearly complete
- Targeting starting in Adirondack Counties
- Includes LIDAR collection to support FEMA Flood Map updating by DEC (Western part of Putnam County, Albany & Schenectady, part of Oneida)
- Outreach for Lot 9 should start with mailings to Counties in May or June, 2008
- NYSDOP web service through EROS should have Lot 6 soon
Clearinghouse Update - The Geospatial Summit will be held on May 21, 2008 at the Welych Allyn Lodge in Skaneateles. More information and on-line registration for the event can be found at http://www.nysgis.org/summit/2008. There are now 760 NYS GIS Data Sharing Cooperative members.
NYS Streets & Address Data Update - Cheryl Benjamin (cbenjamin@dhses.ny.gov) provided the following update:
- The July Streets, Address Points & other (quarterly) data layers are currently posted on the NYS GIS Clearinghouse. A last data deliverable from our data maintenance provider, Tele Atlas, is expected in late March. Following its review and subsequent corrections, CSCIC expects a final version in mid-to-late May that will be processed and posted in June.
- A draft RFP for Data Maintenance Services was released in March with comments due on April 7. Comments will be reviewed and a final RFP will be released in late spring/early summer.
- The Map Maintenance, Notification and Tracking (MMNT) application is now in the Production environment. MMNT will be made available to our county and local government partners following resolution of some security vulnerabilities found during recent penetration testing of the application. Discussions with county and local governments regarding potential data maintenance partnerships and access to MMNT are underway.
Outreach Activities - John Borst (jborst@dhses.ny.gov) announced that the "'Introduction to GIS Web Services"' workshop offered from December 2007 through March 2008 was very successful. A total of 455 people attended and positive feedback was received at all venues regarding workshop content.
USGS-Federal Data/Coordination Activities - Frank Kenney (fkenney@usgs.gov) distributed a copy of his Federal Activities Report that was presented at the March GIS Coordinating Body meeting. Of note is that requests for federal funding assistance totaling over $800,000 have been placed for NYS DOP orthoimagery and LiDAR data collection projects. Frank also noted that the National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) flew NYS in 2006. The 1 meter natural color leaf-on orthoimagery is available for viewing at http://gdw.apfo.usda.gov/naip/viewer/viewer.htm or for purchase from http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/GatewayHome.html or
http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/apfoapp?area=home&subject=prog&topic=nai-or
SSURGO Soils Mapping Status - Cathy Keenan (cathy.keenan@ny.usda.gov), USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), announced that outside of New York City, Allegany County and parts of Franklin, Lewis, Herkimer and Onondaga counties, SSURGO Soils digitizing has been completed in New York State (see attached county status map). Completed data for the SSURGO certified counties can be ordered or downloaded on-line at http://soildatamart.nrcs.usda.gov. Currently revisions are underway along the state boundary and NRCS is piloting a web feature service.
State Agency Advisory Group - Next meeting will be June 17 at NYS OPRHP's Peebles Island office.
Special Presentation – GNIS Overview, Usage, and Maintenance
Dwight Hughes, USGS, provided a live webex presentation on the USGS’ Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). GNIS (http://geonames.usgs.gov) is an on-line searchable database of physical and cultural geographic features. The database contains the federally recognized name of features as well as alternate names and spellings as determined by the US Board of Geographic Names (BGN). Of note:
- Man-made features are not determined by BGN
- Place names can be categorized as CIVIL (a political division formed for administrative purposes with legal boundaries) or POPULATED PLACE (place or area with clustered or scattered buildings and a permanent human population)
- County and State FIPS codes will be retained however FIPS 55 Place Codes are being replaced by the GNIS Unique Feature ID. A benefit of these new codes is that if a place name or its status changes, the GNIS feature ID will remain the same.
- Valid features are not removed from the database but become classified as "historical" if they no longer exist and are no longer visible on the landscape.
- When municipalities merge and the name of one of the municipalities is retained, the GNIS ID is retained and the other name is classified as historical. However if an entirely new name is assigned, a new GNIS ID is assigned and both old names are classified as historical.
- A file of New York State names can be downloaded and brought into a GIS (http://geonames.usgs.gov/domestic/download_data.htm).
- Updates and new feature names are encouraged and can be submitted on-line through the GNIS site (http://geonames.usgs.gov/domestic/name_form.htm).
Linda Watson, a Place Names Researcher/Project Director at the University of Alabama, Department of Geography, discussed the NYS GNIS Phase II project regarding geographic names data compilation in New York State. This is the University of Alabama's 15th contract with USGS for GNIS updating and they are 2 years into their 4 year contract for NYS names. Updates have been completed for the New York City metropolitan area, extending into Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties and the Buffalo metropolitan area. They use any GIS files, historical maps or other data they can obtain during their research. Meeting participants recommended other potential data sources for the GNIS research. It was suggested that requests for specific data or regions be posted to the GIS-NY list as a means to tap into the broader NYS GIS community. Frank Kenney, NYS’ USGS liaison, also offered to coordinate source requests.
On-Going Work Group Activities
Proposed GPS Guidelines Update - Cheryl Benjamin (cbenjamin@dhses.ny.gov) reported that the GIS Coordinating Body had approved the GPS Guidelines at their December meeting and the Guidelines were pending final CSCIC executive approval.
New Work Group Activities
Spatial Data Reference Codes - The Work Group will revisit the Spatial Data Reference Codes page (http://gis.ny.gov/coordinationprogram/workgroups/wg_1/related/spcodes/index.html) and verify relevancy of existing codes, verify existing links, add/update data file formats, and identify any additional codes to add to the listing.
Next Meeting: July 15, 2008
Location: CSCIC, 30 South Pearl Street, 11th Floor, Albany, NY
