USGS Geography: About The National Map

The National Map is the product of a consortium of Federal, State, and local partners

The Nation Needs The National Map

Governments depend on a common set of base information that describes the Earth's surface and locates features. They use this information as a tool for economic and community development, land and natural resource management, and health and safety services. Federal functions ranging from emergency management and defense to environmental protection rely on this information. Private industry, nongovernmental organizations, and individual citizens also use the same geographic data. Geographic information underpins an increasingly large part of the Nation's economy.

One of the lessons learned from the tragedies of September 11, 2001, is that complete and current public domain base geographic information must be immediately available coast to coast and border to border. The National Map will ensure access to this information.

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A New Vision and Commitment

The National Map is a new perspective on geographic base information. By sharing its vision, the USGS affirms its dedication to refocusing and reinvigorating its efforts to meet the Nation's needs for this critical information. The USGS will consolidate and redefine its component mapping activities and seek creative partnerships to ensure that current, complete, consistent, and accurate information is available and useful to the Nation. It will take sustained commitment to achieve the full goals of The National Map vision. In the near future, the USGS and its partners will concentrate on improving data and map content and currentness for high priority areas, with emphasis on building long-term partnerships, and on improving data access and dissemination capabilities. The National Map will provide public domain core geographic data about the United States and its territories that other agencies can extend, enhance, and reference as they concentrate on maintaining other data that are unique to their needs. The National Map will be a foundation of information to which the private sector can contribute core feature content and to which proprietary datasets can be linked to provide access to higher resolution data, additional (non-base) features, and enriched attribute information. The National Map will promote cost effectiveness by minimizing the need to find, develop, integrate, and maintain geographic base data each time they are needed.

Under USGS leadership, The National Map will provide data and operational capabilities that include the following:

High-resolution digital orthorectified imagery from aerial photographs or satellite imagery that will provide some of the feature information now symbolized on topographic maps.
High-resolution surface elevation data including bathymetry to derive contours for primary series topographic maps and to support Earth surface modeling and the production of accurate orthorectified imagery.
Vector feature data for hydrography (rivers and water bodies), transportation (roads, railways, and waterways), structures, government unit boundaries, and publicly owned lands boundaries.
Geographic names for physical and cultural features to support the U.S. Board on Geographic Names and other names such as for highways and streets.
Land cover data that classify the land surface into categories such as open water and high-density residential.

Changes affecting The National Map will be captured and integrated with existing data in a process of continuous update, rather than through cyclical inspection and revision. Currentness will be measured in weeks and months.

Data will be seamless and consistently classified, enabling users to extract information for irregular geographic areas, such as counties or drainage basins, and to spatially analyze the information. Data resolution and completeness will vary depending on geographic area and need. For example, The National Map will contain higher resolution elevation data in areas of subtle relief variation, such as river flood plains, to support hydrographic modeling.

Content will be mapped in its true geographic position. This will eliminate the offsets and feature generalizations that exist in data collected from existing maps. Positional accuracy will be sufficient to vertically and logically align features from different data themes. Thus, river course will correspond to land surface slope, and boundaries will align with corresponding features, such as roads or rivers. The National Map will contain data for many areas that surpass the standards that have been applicable to primary series topographic maps.

The initial version of The National Map will be based primarily on existing available data. As the initial version is improved, emphasis will shift to maintaining data currentness through continuous updating. Potential data sources include State and local governments, private industry, and local trained and certified volunteers.

All content of The National Map will be documented by metadata that comply with Federal Geographic Data Committee standards.

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USGS Role

The most widely known form of geographic base information for the United States is the USGS primary series topographic map. The USGS has produced more than 55,000 unique map sheets and approximately 220,000 digital orthorectified aerial images to cover the Nation. These maps and images are a national treasure, but the average primary series topographic map is 23 years old.

Frequent changes on the landscape mean that many of these maps are no longer accurate and complete. The USGS is committed to organizing and leading cooperative activities that will link Federal, State, county, and local governments with the private sector and the public to ensure that current geographic base information is readily available and useful.

Up-to-date geographic information supported infrastructure and event planning and operations for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. (Park City East, UT, 1:24,000-scale USGS topographic map)

In order to promote the value of base geographic data, the USGS will reestablish linkages between the topographic map series and the foundation digital data from which the maps will be derived. The USGS will implement strategies that provide information wherein currentness is measured in weeks and months, rather than years or decades. The heart of this continuously maintained set of geographic information is The National Map, which will be the foundation of data upon which USGS science will be based and to which the outputs of all USGS programs can be linked. In addition, USGS will advocate that The National Map be the base of geographic information upon which other Federal programs will be built, and to which the geographic activities of State and local governments, the private sector, academia, and the general public can be linked.

The USGS is emphasizing our role in organizing the United States mapping community, including promoting awareness of requirements, capabilities, and resources, and collaborating in partnerships that result in better and more relevant national datasets. The USGS will serve as a data integrator to ensure that these datasets are nationally consistent and accurate. By maintaining our partnerships for data and technology with the private sector, and through our own work force when appropriate, the USGS will sustain capabilities and capacities to produce data when no other source exists, and to respond to immediate needs for data in crisis situations. The USGS has ongoing implementations of The National Map in each USGS region to establish partnerships with other Federal agencies such as the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and with State and local governments and private industry that will validate The National Map vision. The USGS will honor our existing data and map production commitments, while we search for new opportunities to align future commitments with the objectives of The National Map. By creating a five-year strategic plan for The National Map, the USGS will link the vision to annual performance plans that integrate various USGS data theme and mapping activities to achieve long-term goals for information completeness, accuracy, consistency, and currentness.

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Strategies

The USGS will be the (1) guarantor of national data completeness, consistency, and accuracy; (2) organizer of component activities; (3) catalyst and collaborator for partnerships and business relationships; (4) leader in the development and implementation of national geospatial data standards; (5) integrator and certifier of data from all sources; and (6) data producer through contracts with the private sector and limited in-house production when no other source exists. A Federal advisory committee will make recommendations on requirements, business processes, technology implementation, and skills development that support The National Map objectives.

The USGS will proactively seek partnerships and business arrangements with government agencies, the private sector, and other organizations to develop and operate The National Map. USGS staff will be located across the Nation at Mapping Partnership Offices to work directly with staff of other USGS disciplines, partner organizations, private industry, and universities.

Taking advantage of the ongoing convergence of broadband wireless communication, mass data storage, and geolocation capabilities in personal digital devices, the USGS will encourage the participation of organizations and private citizens to serve as a volunteer force for change detection, data compilation and validation.

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Access and Use

The National Map will be accessible through the Internet all day, every day. The data will be in the public domain. Provision will be made for broad access to and use of data procured from commercial sources. Linkages will be made to commercial datasets that provide additional features and enhanced attributes.

Users will be able to combine data from The National Map with geographic information available from other organizations, such as cadastral information from the Bureau of Land Management, geodetic control data from the National Geodetic Survey, and socioeconomic data from the Bureau of the Census. The National Map will be a foundation to which all organizations can reference their information, such as land use data, school district boundaries, or wildlife population counts.

The USGS will continue the tradition of the primary series topographic map by providing a standard set of paper topographic maps and digital data products derived from The National Map. Customers will be able to create their own maps by defining a geographic area of interest, selecting unique combinations of data, and printing their maps at home or at kiosks that will be available locally at libraries, recreational suppliers, bookstores, and other locations.

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Thank You for Your Interest and Help

Thank you for your interest in and support for USGS topographic mapping. The USGS is excited about The National Map concept and its potential to provide high-quality geographic information for all of our citizens. With the continued involvement of all levels of government, the private sector, and the public, we can ensure that The National Map will be the base geographic information foundation that America needs for the 21st century. If you have questions or comments about The National Map or if you are interested in participating in this project, please contact us at nationalmap@usgs.gov.

U.S. Department of the Interior || U.S. Geological Survey
12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20192, USA
URL: http://nationalmap.usgs.gov/nmabout.html
Maintainer: Geography Webmaster
Last modified: Monday, 21-Jun-2004 11:31:35 EDT