The Homeland Security Working GroupThe Homeland Security Working Group (charter) ensures that the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) supports the preparation for, prevention of, protection against, response to, and recovery from (1) threats to the nation's population centers and critical infrastructures that are of terrorist, criminal, accidental, or natural origin and (2) related adverse events. The working group has regular participation from the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, the Interior, and Transportation; the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Communications Commission, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and National Capital Planning Commission; and the National States Geographic Information Council. Major activities include: Policy support:
Map symbology: Use of different map symbols for the same information slows and degrades communication, especially when many organizations need to work together. The working group is compiling a set of standard map symbols to support homeland security applications. A revised symbol set for emergency response applications is available at http://www.fgdc.gov/HSWG. A summary of comments on which the changes were based and responses to the comments is available under the “Evaluation Results” tab. The symbols were changed based on comments received during a community review held from December 2003 through January 2004. The working group plans to submit the revised symbol set for formal adoption through the FGDC and ANSI INCITS L1 standards processes. The 2003 report to the FGDC provides the status of these activities. The working group's fact sheet provides information from this web site that can be shared with others. Documents in PDF format require Adobe Acrobat Reader For more information:
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