Between the Poles

Update on the Geospatial Act of 2017 presented at GITA Phoenix 2018

The Geospatial Data Act (GDA) of 2017, which was introduced in the Senate (S. 2128) and a companion bill in the House (H.R.4395), has some history. It was originally proposed in 2015 by Orrin Hatch, a Republican Senator from Utah, and sponsored by five Republicans and five Democrats. The 2015 bill consisted of ten sections and basically codified and strengthened federal government practices relating to geospatial data. The 2015 bill enjoyed wide support in the geospatial community throughout the U.S. and was generally viewed as a positive step forward.  In the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, two additional sections were added to the bill that broadly extended the definition of survey data and mandated rules (Brooks Act) for procurement of geospatial services by the federal government.  Virtually the entire GIS and geospatial community reacted strongly and urged that the bill not be passed in its revised form because it would effectively exclude the entire geo community from recording the location of anything.  Since then the bill appears to have been revised back to its original form.  The texts of the latest Senate bill (S. 2128) and House bill (H.R.4395) no longer include Section 11 and 12 which were intended to apply the Brooks Act to a broad range of geospatial data and services.

At the GITA 2018 conference in Phoenix, Mark E. Limbruner, President of Geospatial Information & Technology Association (GITA), gave an update on the Geospatial Data Act of 2017.  As of 11/15/2017 the Senate bill had been read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The House bill has been referred to the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

To summarize briefly, the bill formalizes the role that the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) shall have in leading the development, implementation, and review of policies, practices, and standards relating to geospatial data. It also establishes the National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC) to provide advice and recommendations to the committee. The FGDC would exercise Federal oversight over federal geospatial expenditure and be responsible for ensuring a coordinated interoperable strategy for geospatial data in the Federal arena.  Each Federal agency would be expected to fit its plan for geospatial data into the FGDC's strategic plan. Four years after enactment of the bill, federal funding would be withheld for the collection, production, acquisition, maintenance, or dissemination of geospatial data that does not comply with the standards established by the committee. The bill also mandates that the FGDC would operate GeoPlatform, an electronic service that would provids access to geospatial data and metadata.

Mark pointed out that if sections 11 and 12 had been retained in the bill, the law could be interpreted so say that only a registered professional (engineer or surveyor) would be legally permitted to capture or manipulate any information tied to a point on the Earth including

• Most GIS, mapping, cartography, and imagery products and data;
• Data that may represented by points, lines, and polygons;
• Data depicting the distribution of natural or cultural resources, features, or phenomena;
• Data utilized by a Federal agencies;
• Data used to create general maps or prepared for atlases, educational materials, etc.
• Geospatial data used by law enforcement
• Geospatial data used by the military;
• Data that may be developed from; GPS units, aerial photography, unmanned aerial vehicles, etc.

Mark said that GITA has opposed the bill the appended procurement language because

• The bill creates an exclusionary  environment
• Has a negative impact on small firms.
• Stifles competition within the dynamic and innovative geospatial sector.
• Ignores the fact that the geospatial industry has implemented several certification programs to insure the ethical and  responsible performance of geospatial services
• Makes no allowance for GISPs to be considered certified professionals.
• Creates an atmosphere where GIS services are merely considered a function of the A&E industry.

Mark said that GITA is supportive of the original Geospatial Data Act because the benefits to federal, state and regional geospatial data users and technology are immeasurable. The combined efforts will elevate the profile of the relevant federal committees and councils, as well as the entire geospatial industry. Mark emphasized that should the  “procurement” language reappear in the bill during further debates, GITA will actively work to defeat the bill.

(Thanks to Glenn O'Grady of URISA for pointing me to the latest version of the Senate Bill.)

Open source viewer sharing all city's geospatial data can run on Raspberry Pi

Locations of Cross Section surveyors' notebooks

At GITA 2018 in Phoenix, Bob Basques, GIS Systems Developer at the City of St Paul, described a system called COMPASS he and his team have developed that provides a shared, easy to use tool that allows city employees and the public access to all of the City's spatial and associated data including, for example, scans of surveyors' notebooks, 2.2 million street level photos, and permitting and licensing information from 200 different applications. Based completely on open source components the system is compact and efficient enough to run on a Raspberry Pi.

One of the problems that hampers efficient operations at municipalities is accessing geospatial data originating from multiple sources such as infrastructure maintenance, planning and zoning, property ownership, engineering, permitting, licensing and code enforcement. Spatial data is generated by CAD drafters, GIS users, surveyors and even users with smart phone apps. Imagery data can come from a variety of sources including earth observation satellites, aerial overflights, street photography, and drones. This data is constantly changing which means that any process that involves making copies such as converting it to a common format creates a bigger problem than it solves.

Location and maintenance data for each street light

The City of Saint Paul is responsible for infrastructure maintenance for all of the infrastructure within the public right-of-way. It is also responsible for maintaining parcel information linking and addressing assignment. St Paul is only 56 square miles, but it is densely developed and there is a lot of infrastructure and the associated regulations to manage. In addition St Paul is part of the metro area of the Twin Cities and users of St Paul data often need access to data outside of St Paul.

Organizations participating in GeoMoose project

The application is intended to improve the efficiency of common tasks including infrastructure maintenance management, planning and zoning, property ownership, engineering, permitting. licensing and code enforcement. To do this the system accesses multiple disparate data sources from different data custodians including Public Works, Safety and Inspections, Planning and Economic Development, Parks & Recreation, Office of Technology, Fire, Police, Real Estate, and District Councils. The public has access to 73 layers of data through OGC web standard interfaces. The tool, called GeoMoose, is an open source project (MIT license) on OSGeo and uses only open source components. There are quite a few governmental agencies around the U.S participating in the GeoMoose project.

Creating a project polygon and buffer to identify affected parcels and owners

The application is extremely compact and light weight - Bob demonstrated it running an a Raspberry Pi with a 64 GB drive (just about any size MicroSD card will work) - which means that users working in areas with restricted wireless can still access important data. GeoMoose runs on Linux and Windoes and can be accessed via Wifi from Windows, Linux, Android, iOS and Mac OS - actually any device with Wifi and a browser including a USB stick. The core of GeoMoose is comprised of HTML and Javascript code. It can access data stored in the file system as well as from OGC WMS/WFS sites over the internet. GeoMoose included an editor that allows users to create geometric objects such as polygons. A typical application would be to define a polygon representing a new project, put a buffer around it and find all the parcels that would be impacted by the project.

The system handles many different data types including 305 layers ( a new layer is added every week or two), 32 live database connections, 39 imagery layers, and 31 infrastructure layers. Besides Public Works users, users from more than 40 other organizations access the system. The system is an OSGeo project and is built on open source components including OpenLayers and MapServer, and can be integrated with PostgreSQL/PostGIS, Webdav, svn and Apache.

Locations of surveyors' notebooks

COMPASS exposes data to the world via OGC standard tools. Most of the data in the COMPASS system of tools is available as a WMS service. Selected datasets are also available as WFS layers. Some layers are protected for security or contractual reasons. GeoMoose 3.0, which was released in August of last year is mobile friendly and supports modern Javascript frameworks such as React.

Digital images of surveyors' notebooks can be accessed

The system has become widely used and trusted. It gets about 50,000 hits per week not only within Public Works but also by other users inside and outside of the city government. It has eased many previously labour intensive processes. Because more users are accessing their data, custodians of the data are taking greater responsibility for data which has led to an overall improvement in data quality and timeliness. Open source has allowed customization for specific users that would not have been possible without access to the underlying code. For example, it has made it possible to create specialized visualizations and reports, connecting to various proprietary databases, mixing data sources on output and building custom lookup processes.

French national initiative to map all urban subsurface critical infrastructure by 2019

I have blogged previously about a French presidential decree in 2012 that mandated that all of France's critical underground utility infrastructure must be mapped in 3D to an accuracy of 40 cm (about 16 inches).  Critical infrastructure according to the decree includes buried electric power cables, pipelines, and public transport infrastructure, but not buried water and telecommunications infrastructure. The deadline for urban areas is January 1, 2019 and for non-urban areas January 1, 2026. 

Responsibility for mapping underground infrastructure

The national regulation requiring mapping of subsurface infrastructure titled Decree relating to excavations near underground, overhead or underwater transmission or distribution networks was promulgated on 15 February 2012. The "anti-network damage" reform, known as "DT-DICT", came into effect on 1 July 2012. (DT is a notice on intended construction work sent by the contractor to the operator of the network. DICT is a notice of intention by the contractor to start work.) It requires owners and managers of critical infrastrructure networks to make a commitment about accurately locating their works. The responsibility for implementing the decree lies with a "competent local authority" which is not defined in the decree.  Across France different departmental organizations have taken responsibility for implementing the decree.  For example, in the Ardèche Département in the southeast of France, the Syndicat Départemental d'Energies de l'Ardèche, the Energy Agency of the Ardèche Département, has claimed responsibility for implementing the decree because it is responsible for electric power distribution and street lighting to the 339 municipalities in the Département and because it has already carried out a cadastral mapping project.

The deadlines for certification and mapping subsurface critical infrastructure are as follows:

• By January 1, 2018, supervisors of construction projects and building sites, heavy equipment operators, and subsurface utility mapping professionals must be certified to conduct operations near underground infrastructure. This requires a governmental authorization designated AIPR (Authorization to excavate near underground infrastructure.)
• As of January 1, 2018 managers of construction projects are required to use certified service providers for two types of services; resurveying existing underground infrastructure encountered during construction when the reported location is inaccurate and mapping new infrastructure.
• By January 1, 2019 the appropriate authority at the departmental level is required to have compiled a geographic basemap and to have accurately mapped the routes of all critical infrastructure in urban areas. For critical infrastructure networks outside urban areas, the deadline is 1 January 2026.

Critical infrastructure

The decree distinguishes critical infrastructure for public safety, critical infrastructure for the economy and non-critical infrastructure.  Critical infrastructure for public safety includes

• pipelines carrying liquid or liquefied hydrocarbons, combustible and other hazardous gases, steam, and heated water
• electric power lines and public lighting networks
• public transport infrastructure
• sewer lines under pressure
• flood prevention structures

Infrastructure that is not considered to be critical for public safety include,

• telecommunications cables and low voltage power lines and public lighting network
• drinking water and industrial water supply or fire protection
• sanitary and storm sewers

Telecommunications cables and facilities are considered to be critical economic infrastructure, but not critical for public safety.

Buried networks that are critical according to these definitions and located in urban areas will have to be georeferenced in the national system of coordinates with class A accuracy, in other words to 40 cm or better, by 1st January 2019.  Implementation of this mandate for all critical infrastructure networks on the national territory of France must be completed by 2026.  (Les réseaux sensibles enterrés, situés en unités urbaines, devront être géo référencés dans le système national de coordonnées en classe A au 1er janvier 2019 et que ces exigences seront applicables à ces mêmes réseaux sur l’ensemble du territoire national à l’horizon 2026.)

Accuracy of location of underground structures and liabilities for construction projects

Project managers of proposed construction projects are required to send a DT which is a statement of the proposed work including a polygon delineating the area affected to the operators of utility networks operating in the area.  In return operators of utility networks must provide the project managers maps of their underground networks in the area indicating the accuracy of the geographical location of different structures of their networks classified according to three accuracy classes.

Class A:  if the maximum uncertainty of location indicated by the utility operator is less than or equal to 40 cm

Class B: if the maximum uncertainty of location indicated by the utility operator is greater than that for Class A and less than or equal to 1.5 meters

Class C: if the maximum uncertainty of location indicated by the utility operator is greater than 1.5 meters , or if the operator is not able to provide the location.

The Decree states that uncertainty in the geographical location of a structure is considered likely to jeopardize the construction project or significantly impact the technical or financial conditions of its implementation when the accuracy of the geolocation of the structure is classified B or C.  For structures falling in these accuracy classes, the utility operator is required to initiate a process to reduce this uncertainty and achieve class A as quickly as possible.

Furthermore, if further investigation (typically potholing) of some structures by the contractor  is required, the cost of the investigations is assigned as follows

• The construction contractor assumes the entire cost  when the structures have been assigned by the operator to accuracy class B and further investigation reveals that the actual classification is found to be Class B or Class A
• Half of the cost of the investigation is to be borne by the operator when the structures are assigned by the operator to  accuracy class C;
• All of the cost is to be borne by the operator when the structures have been assigned by the operator to accuracy class B and when the result of further investigation reveals that the actual classification is accuracy class C

Surveying underground infrastructure for construction projects

For construction project reporting, contractors are required to survey all new and changed underground structures.  These surveys must satisfy certain conditions. Location coordinates of structures in an open trench must be surveyed by a certified provider (see above for certification).  If remote detection technology such as GPR is employed, the firm performing this work is not required to be certified, but a certified provider must be involved in georeferencing the data.  Whatever the method of measurement used , direct or remote, the accuracy of the locations of new or changed structures reported by the contractor must be accuracy class A, in other words 40 cm or better.  For each structure the data recorded must include the name of the project manager of the site, the name of the company that provided the location information, the name of the certified provider responsible for determining the location of each structure, the maximum measurement uncertainty (for x, y, and z ), and in the case of remote detection such as GPR or EMI, the type of measurement technology used.  Presumably this information would be used to assign liabilities in the case that it is determined later that inaccurate location data was reported.  This data must be shared with the operator or operators of the networks affected.