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NATIONAL SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE In 1995, President Clinton issued an Executive Order calling for the establishment of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). The NSDI is defined as the technologies, policies, and people necessary to promote sharing of geospatial data throughout all levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors, and the academic community. The goal of the NSDI is to reduce duplication of effort among agencies, improve quality and reduce costs related to geographic information, to make geographic data more accessible to the public, to increase the benefits of using available data, and to establish key partnerships with states, counties, cities, tribal nations, academia and the private sector to increase data availability. More information about the NSDI can be found at http://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/nsdi.html FIFTY STATES INITIATIVE The Fifty States Initiative outlines a fundamental change in the way all governments will work together in the future to build the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). Instead of the current “build it and they will come” philosophy that relies on random grants, Federal agencies will implement a partnership approach that emphasizes strategic and business planning with specifically targeted implementation grants, performance measures and incentives. The Fifty States Initiative is one of twelve planning activities that are either complete or “in development” as a result of the Future Directions plan at the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). For further details on all activities, see its web page at: http://www.fgdc.gov. The Fifty States Action Plan was approved by the Board of Directors of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) representing GIS coordination councils (like MassGIS) in December 2004. Under this initiative, the FGDC, through the USGS CAP grant program, has supported a variety of state level activities which further the goals of the NSDI. In addition, the FGDC has developed overall criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of coordination efforts at the state level and has also provided templates for state planning activities such as our own Massachusetts Strategic Plan. In short, this strategic planning process will not only give us a framework for GIS development in Massachusetts, it will also vastly improve the level of coordination and the potential for partnership with the Federal government. |
Last Updated 9/8/2008
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