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Government Information Quarterly

Symposium Issue on
Geographic Information Systems

Volume 7, Number 3, 1990

There's a GIS in Your Future
John Felleman ................................................................................... 261

Land Information Systems Modernization in Wisconsin:
Government-University-Professional Interactions
Bernard J. Niemann, Jr.; Robert W. Merideth, Jr.;
D. David Moyer and James L. Clapp ................................................. 269

The TIGER System: A Census Bureau Innovation
Serving Data Analysts
W. Carbaugh and Robert W. Marx ................................................. 285

Satellite Remote Sensing: Its Evolution
and Synergism with GIS Technology
Thomas Lillesand .................................................................................. 307

Geographic Information Systems and Sustainable Development
E. W. Manning ....................................................................................... 329

GIS and Basic Research: The National Center
for Geographic Information and Analysis
Michael F. Goodchild ............................................................................ 343

Contributors .................................................................................................... 357

Reviews
John A. Shuler ...........................................................................................359

The Monthly Catalog of United States Government Publications:
One Title, Many Versions
Reviewed by Jim Walsh and Mallory Stark ......................................... 359

Congressional Practice and Procedures: A Reference, Research,
and Legislative Guide
Reviewed by Sever M. Bordeianu ......................................................... 370

Governing the Empire State: An Insider's Guide
Reviewed by Mary Redmond ............................................................ 371

FBI Counterintelligence Visits to Libraries: Hearings before the
Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the Committee
on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 100th Congress,
2nd Session, June 20 and July 13, 1988
Reviewed by Michael C. Vocino, Jr . ............................................... 371

Find the Law in the Library: a Guide to Legal Research
Reviewed by Suzan A. Hebditch .......................................................... 372

Handbook of Public Administration
Reviewed by Peter Hernon ...................................................................... 373

Information Law: Freedom of Information, Privacy,
Open Meetings, Other Access Laws
Reviewed by Jane E. Kirtley ................................................................ 373

New Directions in Telecommunications Policy. Vol. 1 & 2
Reviewed by Harold C. Relyea ............................................................. 374

OCLC GPO Search CD450 System
Reviewed by Kathleen J. Keating .......................................................... 375

PC USA and PC GLOBE
Reviewed by Allen Smith ......................................................................... 376

Post World War II, Foreign Policy Planning:
State Department Records of Harley A. Notter, 1939-1945
Reviewed by Tom Stave ........................................................................ 376

Taming the Bureaucracy: Muscles, Prayers, and Other Strategies
Reviewed by John A. Shuler .................................................................. 377

United States Army in Vietnam. Public Affairs:
The Military and the Media, 1962-1968
Reviewed by John A. Shuler ................................................................ 378

List of Titles Received ............................................................................... 379

JOHN FELLEMAN

Over two-thirds of governmental information is inherently spatial, yet only recently have Geographic Information Systems (GIS) emerged as the primary means to enable the spatial visualization and modelling of this immense data source. GIS is following a common evolutionary path. Transactional functions were automated by means of Computer Assisted Drafting (CAD), and Automated Mapping (AM). The development of raster and arcnode data topologies has provided the foundation for the tactical application of spatial modelling. The imminent emergence of spatial data exchange standards coupled with the recent availability of low cost graphic workstations will complete the enironment for widespead GIS utilization ranging from operational to policy levels. This diffusion will be accompanied by the integration of GIS with database and communications systems and a broad set of Information Resource Management issues.

Bernard J. Niemann, Jr.
Robert W. Merideth, Jr.
D. David Moyer
James L. Clapp

This article discusses a land information system that serves as a multi-purpose cadastre for government, the pivate sector, academia, and professional organizations.

LARRY W. CARBAUGH
ROBERT W. MARX

The US. Bureau of the Census has completed the initial development of the files underlying its new automated geographic support system-- the Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing System, or TIGER System. The first publicly available products from this effort--extracts from the TIGER database called the TIGER/Line files--have been available in computer-readable form for the past 8 months, and paper maps produced by the TIGER System have been mailed to every functioning unit of local government in the United States within the past 4 months, including counties (and statistically equivalent areas), county subdivisions (townships, towns, and so forth), incorpoated places (cities, villages, and so forth), federally and state-recognized American Indian areas, and Alaska Native villages. The greatest potential opportunity for applications outside the Census Bureau is for data analysts to use these files in conjunction with the increasingly available technology called geographic information systems, or GIS. Despite the magnitude of the accomplishment represented by the TIGER System, and the enormity of the potential applications for data analysts wishing to adopt GIS techniques, the Census Bureau has encountered substantial criticism recently because the content of the paper maps and the TIGER/Line files is not correct in every instance. In its continuing attempt to be responsive to the needs of its primary constituency-- census data users--the Census Bureau has adopted a responsive policy regarding up- date of the TIGER database with the corrections annotated by its field enumerators as wel1 as those identified by local officials.

THOMAS LILLESAND

Since the launch of the first civilian earth monitoring satellite in 1972, the field of satellite remote sensing has evolved substantially. Begun on a purely experimental basis with relatively crude imaging systems, space remote sensing has become a source of remarkably detailed land management information that is avaiable in GIS-compatible digital format on a regular basis globally. At the same time, providing satellite remote sensing data products to data users has become a rapidly expanding commercial enterprise of international scale. To this juncture, a critical factor limiting the application of satellite data in day-to-day land management at virtually all levels of government has been the ambivalence with which the U.S. has developed and administered its space remote sensing policy at the national level. That is, the political-institutional process leading to the "privatization" of the U.S. Landsat program has been an extremely convoluted one that has been replete with complex policy issues. While literally scheduled for termination during the spring of 1989, the Landsat program has since received renewed governmental attention and support. The National Space Council and the Office of Management and Budget are currently reviewing options aimed at ensuring the program's long-term continuation. Given both the technical and institutional evolution of space remote sensing internationally, satellite data are certain to beome a primary GIS data source across the local to global continuum of GIS applications. It is in this con- text that this article briefly summarizes the history and current status of space remote sensing and its synergism with GIS technology.

E. W. MANNING

The achievement of sustainable devolopment will involve a far broader and more integrated approach to dealing with the biophysical resource-base and the demands placed upon it, by various economics sectors. To adequately understand the relationships and to test solutions, it will be necessary to carefully understand these relationships; geographical information systems will be a vital tool to allow us to see how the environment and economy relate over time and space. In Canada, geographic information systems are being used in many ways to aid in the understanding of the links between environment and economy, and to target government and corporate actions aimed at their solution. Critical to the achievement of a sustainable economic and environmental future is the provision of information on environmental opportunities and constraints and on the likely impacts of actions in a visible and undestandable form to decision-makers. A key advantage of geo-information systems is an enhanced understanding of relationships and easy visual access by decision-makers to information that helps them improve their decision ability.

MICHAEL F. GOODCHILD

The National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) was established by the National Science Foundation in late 1988 to conduct basic GIS research. Its Research Plan is based on the contention that numerous impediments to the use of GIS technology exist, which must be removed if the technology's potential is to be realized fully. The article reviews the current state of GIS, arguing that it is a loose consortium of interests held together by common hardware and software solutions. The NCGIA is particularly concerned with the role of GIS within the broad scinetific community. Research is organized as a series of initiatives, of which six are currently under way, focused on specific sets of impediments. Issues facing the Center and affecting its future research directions include the balance between basic and applied research, education and training, social and physical sciences, and scientific and infrastructura1 applications of GIS. The future of GIS will depend on the extent to which it can develop an intellectual core.

Larry Carbaugh is Chief of the State & Regional Programs Staff of the Census Bureau's Data User Services Division where he directs TIGER marketing activities as well as the Bureau's Federal-state cooperative data dissemination efforts, the State Data Center Program, and the Business & Industry Data Center Initiative. He attended the Pennsylvania State University, where he graduated in 1964 with a B.S. in Geography.

James L. Clapp is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He serves as director of the Center for Land Information Studies in the Institute for Environmental Studies and as chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He was chairman of the Wisconsin Land Records Committee and is past president of the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping.

John Felleman is Professor of Environmental Studies, and Director of the Graduate Program in Environmental Science, S.U.N.Y. College of Environmental Science and Forestry. He is a licensed engineer who received his Doctorate of Public Administration from New York University. In 1989, he was a Senior Fellow at the N.A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.

Michael F. Goodchild is Professor of Geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and co-Director of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis. He obtained his doctorate from McMaster University in 1969, and taught at the University of Western Ontario before moving to Santa Barbara in 1988. His interests include GIS, spatial analysis, and spatial statistics.

Peter Hernon, who received his Ph. D. from Indiana University, is Professor at Simmons College, Boston. He is the founding editor of GIQ and has written 24 monographs and over 70 articles and reports. Together, with Charles R. McClure, he is currently consulting with the U.S. Bureau of the Census on "Use of Census Bureau Data in GPO Depository Libraries: Future Issues and Trends."

Thomas M. Lillesand is a Professor of Environmental Studies, Forestry, and Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the Director of the Institute for Environmental Studies Environmental Remote Sensing Center and Chairman of the Environmental Monitoring Program, an interdisciplinary graduate program in remote sensing and GIS. He, along with Dr. Ralph W. Kiefer, co-authored the award- winning book Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation, and he is the author of more than 75 technical publications on remote sensing. His research interests range from remote sensing data processing technique development to the use of satellite data in long-term ecological research. He is active in several professional societies and has served as the Director of the Remote Sensing Applications Division of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. He was appointed by Secretary of Commerce Malcolm Baldridge to serve on the original Land Remote Sensing Satellite Advisory Committee, which formulated recommendations on the feasibility and appropriate form for prospective commercialization of the Landsat program.

Edward W. Manning is Associate Director, Sustainable Development in the Canadian Department of the Environment. A graduate of the University of British Columbia, he received his Ph. D. in Geography from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He has published extensively on the topics of land use, resource management, and sustainable development. He is currently Past President of the Canadian Association of Geographers and a Director of the Social Science Federation of Canada.

Robert W. Marx has been Chief of the Geography Division at the U.S. Bureau of the Census since April 1983. In this role, he is responsible for planning, administering, and coordinating all cartographic and geographic activities that affect and support the data collection and statistical programs of the Census Bureau. Most significant among these duties is his direction of all activities associated with development of the TIGER System.

Robert W. Merideth, Jr. is a doctoral student in the Environmental Monitoring Program, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is preparing a political and technological history of land information activities in Wisconsin. He has held administrative positions with the Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and with former Wisconsin Governor Anthony Earl, working on the development of various land information studies programs.

D. David Moyer is Wisconsin State Advisor for Land Information and Geodetic Systems with the National Geodetic Survey. He is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Institute for Environmental Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is particularly interested in the economics of land information systems (LIS) and in the institutional aspects of LIS implementation. He is a former member of the Dane County Board of Supervisors and is past president of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis.

Bernard J. Niemann, Jr. is Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been an active researcher in land information studies for more than 25 years. He served as vice-chairman of the Wisconsin Land Records Committee and as president of the Wisconsin Land Information Association. He is currently chairman of the recently created Wisconsin Land Information Board and serves as co-editor of the Journal of the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association.