The development of national standards for large-scale Geospatial Data: Utilities

Abstract
The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) was established by Executive Order 12906 (EO 12906) to promote the sharing of geospatial data. In 1995, FGDC created the Facilities Working Group (FWG) to address national standards for large-scale facility management applications. Currently, the F WG is determining the applicability of the Tri-Service Spatial Data Standards (TSSDS) to AM/FM projects. Input from the utility industry has been solicited, with encouraging results. This paper will report on the status of these efforts.

Introduction
The FGDC was established by EO 12906] to promote the coordinated development, use, sharing, and dissemination of geospatial data. FGDC supports the development of standards to facilitate the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), which was mandated by President Clinton in April 1994. In January 1995, FGDC created the FWG to address data issues that will enhance facility management, including the development of a national standard for utilities systems. Currently, the FWG is developing the Utilities Data Content Standard and other data content standards by building upon the foundation provided by the Tri-Service Spatial Data Standards (TSSDS). The TSSDS is an integrated multi-thematic data content standard created to support the planning, engineering, and management of “military cities.”2 The contents of this standard appears to be applicable to a wide range of organizations, and serving as a solid foundation for meeting broader national objectives, such as large-scale facilities mapping standards for civilian agencies, utility companies, and state and local governments.

The need for Standards
The need for standards is clearly understood. The benefits of a consistent content standard are many. For example:

Facilitation of data sharing
Identification of duplicate efforts
Support for portable applications
Accessibility to the NSDI

National and international standards organizations, such as the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) GIS technical committee and the International Standards Organization (1S0) Geographic Information/Geomatics technical committee, have initiated a broad spectrum of standards projects that will be beneficial to the geospatial community.3 Also, the FGDC and the OpenGIS Consortium are supporting complementary initiatives that will greatly influence the geospatial community.

Nonetheless, for large-scale AM/FM projects5, there is a dearth of nationally recognized content standards for geospatial data. Currently, there is no nationally recognized content standard for this scale, other than the Tri-Service Spatial Data Standard (TSSDS).

On this basis, the FWG chose to build its draft content standard for geospatialb utilities data on the TSSDS.