USDA Farm Service Agency GIS Enterprise Architecture Status Jim Heald Director, USDA FSA ITSD GIS Center May 11, 2005

Scope of Activities FSA currently manages or will manage several Enterprise-level geospatial data layers – Common Land Unit (vector layer) – National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) orthophotography – Agricultural Land Use (vector layer) – Conservation Programs (vector layer) All are good candidates for inclusion in the FSA Enterprise Architecture

CLU is the smallest unit of land that has a: permanent, contiguous boundary common land cover and land management common owner common producer association Note: CLUs are closely related to: FSA’s definition of “fields”, according to 2-CP lands units such as parcels, farmsteads, and lots, that are used by NRCS, RMA, and RD program administration. Generally this is PRIVATE land that has some relation to agriculture. CLU Definition

CLU CLU originated as a cross-agency data layer for management of USDA Service Center activities between FSA, NRCS and Rural Development. – Source data previously maintained at FSA County offices as annotations on Hard Copy Aerial Photography – Database for conducting FSA program business Other USDA agencies have expressed an interest in using the CLU for business purposes including NASS, APHIS, RMA – Not involved in the original data design efforts – Have different, possibly incompatible needs FSA has coordinated with other Federal Agencies, State Agriculture and EPA to share data or discuss the possibility

Common Land Unit Status As of May 6th – 2678 Counties Digitized (85%) 925 Counties Certified (29%) – Certification is validation and correction of the digitized data by the FSA Service Center with Producer input ~250 additional Counties under contract for completion by September, 2005 – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, and West Virginia – Contract completion will bring us to about 93% – Another ~150 counties anticipated done in-house by the same date (about 3050 counties – 98%) Digitizing for Continental US complete by the end of FY 2005 – Alaska, Puerto Rico and Territories delivery TBD

Contract data To be delivered by 8/31/05

Land Use and Conservation Layers Strong integration with the CLU For purposes of discussion, these layers are extensions of the CLU layer

NAIP Vision The National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP) consolidates USDA’s imagery requirements into a national strategy that acquires the best value products for FSA and other USDA agencies. USDA would like to create win-win partnerships with Federal agencies, State and local governments, and private entities. NAIP will maximize the informational value of acquisitions by minimizing the cycle time from acquisition to fielding while keeping the image content information for the creation of traditional photographic and orthoimagery.

NAIP Program Goals Provide new photography/digital imagery on an annual basis – Some products available within days of flying Update orthoimagery base on 1-5 year cycle (depending on USDA Service Center needs) Aerial film archived at APFO and made available for photographic products Digital imagery furnished to the “National Map” concept in place of or to augment the NAPP/NDOP

NAIP Missouri Ralls County With CLU Color – IR One Meter

NAIP Minnesota Renville County With CLU Natural Color 1 Meter

FSA Application Architecture Path Current Environment Arcview 3.x environment – Standalone systems – Single-user WRITE access to GIS data – NO Database Integration – Limited communication with System 36/AS 400 FY 2005/2006 ArcGIS environment – Server-based systems – Relational Database – Multi-user access to GIS data Key feature for Acreage Reporting and Compliance – Integrated solution – Visual Basic Desktop applications – Service Center data storage CLU replicated to GDW FY 2006/7 and beyond Database driven Browser-based Central data storage Integrated part of MIDAS architecture

General EA Status at USDA What is the status of Enterprise Architecture deployment in your agency? – USDA is currently implementing the EA Repository across the Department. This application will be used to collect enterprise-wide information on investments, applications and related systems. USDA is conducting basic training for agency designees through mid-June. What software do you use to describe or model your EA? – USDA EA Repository (Adaptive) This is the vehicle USDA agencies will use to capture and validate current and target architectures at the agency and Department levels. How is your architecture documented (formats, models, etc)? – The Repository is capable of importing architecture models from other sources (Popkin, Metis, Visio, etc.) Word-processing documents can also be captured in the Repository.

What outcome from this GEA activity would be helpful to your organization to better identify geospatial resources for others internal/external to find? What would a "Geospatial Profile" mean to you? – A tool or a vocabulary for making it easier to present Geospatial data to our Architects and OMB What ancillary documentation or guidance would be useful? – Anything to make it easier to expose the Geospatial data to our Architects – 300 Examples – Business Case examples What outreach resources would be helpful? Who are the audiences? – Something showing the importance/benefits of including Geospatial information in the Enterprise Architecture – Architects, IT Managers, GIS Managers

Enterprise Architecture Issues No Fully Articulated Enterprise Architecture – Just starting – Includes Geospatial data tangentially CLU Data originated at Separate offices – Standards based, but locally interpreted – Holes in the dataset Land not covered by FSA Programs Land administered in one office but physically located elsewhere – Duplicate data – Topological issues between counties Also between CLU and other cadastral data layers – Ultimate goal to build a seamless, non-redundant national dataset Evolutionary path from distributed database to a centralized database with real-time Web Accessibility

Enterprise Architecture Issues (continued) NAIP – Coverage area depends on funding Varies from year to year States with local and Federal partnerships will get flown FSA will only fly agricultural areas (generally at 2m resolution) without partners – Mixed resolution (1 meter and 2 meter) – Mixed format (digital and film, Natural color and IR) – Currently matching to Original DOQ Carrying DOQ errors forward Not making use of technology improvements – ABGPS and IMU – Processing Improvements