This landmark structures data sharing project established an automated, sustainable means to collect and document landmark structures data for the Baltimore-Washington area and the National Capital Region for The National Map. Stakeholder jurisdictions included Baltimore, Frederick, and Montgomery Counties in Maryland; the District of Columbia; and Fairfax County, Virginia. Stakeholders agreed to adopt the USGS Best Practices Data model for the project. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and an alternative Letter of Intent (LOI) to share data were developed. Baltimore County and Montgomery County signed the MOU; Frederick County and the District of Columbia signed the LOI. In a pilot phase, the technical team worked closely with the Baltimore County stakeholder to develop the data sharing and update process. Examination of the data model revealed the need to develop logical steps to address each jurisdiction’s unique datasets then collect and transform the datasets individually. The model for each jurisdiction can be used in the future to create an updated dataset. The final output from each jurisdiction’s model was exported directly into the Structures database and manually imported into the appropriate feature class. The data and metadata were submitted to USGS on disc. Metadata was compiled and will be published to www.marylandGIS.net.
Contact:
Ardys Russakis, Towson University Center for GIS
410-704-5288
arussakis@towson.edu
Other contacts:
Marshall Stevenson, MSGIC Chair
301-600-2310
mstevenson@fredco-md.net