NSDI | Provides Place-Based Information that Links Communities
Society is interconnected and interdependent. Local to global activities, events, and decisions affect us all and bring new opportunities and challenges. The components of the NSDI enable people to work together as communities, sharing place-based information and tools to understand, prepare for, and respond to challenges and seize opportunities. This is how the U.S. National Spatial Data Infrastructure advances the nation's geospatial capabilities.
Goal
How do people and communities use the NSDI to leverage place-based
information and tools?
- Connecting Providers | The NSDI framework connects a network of providers and contributors to provide a rich set of spatial data, tools, and a supporting framework to facilitate and enable people to work together and collaborate as a community. The NSDI is based on the concept of interoperability. This helps users easily leverage resources being made available by others, and enables them to provide their own information and tools for others to use. It is a national cooperative framework.
- Partnerships | An effective NSDI requires developing and utilizing partnerships that promote collaboration, cost-effectiveness, and interoperable solutions. These components are the key underpinnings of the NSDI.
- The Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) works collaboratively with non-Federal partners, communities, constituents, and professional bodies providing the enabling foundation of standards, data catalogs, partnerships, and tools that make up the NSDI.
- The NSDI ensures that place-based data from multiple sources (Federal, state, local, and tribal governments, academia, and the private sector) are available and easily integrated to enhance the understanding of our physical and cultural world.
Communities are made up of people brought together by common factors. These include:
- A physical community with a commonplace, such as a town
- A virtual community addressing a common issue, such as drought in the western states
- A service- or business-focused community with a common purpose such as emergency management or real estate parcel discovery that relies on addresses
Where does my community fit in?
NSDI stakeholders throughout the U.S., from government to academia and the private sector, can be both contributors and consumers of NSDI place-based data and information. A wealth of knowledge and data can be shared across these diverse user communities to solve complex issues and strengthen decision-making. Individuals and organizations can access these shared resources through the Geospatial Platform by joining an online community, adopting standards, and by participating in data and information exchange.
Communities and organizations are engaging in collaboration and use of shared NSDI resources.
Stakeholders representing these diverse user communities and organizations collaborate to advance the NSDI. The National Geospatial Advisory Committee (NGAC) provides advice and recommendations to the Federal government on national geospatial policy and management issues, and provides a forum to convey views representative of non-Federal stakeholders in the geospatial community. The NGAC includes representatives from all levels of government, the private sector, nonprofit organizations, and academia. Information about the NGAC is available at: www.fgdc.gov/ngac
