News & Events

Week ending January 9, 2009

Delaware LiDAR Fact Sheet released: The USGS has recently released a fact sheet titled: "Use of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) to obtain High-Resolution Elevation Data for Sussex County, Delaware". The fact sheet describes the basic processes of producing LiDAR data. Land elevation in County is a key factor in determining areas that are appropriate for development, flood evacuation routes, and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Digital Flood Insurance Rate Map (DFIRM) studies. The fact sheet is available only on-line at http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3088/ (Roger Barlow, Reston, VA 703-648-5189)

Idaho and Washington NAIP: Scott Van Hoff, Geospatial Liaison for Idaho, recently attended meetings of Imagery Technical Working Groups for Idaho and Washington that are coordinating the States' participation in the 2009 Idaho National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) and 2009 Washington NAIP projects. The meetings were status updates on the fund raising effort to meet the State match requirement to fund projects. There was additional discussion of specifications and upgrades wanted by the committee members from each of the states. (Scott Van Hoff, Boise, ID 208-387-1351)

USGS/Forest Service Coordination: Dave Vincent, Geospatial Liaison for Utah and the Forest Service, facilitated the monthly joint agency USGS and Forest Service Management Oversight Group conference call on Jan 7. The primary purpose of this meeting was to finalize the functions, actions, and membership for four recently formed working groups between the two agencies. These working groups will be working on programmatic, standards, technical, and printing & distribution topics for the Joint Agency Graphics Program. (Dave Vincent, Salt Lake City, UT 801-975-3435)