This project, undertaken by George Mason University Center for Spatial Information Science and Systems (GMU CSISS) in collaboration with U.S.Department of Agriculture Farm Service Agency (FSA) and Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI) will develop the ArcGIS Framework Plug-In, a WFS and WMS extension to ArcGIS Desktop. Success of this project will immediately benefit FSA headquarters and 2,341 FSA state and local offices by providing them services for access to up-to-date, accurate, consistent Framework data and use of the data in making decisions of national significance, in areas including the following:

• Agriculture efficiency – ANSI Framework services and data will be used by FSA’s decision-support systems (DSSs) at FSA offices to enhance their capabilities in monitoring and forecasting agriculture activities, production, and productivity for making decisions on farm aids, price stabilization, and regulation enforcement.
• Disaster management – ANSI Framework services and data will be used by DSSs at FSA offices to enhance their capabilities in monitoring and evaluating the damage to agricultural production and operations caused by natural disasters such as hurricanes and drought, for making decisions on disaster relief and agriculture operation recovery.
  Ancillary application areas are:
• Water management – ANSI Framework data, especially hydrography and cadastral help FSA decision making about drought conditions. The information will help state and local agriculture officials and individual farmers choose irrigation and water conservation strategy.
• National security—Food security is one of the top national security issues. Agricultural products are one of the top US exports. The state of US agriculture directly affects both US and international food prices. The improvement of FSA’s decision-making on agricultural efficiency and disaster management will indirectly enhance national security.

The plug-in developed in this project will be freely available to ArcGIS users. .Since ArcGIS is the world's most popular GIS, this project will also benefit thousands of other ArcGIS desktop users, especially those in urban planning, emergency response, and environmental modeling.

Final Report

Interim Report

Primary project outcome --> ArcGIS Framework Extension

GMU CSISS
USDA FSA
ESRI

Contact:

Prof. Liping Di, Director, CSISS
301-982-0795
ldi [at] gmu.edu

Other contacts:

Dr. Peisheng Zhao, 301-220-1536
Mr. James A. Heald, 202-720-0787
Dr. Ying Ke, 202-690-0662, Ying.Ke [at] wdc.usda.gov
Mr. David Danko, 703-506-9515 x8011, ddanko [at] esri.com