USGS Multimedia Gallery: (Video)--The National Map Users Conference: Advancing Our Geospatial Foundation for Protecting America's Great Outdoors and Powering Our Future

Advancing Our Geospatial Foundation for Protecting America’s Great Outdoors and Powering Our Future

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[Music]

00:46

Kevin Gallagher: Next up is a pleasure to introduce to you all one of our esteemed senior leaders from the Department of Interior, Ms. Deanna Archuleta.

Deanna is the senior advisor for Cultural and Historical Preservation. She's the senior advisor to the Secretary. Many of you may know that over the past few years, she's been the Deputy Assistant Secretary for all the assignments where she is overseeing the U.S. Geological Survey, as well as the Bureau of Reclamation.

So, our loss is the Secretary's gain.

01:24

A little bit about Deanna's background. From January 2008 to April 2009, Deanna served as the board chair of the Bernalillo County, Albuquerque, Water Utility, overseeing the completion of the San Juan-Chama Drinking Water Project, one of the largest treatment facilities in the United States.

She won two terms as County Commissioner is Bernalillo County and was elected to serve as the chair of the commission 2009, where she focused on economic development, health care, safety and quality of life initiatives, and she worked to encourage local and national businesses to invest resources in the county, creating jobs and stimulating the economy.

02:09

Before her appointment to our department, Deanna was the Southwest Regional Director for the Wilderness Society, engaging with local state and federal elected officials, as well as a wide variety of stakeholder groups to establish wild land protection throughout the region. She also served on President Barrack Obama's transition team in Washington, D.C.

She received her masters' degree in Sociology from the University of New Mexico in 2000 and is currently finishing her doctoral degree in Sociology at the University of New Mexico.

Deanna Archuleta: In my spare time.

Kevin Gallagher: Such a glutton for punishment. That's wonderful.

[Laughter]

She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology in occasions with the University of Washington in Seattle in 1997.

03:02

And I just want to make a personal note, a personal comment; in an austere of budget climate like this, to be able to gather this many people together represents a significant investment and the department is quite conservative about making that kind of investment.

Deanna has been a major supporter of the National Mapping and of this community and without her support, I don't know if we would have been able to pull this off as she not only approved this conference, but volunteered to come and be a keynote speaker.

So, we're especially was and thankful to Deanna for all her support to this program and we're honored to have her today with us to talk about the road to National Map and supporting the Department of Interior.

Please welcome Deanna Archuleta.

[Applause]

04:03

Deanna Archuleta: Obviously, I want to make Kevin do my speeches.

[Laughter]

I'm incredibly flattered and really honored, certainly, to be here.

I'll tell you when I was on the transition team, and some of you have unfortunately had to hear me say this before, but I got an email. Actually, I got three emails to ask me to be on the transition team at my Wilderness Society job.

And to be quite frank, I ignored them because we were getting a whole bunch of emails about who is going to be on the transition team. I didn't recognize the gentleman's by the name of David Hayes, who is now the Deputy Secretary, and I didn't pay attention. I just left it and [04:48 I didn't read], I might just have left him a note then.

Eventually I got, "You should probably read this," and the last one that came in was one that said, "We need all of your data information so we can clear you by next week or else you won't be able to serve on the transition team." And I went, "That's rather peculiar."

05:08

So then I went back, read the other emails and went, "Oh, my." Well, I used an expletive which is...

[Laughter]

Well, I didn't lie about it.

So, long story short, I filled out the application, sent it in and my life completely changed and I was blessed and very, very lucky on the transition team. I've got several oversights; one was Interiors' IT system, which is not a blessing or anything.

[Laughter]

Certainly, challenging to say the least, I can tell you, and looking how we integrate all of your IT systems and also it was the most fun and most exciting.

And actually, the thing that convinced me to apply for a job and understand Washington, relocate my children and move across the country was the ability to work with USGS. And when the Secretary came to me and asked me to serve as his Senior Advisor on Cultural and Historic Preservation, one of the agreements was that I can keep mapping and I got to keep a couple of small things in addition to that.

06:18

But mapping is so critical and I think that integration into the Department of Interior is critical for our future. I'll talk about some of the things that happening within, not only to fit in the Interior but also the federal government. Some of which you've heard before and I'll tell you that the folks that are on mail, Anne Castle, who is the Assistant Secretary of the Water and Science, always tells me that I'm sort of a "small Chihuahua" when I get on hold of something, I don't let it go. But I have to say that she's not much different, so when I talk to you about what she's doing, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

06:58

It's very interesting because when people help you with stage fright, and I have a very good help around this one, who wrote and suggested the antidote to talk about me backpacking and having an old map and coffee stains and such. To be honest, I rarely backpack but I like to...

[Laughter]

07:25

So, when you're short like that, it's a different story.

So, I will tell you though that mapping has been an integrated part of my life. Not only, and this is the point I want to get across in a lot of what I'm going to talk about today, is that for all of you who are scientists, you use mapping to help policy makers make critical decisions.

And that's what I want to tell you about. That's a user that we don't often think about. And the key person in this, really to be honest with you, is one of the biggest supporters of the National Map and mapping in general, and that's Secretary Salazar. He's fascinating; he's like a little kid when you give him a map, he gets really excited and he's just ravenous, he wants more.

08:13

And every time, those of you who had to make maps for him, who are many of you who are in this room, know that he'll give you something in a visual, "Can I get this and this and this." Before you know it, it gets huge and he wants all the layers put on to the map because it's so critical to the decisions he has to make.

He's used it to estimate the land in the Arctic, he's used it in sighting oil and gas and our alternative energy we'll talk about, but I should probably get to my speech because I'm just chitchatting. So, I promise I will be short on my time.

So, as a spokesperson for the Department of Interior, I'd like to share with you, essentially, what I just did but the Secretary of Interiors loves mapping. He's a huge supporter of the National Map and a lot of all of us and all the senior advisors really, and senior staff are fascinated and really drawn to mapping.

09:06

As you might recall, the Obama administration, USGS is one of the agencies that celebrated the 125th anniversary of the National Map program. Many of you were at that event and the National Map's new viewer and really helps to serve our public. How do we make that more interactive to the community at large?

At this time, the National Map transitions its data assets and viewer allocations to a new environment to improve the visualization and the products and services delivery. The environment includes an improved viewer platform based on the map and the overlay services integrated data downloads are all of which, I've talked about earlier.

How does this help us? Well, it helps with... but I can't bear witness; it's too complicated for this early in the morning with only one cup of coffee. A carto...

[Laughter]

09:59

This is like database starting; it's one of those mornings, I can tell you. I flew it last night, about nine o'clock and wrote these notes, so I blame that for my inability to speak this morning.

GIS tools are included and identified with changes in display of coordinates measures, the distance in areas, reverse geocode, and the search for the features in the key word, much of which we talked about earlier.

So really, how did that get us? The geospatial world and Department of Interior, how do we blend those two things together?

Well Interior, as you know, plays a very important role in coordinating with many federal and intergovernmental geospatial activities. In addition to the National Map, the Senate piece of this conference here are three additional examples of how key geospatial activities are conducted by Interior, the FGDC, the Federal Geographic Data Committee. Through its chairmanship of the Federal Geographic Data Committee, Interior provides leadership of Federal Geospatial Policy and Coordination.

11:03

And as you know, the Secretary of Interior actually sits as the chair of that. Because of his schedule and unfortunately, because of the spill last year meant that first meeting has been delayed, substantial issue comes out.

Anne Castle has decided that this is so critical to making it work and to create that integrated system that she's picked up that and ran with it and she's got a scheduled meeting on June 7th. So, I hope you all pay attention to that and follow that closely to see where we're going to move forward and how we can integrate that national system.

The National Geospatial Advisory Committee, the NGAC, which is why we have acronyms because good things are complicated since early in the morning.

Interior sponsors the NGAC, which provides external advice and recommendations on the National Geospatial policy and manage it. The NGAC includes representatives from all levels of government, the private sector, the nonprofit sector and academia. Over the past year, the NGAC has provided feedback to USGS on strategic plans for National Map, many of which have been implanted.

12:15

The U.S. Board of Geographic Names, which this meeting as you've heard couple of times today, Interior is the home for that. And as you know, it's got advisors from throughout federal government, but those names are crucial and I can't tell you how many letters we've lined up, made changes, advised both in Congress and the Republic, in general.

In the age of GIS and GPS, when instant communications and widely dispersed mapping capabilities are really up in norm, standard geographical names and perhaps, even more importantly than ever in addition to their traditional function, geographic names can serve as convenient search engine and search avenues for geographic information.

13:00

But Mark talked earlier, when we have a data system, I mean to be honest with you, I plugged in Denver West Marriot and it gave me directions here, I used my map of my iPad to get here.

So, these things help us every day, certainly not on the National Geographic magnitude system little bit just a little bit but it does nonetheless. DOI is the largest, important agency and it includes all sorts of other bureaus.

You have USGS, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureaus Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Ocean Energy and Regulation, Office of Surface Mining, and Office of Insular Affairs, with more 67,000 employees and 280,000 volunteers that actually work within in DOI.

We are located at approximately 24,000 offices across the United States and in the territories. DOI is the nation's largest landowner; we have the jurisdiction over 20 percent of the U.S. land map; 20 percent. That includes 1.7 billion acres of the outer continental shelf.

14:10

DOI has a diverse commission that raises developing conventional and alternative energy resources, conserving water and wildlife, and honoring our native people, as well as preserving our natural heritage.

America's heritage faces many challenges, most of which you know; pollution, climate change, habitat preservation, loss of wet land, impacts on wildlife, ecosystem impacts and water body impacts. Harsh weather and development of threatened national in cultural and historic treasures are impacted every day.

To carry out such a difficult mission, Interior needs to act in accessible and accurate and versatile geospatial data tools. That's what National Map is so critical to the work we do every day. The Department of Interior relies on the National Map and related geospatial technologies to effectively protect our national heritage. Extensive geospatial data collection through the efforts of many of our partners assist the department in meeting those challenges.

15:17

Many examples of how the geospatial technologies use to protect our natural heritage includes managing fisheries, wet wildlife habitats, preparing for floods and providing water storage. The undertaking restoration has helped us in many ways. We want to thank the state of Michigan in the use of geospatial data to consider the effect of dam removal on its fisheries.

Whereas the USGS in fish and wildlife setting, use it to assess the endangered and threatened species such as the grizzly bear in Montana. So how else do we use it in Interior?

Well, geospatial data also helped us in the gulf restoration. As you know, we had the Macondo blowout spill over a year ago. Not one of our finer moments at the time, but for example, USGS worked with several partners and because of this, it made a different.

16:14

In the fall of 2008, we required approximately 38,000 square miles of high accuracy data worth of photo quarter angles in Louisiana, and Mississippi, and Alabama. That helped us tremendously in monitoring and doing the assessment of the impact with the gulf oil spill. Those were particularly crucial in our wetland and marsh habitats.

During the Deepwater Horizon response, the water data set was used extensively to shoreline cleanup and assess and help our SCAT team to identify vegetation and wildlife impact by the oil.

The wetlands and upland maps of south Louisiana have not been updated prior to that since 1988, so even though there was significant change have taken place over the enduring years, so having that updated information was crucial.

17:12

Geospatial technologies help power our future. In what way, you might wonder. Well, our National Map is critical for strategic planning and for making significant decisions today that pertain to powering our future. I talked a little bit about that with the Secretary's Artist Board and his analysis of where we're siding.

DOI lands contain enormous potential for renewable and conventional energy? Energy projects on federal managed lands and offshore areas supply include that 30 percent of our nation's energy production, including the 39 percent of natural gas, 35 percent of oil, 42 percent of coal, 17 percent of hydro-powered, and 50 percent of our geothermal potential.

18:04

Interior-managed oil and gas reserves are and will continue to be vital elements of the energy portfolio in our economy for many years to come. DOI is working very hard to develop these assets to help power and help how President Obama's vision for a new energy economy.

Interior's land-based includes some of the most productive renewable energy sources: solar energy in the southwest, wind in the middle of the Atlantic on the Great Plains and the west, geothermal also at the west.

The National Map has helped facilitate the most complex land management decision the department has to face. In the field of the energy development, decisions involving property rights, endangered species, climate change, water availability, wildlife and human use, wilderness to areas in transportation efficiency, our cultural heritage, and many other factors. So, you can see that in every work we do in DOI, the National Map is integrated in that work.

19:09

We work tremendously with all of our partners and the National Map has found huge potential for existing hydropower as well. USGS scientists are working in collaboration with the Idaho National Laboratories to use the hydrograph data set, to combine with National Elevation database to help us determine how potential and those sites for hydropower.

So in conclusion, we are living in an era of unprecedented geographical change; receding glaciers, accelerated loss of habitat, unprecedented population growth particularly in the west and migration up to the west. We have improved scientific understanding of those changes in order to respond. We need that scientific understanding in order to respond rationally and effectively, I spilled some coffee into my microphone, doesn't it?

20:05

In the years ahead, geographic tools and technologies will be vitally important to the avenues for monitoring, analyzing and confronting those unprecedented changes and unfolding the earth's surface.

The lifeblood of sound geographic analysis is authoritative, versatile and standardizing the geographic data; the tool that does that the best and the most effectively is the National Map. And for those of you who are users, I thank you. I also want to assure you that it is an important asset to the department and I want to encourage you to add to the national database. We need your information; we need it readily available in order for policy makers like myself to help move those decisions forward.

So, thank you all for your time and thank you very much for being here today.

[Applause]

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