NOAA National Data Centers Integrate GIS into Data Systems

Author: Ted Habermann
Organization: NOAA National Geophysical Data Center

NOAA / NGDC E/GC1
325 Broadway
BOulder, CO 80303
USA

Phone: 303.497.6472
Fax: 303.497.6513
haber@ngdc.noaa.gov

Partnerships are an important element in conceptual models of distributed geospatial data systems. The NOAA National Data Centers (NNDC) have recently integrated GIS with data management and Web access systems. This project has involved partnerships on many levels: within data centers, between data centers, and between NOAA and the USGS. Finding government management models that enable effective partnerships has proven difficult. It has also been difficult to evolve the Esri Internet tools into an environment with distributed data sources. This process presents considerable technological and usability problems including connection maintenance, screen real estate, state maintenance, and browser capabilities.