[suitable for sessions on public access to GIS, graphic user interfaces] Citizen use of geographic databases can be fostered by improving public awareness of data and map resources and facilitating access to those resources. In the spirit of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, we are building a browser to assist patrons of local libraries to learn about map data available for their local communities. Implemented through ArcView, the browser provides options for the selection of themes, time period, and location. Browse graphics can be examined for a variety of documents representing a range of materials from federal, state, or local sources. The project is establishing a prototype system, and testing it in different settings. These are the University of Maryland Library, the College of Library and Information Services, one county government agency, and especially at one branch of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System, in Greenbelt, Maryland. Several government agencies are collaborating with the University in the assembly of a resource of data, metadata, and browse graphics, in evaluating the browser, and in obtaining library patron reactions. This project is supported by the Federal Geographic Data Committee, the University of Maryland, and several government agencies.
EnviroCity delivers to the public city environmental information via telematics, by aggregating and integrating different levels of heterogeneous information in a synthetic picture. Information delivery to the public is accomplished via two procedures: (1) queries from public PC-terminals, and (2) projection onto large city information panels. The project leads to a pre-demonstator. EnviroCity is based on existing Geographical Information System and database query technologies and the Internet-WWW. The information access is based on existing municipal databases, and other sources, that constitute input to the EnviroCity system. Any European city can join the use of the system. The project delivers a users requirements analysis, a Geographical Information System software as a pre-prototype, and pilot verifications (pre-demonstrator). The pre-prototype is developed on air quality data and information from the city of Munich (DE). It is further applied with air quality data from the cities of Antwerpen (BE), Piraeus (GR) and Vitoria (ES). In addition, an ecology-related application-verification of the pre-prototype is undertaken for the city of Lamia (GR).In the long-term, two types of users can be served: (i) experts, and (ii) the general public. All types are considered in the users requirements analysis, that considers the categories of: homes, industry, schools, universities, administrations, planners, commuters, and the European Environment Agency; it analyzes the city environmental compartments of air, land-soil, water, and ecosystems. EnviroCity is a one-year project. Results will be disseminated to the EUROCITIES network, to schools and to workshops to be identified, and one workshop to be organized by the city of Munich. Partners are aimed at a network to commercialize the software, and at providing added value services.
California Rivers Assessment (CARA) is a cooperative program of the California Resources Agency whose goal is to provide an assessment of the environmental conditions of California's rivers using the best existing data and information from a variety of contributors. This cooperative project establishes a database and GIS available throughout the Internet which will support informed decisions in the conservation and management of California's valuable rivers and streams. Multiple data sets on numerous river basins are now available through CARA, including water quality, vegetation, land use, hydrology, and riparian habitat layers. Much of this information may be accessed through the Internet at http://ice.ucdavis.edu/California_Rivers_Assessment. We currently provide an interactive query and map-making system that allows users to design a map and save it to their local disk. This includes navigating to the geographic area of interest, selecting which layers are desired, and submitting the query to our Web server. We are also currently working of methods of linking ArcView to our existing FoxPro data sets, and of implementing SQL query techniques for access to tabular data. These procedures will be presented, along with a detailed description of how these technologies are assisting CARA to fulfill the goal of distributing river resource data to the public and to decision makers.
The tendency to avoid defining the metadata for a coverage is tremendous, just as it is for programmers to create documentation for programs after the program has been completed. Metadata is the card catalog for the GIS Library. Without it, a potential user of the Library may take a long time, and possibly never succeed, in locating the GIS information they need to access. As GIS technology becomes more popular, the task of managing the information becomes more and more difficult. Esri addressed the immediate needs of federal agencies by delivering DOCUMENT.AML, an ATOOL written and currently used by the Water Resources Division of the USGS and the Environmental Agency. Another approach has been taken by the Klamath Meta Data Dictionary (KMDD) Project, a joint effort of the Klamath Province GIS Project of the University of California-Berkeley, and numerous GIS users in the Klamath Province. The KMDD, a Visual Basic metadata program available free over the Internet, has combined input from users, project staff, the Federal Meta Data Standards, the Spatial Unified Data Dictionary, and the Sierra Meta Data Dictionary of the California Department of Conservation. The City of Oakland has been using the KMDD to document features, layers, coverages, and GIS metadata for the Measure I Emergency Response System (MIERS). It includes two categories of data: (1) Basic and (2) Detailed. Basic identification includes data set identification; currentness; data description and theme; location; data set structure, source, and resolution; data owner and custodian contact information; and metadata custodian contact information. Detailed information includes availability of the data set, acquisition information, operating system software and data processing, summary table of types of attributes stored, measures of positional and thematic accuracy, specifications about the source, history, comments from users of the data set, and listings of further resources. Future development includes developing a thesaurus. The purpose of this paper is to lay out a "strategy" for the GIS professionals within an organization to (1) identify the components of an effective metadata strategy, (2) implement the strategy (using the KMDD as an example from the City of Oakland), and (3) set up a mechanism for updating the metadata catalog. Further development of the KMDD itself, as well as its accessibility from the Internet, will be briefly discussed.