Understanding and Implementing the
Federal Geographic Data Committee's
Cadastral Data Content Standard for the
National Spatial Data Infrastructure
Abstract
The Washington Cadastral Framework is a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) demonstration project that is developing the means to share and maintain cadastral data between federal, state, county, tribal, and private organizations in Washington State. The project foundation for sharing cadastral data is the Federal Geographic Data Committee's (FGDC) Cadastral Data Content Standard. Before developing the content standard from a data model into a shared transactional framework database, project partners had to gain an understanding of how the FGDC data model related to their business functions. Partners extended the data model to address related business data and to work with other NSDI framework themes: Geodetic Control, Elevation, Governmental Units, Hydrography, and Transportation (FGDC, 1997). Implementation of the Cadastral Data Content Standard as an SDE/Oracle database allows transactional integration of partner data sets, but introduces some other data maintenance issues as well.
Background
In 1997, a cross section of federal, state, county, regional, and private organizations under the Washington Geographic Information Council joined in the effort to develop and test an inter-organizational partnership approach to create, manage, and distribute base cadastral data for the state of Washington (WAGIC, 1998; Tudor, 1999). Currently, project partners include: federal - Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Forest Service, and Geological Survey; state - Community Trade & Economic Development, Fish and Wildlife, Natural Resources, Revenue, Transportation, Interagency Committee for Outdoor Recreation, and Parks and Recreation; regional - Puget Sound Regional Council; county - Clallam, Clark, Cowlitz, Douglas, Snohomish, Spokane, Stevens, Thurston, Yakima; and private Boise-Cascade, Longview Fibre, Weyerhaeuser, and Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri). Partners agreed that the FGDC Cadastral Data Content Standard was the best starting point for development in Washington. At the time that the Washington Cadastral Framework Project started, the only NSDI framework theme with a content standard was the Cadastral Information theme. At this point, the only other thematic content standard that has been endorsed by the FGDC is for Orthoimagery. (FGDC, 1999.)
Cadastral Data and Business Functions
The FGDC Cadastral Data Content Standard (CDCS) models the business of tracking rights in land conveyed through transactions. Land transactions have a great deal in common with other financial transactions. Land transactions add to the financial complexity the geographic extent of the land being transacted, and the multitude of land ownership rights and land use rights connected to the land. Land transactions are defined in terms of contract documents, deeds. Deeds specify the terms of the sale, the geographic extent of land and rights sold, and the geographic extent of land and rights retained, and identify any external restrictions on the land, the contract parties, the contract execution date, and any expiration date or conditions. The described geographic extent of land transacted in a deed is a legal description. There are several major business functions involved in land transactions: land surveying, land management, and land recording. The FGDC standard identifies the major business data components involved in these business functions. The basic data components of the standard are legal_area_description, record_boundary, corner, corner_point, parcel, parcel_transaction, transferred_right, restriction, agent, address, and document source links. (FGDC, Cadastral Subcommittee, 1996.) The business function associations to data components are land surveying (legal_area_description together with corner and record_boundary), land management (parcel, parcel_transaction, transferred_right, and restriction), and land recording (parcel_transaction, restriction, and links to a source document). Agent and address are involved with all of the business functions.
After reviewing the Cadastral Data Content Standard with direct assistance and through on-line education (FGDC, Cadastral Subcommittee, 1998), the Washington Cadastral Framework partners have extended the standard to fill out the land recording, and land surveying business functions, and to add the land taxation business function. Document and recording/filing are completing the land recording function. Coordinated_point and monument are allowing geodetic and other control points filling out the land surveying business function. Links to elevation, hydrography and transportation features from record_boundary are also necessary to show relationships to natural and artificial linear monuments. Tax_assessment and tax parcel attributes are allowing land taxation business functionality. Also, some of the relationships between components have been changed to allow the business functions to continue to operate when original land records documents and land information data are missing.
The usage of CDCS starts with the focus of the model - parcel. The parcel is a unique package of bundled rights associated with a specific piece of land that can be conveyed as one unit through a parcel_transaction between two parties. For example, a piece of land with air, surface, and mineral rights is owned by an individual who acquired the land in a parcel_transaction documented by a deed recorded with the county. The geographic extent of a parcel is compiled from one or more legal_area_descriptions through the parcel-legal_area_description relationship; for example, a parcel could be composed of the SW1/4NE1/4, the W1/2SE1/4, and Government Lot 2. The extent of each legal_area_description is defined by record boundaries and corners. A record_boundary may also refer to a parcel, or a topographic, hydrographic, or transportation feature that acts as a boundary. The transferred_rights bundled with the parcel are directly related to it; they go with the parcel unless the parcel's transferred_rights are separated in another parcel_transaction. For example, the air and surface rights are sold, but the mineral rights are retained. In this case, two new parcels with the same geographic extent are created from the original. Parcel_transactions convey parcels between agents and may create new parcels. Parcel_transactions are usually documented, and those documents usually still exist in the public county records. Parcel_transaction is a three-way intersection of the relationships between parcel, agent, and document, if the document exists. Restrictions are imposed on parcels by the terms of the parcel_transaction document or by public agencies through documented ordinances. Documents may also have relationships to the agents who created them, such as maps and surveyors, and relationships to the agents who keep them, such as public records or private files. Both parcels and agents may have addresses.
The descriptions of the business data components are grouped by their primary business function areas: land surveying, land management, land recording, and land taxation.
Land Surveying
Washington Cadastral Framework partners have included in the business function of land surveying both property surveys (setting monuments, locating corners, measuring boundaries, designing land subdivisions, and writing legal descriptions of land to be included in transactions) and other surveys, including engineering, geodetic, hydrographic, photogrammetric, and topographic surveys. These other types of surveys need to accurately locate features and constructions through the setting and measurement of control points. The extension of the FGDC standard to include control points and other significant coordinated_points allows the inclusion of general survey data. However, the primary interest of Washington partners is property survey data.
The spatial extent of land is ultimately determined by land surveys. Land conveyances are geographically identified by legal descriptions, a written description of the land that must withstand judicial scrutiny in court and the boundaries of which can be reestablished by a land surveyor (Wattles, 1979). A legal description is also a description of real property by government survey, metes and bounds, or lot number of a recorded plat including a description of any portion thereof subject to an easement or reservation, if any, which must be complete enough that a particular parcel of land can be located and identified (Black, 1990). Another definition also requires that a legal description must be sufficient to locate the property without oral testimony (ACSM, ASCE, 1989). This usually means identifying the parcel in the transaction document, and locating it on the ground. In the context of a geographic information system, this means being able to identify the parcel by the legal description information and to show the best spatial representation of the ground location. Legal descriptions have been written by many different players in land transactions, including landowners, land surveyors, lawyers, and title abstractors. The landowner usually requires the assistance of one or more professionals in the preparation of a deed. Legal descriptions written without the assistance of surveyors are at greater risk of being insufficient to locate the land without testimony, or being void entirely. (Brown, 1995.)
Because land transactions have deep historical roots in physically identifying the location of the land, legal description boundaries are defined primarily in terms of corner and boundary monuments such as a pile of rocks, a fence, or a river that can be easily identified by the layman acquiring the land (Deuteronomy 19:14). The measurements of the boundaries and corner coordinates are secondary to the legal description but are important to the land surveyor for finding the monuments or restoring them if they are disturbed or destroyed. Where monuments do not exist for corners or boundaries, the measurements must stand by themselves.
The business data components of land surveying are corner, coordinated_point (corner_point), monument, record_boundary, and legal_area_description.
Corners are the endpoints of boundaries and the angle points of legal descriptions. Corners are created when surveys subdivide land into new legal_area_descriptions, or when parcel_transactions convey portions of a larger land holding by metes and bounds descriptions. Corner locations can be calculated from legal descriptions without a monument ever being set, but surveys which measure the locations of corner monuments show the best representation of the corners in the GIS. The relationship between PLSS townships and corners includes the Geographic Coordinate Database (GCDB) code as an attribute (BLM, 1997).
Corner_points are representations of the corners created from surveys and transactions. Multiple corner_points may exist for a given corner, because multiple methods may be used to locate a given corner. For example, one surveyor may not have located a corner monument and set a new monument using measurements from nearby corners; a second surveyor then finds the original corner monument. In this case, there are two corner_points representing one corner. Corner_points need not be monumented; they can be calculated locations such as section subdivision corner_points in a GIS database.
In contrast with corner_points, which are related to land boundaries, geodetic and other control points are locations that have nothing to do the location of boundaries. Control points are points that are used in determining the shape of the earth, photogrammetric control, construction control, or marking a point of interest. Control points are monumented like corner_points, but the monuments have no legal significance. Control points are usually set by surveyors in a convenient location for general use. Sometimes existing corner monuments are used as control points for convenience. Although the corner_points have additional control point attributes, their primary function is still as a corner_point. In order to extend the land surveying business function, the Washington Cadastral Framework implemented corner_points and control points together as coordinated_points.
The measurement metadata associated with coordinated_points is extremely important. Metadata on land survey corner_point coordinates and record_boundary measurements are usually kept at the feature level. Much feature level quality and source metadata standards were derived from the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (FGDC, 1995). The Washington Cadastral Framework included information for each coordinated_point on the source document, the method of location, the accuracy of the coordinates, and the original measurement of the coordinated_point in the original datum, projection, and units as a parity check against coordinate shifting from subsequent coordinate transformations in the GIS.
Monuments are physical markers on the ground that are used to identify the location of a corner, or to identify the coordinate location of a control point. Monuments are usually well described, with information on how to access and identify the monument. Not all corner_points are monumented, but all control points must be monumented or they are no longer functional. The monumentation history of a corner is important for tracing the lineage of an encased brass cap back to the original notched rock. Monument history helps surveyors determine whether the monument that is being used for a retracement is the correct successor of the original survey. A corner_point may have been marked by more than one monument. The Washington Cadastral Framework implemented monument separately from corner_point in order to keep the monument history.
Record boundaries are the sidelines of legal_area_descriptions. Record boundaries are created when a land survey or deed subdivides an existing legal_area_description. They may be straight lines, curves, and irregular lines defined by natural monuments. Natural monuments, such as a road, river, ridge line, or contour line, may include relationships to other framework themes like transportation, hydrography, and topography. Record boundaries may be measured or defined by distance, direction, or curve parameters. Measurement metadata of record boundaries also includes the method of measurement, the accuracy, the units, and the original or defining measurement. (Brown, 1981.)
Legal_area_description is the area of a legal description. Legal_area_description is spatially defined in terms of record_boundary and corners. Legal_area_descriptions are created when a land survey or deed subdivides an existing legal_area_description. There are several types of legal descriptions: Public Land Survey System (PLSS), plat map tract/block/lot, metes and bounds, boundary (adjoiner), or strip descriptions (Wattles, 1979). The record_boundary and corner references are explicit in metes and bounds, and strip descriptions. Plat map and PLSS descriptions imply that the record_boundary and corner information can be found on the reference map or the field notes. Boundary adjoiner descriptions refer to other lands which may have record_boundary and corner information. Many legal descriptions require a survey to locate the land on the ground. A representation of the legal description in a geographic information system requires coordinated boundaries and corners.
The Public Land Survey System was devised as a means of efficiently conveying public lands. The system's rectangular subdivision of land into standard parcels guaranteed the buyer the amount of land, and the definition of the subdivision method allowed land surveys at the section level to convey subdivisions of the land without explicitly locating the subdivision through an additional survey. The surveys are shown on official plats with the measurements of the township and section subdivisions. The highest level PLSS polygon is designated by a row and column notation, township and range, called a township. Townships are subdivided into sections, donation land claims, tracts, and protracted blocks. Sections are subdivided further into aliquot parts (halves, quarters, etc.), (government) lots, and parcels. All of the PLSS descriptions except for the section subdivision into aliquot parts are defined on plat maps. (BLM, 1973.) Some typical PLSS legal descriptions read:
Lot 5 of Section 6, Township 10 North, Range 3 East, Willamette Meridian.
The north half of the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 6, Township 10 North, Range 3 East, Willamette Meridian.
That unnumbered lot corresponding to the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 6, Township 10 North, Range 3 East, Willamette Meridian.
Plat map descriptions are descriptions that are based on a map showing the location of a set of land parcels. The plat map description is designed to allow a landowner to subdivide his land and sell pieces of it through multiple conveyances by reference to a single plat map document. The landowner must know how the land is to be subdivided in advance of the sale. The subdivision tracts identify major parts of the subdivision, blocks identify smaller areas separated by the access right-of-ways, and lots identify the smallest parts that are conveyed to individual buyers. A typical plat map legal description reads:
Lot 5 of Block 17 of Tract C of the Pacific Subdivision, City of Seattle, State of Washington, as per the map recorded in Book 5, Page 1 of Maps, records of King County.
Condominium descriptions are a variation of plat map descriptions that may also call for building, floor, and unit references. A typical condominium description reads:
Unit 5 of Floor 3 of Building 2 of Tract C of the Pacific Condominiums, City of Seattle, as per the map recorded in Book 5, Page 1 of Maps, records of King County.
Metes and bounds descriptions are a series of distance and direction measurements that define the perimeter of the land, along with information about the corner and record_boundary monuments. A typical metes and bounds description reads:
The land in Section 6, Township 10 North, Range 3 East, Willamette Meridian described as follows: beginning at the section corner between sections 5, 6, 7, and 8, thence north 3280 feet to the point of beginning, thence north 660 feet along the section line to an iron rod, thence west 1320 feet to an iron rod, thence south 660 feet, thence east 1320 feet along a stone fence to the point of beginning.
Area descriptions define a portion of another description by area. The portion may be in relative terms like the north half or the east two-thirds, or may be in terms of a measurement such as the north 300 feet or the east 30 acres. The rules of subdivision for area descriptions are different from PLSS descriptions despite the similarity in language. A typical area description reads:
The north 10 acres of Lot 1, Section 6, Township 10 North, Range 3 East, Willamette Meridian.
Boundary adjoiner descriptions are a series of references to the adjoining properties by owner. A typical boundary adjoiner description reads:
The land bounded on the north by John Smith, bounded on the east by Jed Smith, bounded on the south by John Brown, and bounded on the west by Robert Brown, as shown in the records of Lincoln County, Washington.
Aquatic adjoiner descriptions designate tidelands adjacent to uplands and are usually conveyed along with the uplands. A typical aquatic adjoiner descriptions reads:
The 2nd class tidelands in front of Government Lot 5, Section 5, Township 25 North, Range 12 West, Willamette Meridian.
Strip descriptions are a series of distance and direction measurements that define the centerline of a strip of land. Strip descriptions are applied to rights-of-way for roads, pipelines, railroads, power lines, etc. The description may define a uniform width, or the width may vary with specific offsets on the left and right. The description may also include right of way length stationing. A typical strip description reads:
A strip of land 40 feet in width in the N1/2 of the SE1/4 of the NE1/4 of Section 6, Township 10 North, Range 3 East described as follows: beginning at the section corner between sections 5, 6, 7, and 8, thence north 3280 feet to the point of beginning, thence N 45o E a distance of 933.4 feet, the side lines of said strip of land to be extended or shortened to terminate at the boundaries of said N1/2SE1/4NE1/4.
Land Management
Land management is a complicated business just as most financial operations are. Land managers must understand the property that they own, its limitations, and how to best make use of it. Managers are interested in knowing the extent of the property with respect to location and rights. Managers must also keep track of the extent of usage of the land, their own usage as well as any use granted, leased, or permitted to another. Land managers are interested in the income generated from use of the land and in finding ways to generate more income. They are also concerned with overburdening their land and are interested in protecting its valuable qualities. Restrictions that affect the use of the land and which agent that has imposed the restrictions are also of interest. Land managers are interested in the parcel, which brings the extent, the interests, the agents, and the documents together for effectively understanding the property and managing it well. The specific business data components of land management are parcel, transferred_right, and parcel_transaction. Generally, land management also includes agent, address, legal_area_description, and tax_assessment.
A parcel is an area of land that has common rights, restrictions, and owner agents that are uniform for the whole geographic extent of the parcel. The extent of the parcel is defined in terms of one or more legal_area_descriptions. The parcel-legal_area_description qualifies the relationship of the parcel's legal_area_descriptions. Legal_area_descriptions included in the parcel are part of the parcel. Legal_area_descriptions that are excluded are exceptions and not part of the parcel. The parcel is an area easily managed as a unit. The concept of the parcel being a package of related interests in land can be extended to land use rights, tax assessments, and ownership trust benefits.
The basic parcel conveyed in a parcel_transaction is ownership. The grantor is conveying to the grantee a piece of land with one or more ownership rights associated. Ownership rights could include air, timber, surface, shellfish, mineral, geothermal, and water rights. Some of these rights could be very specific; for example, mineral rights could be just oil and gas.
Another basic parcel of conveyance is land use. The grantor is conveying to the grantee the use of a piece of land or products from a piece of land. There are several different types of land use conveyances: easements, leases, permits/licenses. The land use rights associated with a parcel are usually very specific: easement for road access, easement for microwave communications line of sight, lease for growing oysters, lease for grazing sheep, permit to quarry rock, permit to cut timber, permit to move livestock across the land. An easement serves a land ownership parcel, or an agent for a specific activity for an indefinite period of time. Leases and permits place conditions on the term of use. Leases prevent the lessor from interfering with the lessee's occupation and operations. Permits or licenses allow the permit holder to access or take something from the land without occupying the land. (Robillard, 1995.)
The owner's conveyance of the profits of land to another defines the beneficiary parcel. Beneficiary parcels generally coincide with the ownership parcels, but beneficiary parcels may be subdivisions of the ownership parcel. Generally, the beneficiary gets a percentage of the proceeds from any parcel_transaction involving the use of the beneficiary parcel.
The parcel management concept can also be applied to parcels that are not defined in terms of transactions. Tax parcels (see below) are closely related to the transaction parcels since these are usually minor variations of the ownership parcel. Other parcels include administrative areas, and restriction areas. These areas can be defined in terms of legal_area_descriptions, as county boundaries often are in the statutes. They are not defined in terms of land ownership or land use conveyances, so they are not strictly cadastral. However, these areas may affect the parcel use and ownership rights through their administration, such as zoning. These other parcels are more closely related to the framework Governmental Unit theme.
The rights that are conveyed with a parcel stay with the parcel for the duration of its life. These transferred_rights are ownership rights such as air, timber, surface, water, shellfish, mineral, and geothermal, or land use rights such as access, grazing, occupation, or taking products from the land granted by the land owner through an easement, lease, or permit.
The transfer of the ownership or use of land involves the parcel of land associated with the transferred_rights, the agents transferring the parcel, and the document recording the transfer. The Washington Cadastral Framework implemented the parcel_transaction as the intersection between parcel, agent, and document. Sometimes there is no document recording the transfer, so the relationship to document may be optional.
Land Recording
The land recording business function addresses the registration and management of documents relating to land conveyances. These documents must be tracked both in the public record and in the land manager's own files. Counties keep the public record in the United States. Some of the records kept are surveys, maps, deeds, mortgages, sales, and leases. The public recording of these documents protects the transferred_rights of grantee and lessee by preventing a subsequent purchaser of the land from qualifying as the rightful owner or lessee. (Black, 1990) Decisions regarding land transactions are kept by the courts. In addition to the public record, individual organizations keep records of their business dealings internally. The business data component of land recording is document. General components include agent, parcel, transferred_right, and legal_area_description.
Document was added to the model by the Washington Cadastral Framework partners. The implementation of document is supported by the FGDC CDCS source link, which references the recording or filing of documents. The source link is part of a three-way relationship between document, agent, and several land surveying and parcel management components. Document attributes include the type of document, document name, date, expiration date, expiration conditions, etc. The source link provides information on the location of the document within the agency records as well as the public record.
Land Taxation
The term cadastre comes from the French application of land surveys and maps to locate and measure accurately taxable lands and determine what tax rate should be applied based on the land use and value. It is interesting that the FGDC Cadastral Data Content Standard does not directly address parcels with respect to land taxation. Nearly all of the Washington Cadastral Framework partners keep track of tax parcels or tax_assessments on parcels in their own proprietary databases. Private organizations tend to keep more information on tax_assessments than the counties taxing them in order to keep their financial systems in order. There is some question of how much tax information partners want to share over the Internet. Many organizations consider tax information proprietary, and there are additional privacy issues about sharing owner names, addresses, land values, and tax rates. The county tax assessors are interested in sharing tax parcel identification numbers to facilitate tax transactions with their constituents. Occasionally, assessors do not have a specific parcel identifier but use the parcel address instead. Assessors would also like to identify public land ownership so that the search for unidentified taxable private land can be focused. City, county, and state planners would like to share more information on basic land use and value between public agencies. The specific business data components of land taxation are parcel and tax_assessment. General data components include agent and address.
Tax parcels define cadastre; the records of land ownership, land value, and land extent for the purposes of taxation. Tax parcels generally coincide with the location of ownership parcels, but tax parcels may be subdivisions of ownership parcels defined by the areas of primary economic value. There are many different types of tax_assessments based on services and use: fire protection, emergency management system, school, utilities, pasture, crop land, residence, commercial. Some activities on parcels which are not taxable for the owner are assessed for land use by a taxable lessee.
Tax_assessment shows the specific items for which a parcel is being taxed. Examples of assessments include forest land, fire protection, school, emergency medical system, etc. Since there are more of these than can be easily counted, they are implemented as a table separate from the parcel.
General
Agent and address are two components of the FGDC CDCS that are developed within the standard, but can be extended to cover almost any of the framework themes in a content standard.
Agent is any individual or organization that has some interest in surveys, and parcel_transactions or restrictions. The only Washington Cadastral Framework additions to the FGDC CDCS were a recursive relationship between organizations to show business hierarchy, and more detailed attributes. The business hierarchy allows identification of the specific subunit of an organization that has an interest. For example, the county assessor has an interest in the taxation of a parcel, and the county auditor keeps the parcel_transaction documents of a parcel; the county parks or public works department may be the owner of the property.
In the FGDC standard, there are two addresses: parcel_address and agent_address. Both refer to a cultural or demographic link, instead of developing the address attributes. The Washington Cadastral Framework combined these two address types into one address component. Parcel and agent have relationships to address and can share a relationship with address if the agent resides or works at the address of the parcel. Street and mailing address subtypes were identified, and the attributes were specified in detail, with telephone, e-mail, and web address extensions.
Implementation of the Standard
The resulting extended data model based on the Cadastral Data Content Standard was implemented as two SDE/Oracle databases: a proprietary database for the Department of Natural Resources to keep its data and the Washington Cadastral Framework integration database to share between partners. The DNR needed to revise its 14-year-old PLS/Ownership/County/Administrative uplands coverage and its corner_points coverage, to include ownership of major public lands, to integrate aquatic lands regions coverages, and to develop a maintenance application to keep the data (Washington DNR, 1997). The Washington Cadastral Framework needed a transactional database that could accept data from a wide variety of sources with minimal data provider and data integrator effort by any one agency in the partnership (Hair, 1997). SDE was being applied to other DNR coverage in a transition to Oracle, and SDE was a good transactional option for the framework database.
For the DNR proprietary database, the problems that developers and database administrators encountered with SDE were that the procedures for data manipulation were not well developed or documented, and that developers and users were not very familiar with the feature and layer concepts at first. ArcInfo users are comfortable with coverages, and many users are getting comfortable with regions coverages. Over the course of the requirements phase of the project, users also became comfortable with SDE feature object concepts, finding them easier to relate to their own business interests, but still difficult to maintain by direct manipulation. Efforts so far have focused on maintaining coverages and region coverages and then transferring the data to SDE for user applications.
For the Washington Cadastral Framework database, SDE has been a much easier path to follow. The storage of features in SDE, almost as business tables with spatial attributes, allows the features to be inserted, updated, and deleted just as in a tabular relational database management system. Not as much special consideration had to be made for the implementation of the spatial features. The spatial transactions were devised to use a very denormalized data transfer standard for the tabular information and the feature shapes were attached to the tables. The transfer tables are ASCII flat files, and the related spatial data are shape files, although simple coordinate sets could also be used. The flat files can be loaded directly into the Oracle database and then re-associated with the spatial data loaded into SDE. The transactions are managed using Oracle's relational database management system. One of the transactional concepts that seems to have great promise is tracking both the history of the production data view by creation, acceptance, and retirement dates, in additional to the history of real surveys and transactions through document execution and expiration dates.
Conclusion
The Washington Cadastral Framework partners are now participating in the National Integrated Lands System (NILS) project. The project is an effort to develop cadastral object classes and software application tools at a national level. The Washington Cadastral Framework is offering the understanding and development from the state project to the national project. The benefits will be a more comprehensive standardized object-oriented data structure with a more highly developed set of tools and utilities than could have been developed otherwise. These cadastral object classes and tools should be accepted by a wider set of users and will assist in the development of a national cadastral framework.
Acknowledgments
Dave Steele, PLS, Frank Fischer, PLS; Jan Lobe, Land Records Technician; Kevin Kozak, Elizabeth Lanzer, Larry Holt, PLS, Ron Torrence, PLS (aquatic lands); Cheri Howe and Paul Dirksen, data analysts; and Nancy Von Meyer, Cadastral Subcommittee. Supported by the U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, under assistance award No. 98HQAG2162.
Provision
This manuscript is submitted for publication with the understanding that the United States Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for governmental use.
Disclaimer
The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. Government.
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G.S. Tudor, PLS
Project Manager
Geographic Information Section
Information Technology Division
Washington State Department of Natural Resources
PO Box 47020
Olympia, WA 98504-7020
E-mail: greg.tudor@dnr.state.wa.us
Voice: 360-902-1542
Fax: 360-902-1790
Web: http://framework.dnr.state.wa.us/