National Integrated Land System Concept of Operations and User Requirements
(12-17-99)
IN A NUTSHELL: The National Integrated Land System (NILS) initiative
-- a joint Bureau of Land Management, US Forest Service, state, county,
and private industry project -- is seeking public comments on the NILS
Concept of Operations and User Requirements. The review document
provides an overview of a common data model and tool sets for managing
public lands that "meet the needs of the widest possible spectrum of land
title and resource information providers and customers." Comments
will be accepted until January 15, 2000. Public comment periods, which
typically last from 30 days to several months, are the principal mechanism
for federal agencies to receive feedback on draft rules, regulations, and
policies before they are put into final form and officially promulgated.
In 1994, President Clinton released an executive
order that the federal government, in cooperation with states and local
governments, and the private sector, develop a "National
Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) to support public and private
sector applications of geospatial data in such areas as transportation,
community development, agriculture, emergency response, environmental management,
and information technology." The Federal
Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), an interagency working group that
includes federal agencies and programs using geospatial information, works
with state and local governments and private sector users to produce NSDI.
Out of this environment, the US Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management
joined together to form the National
Integrated Land System (NILS), a common model and "tool set" for the
two agencies to collect and provide data used for cadastral management.
NILS has worked with state, local, and tribal government and private
sector organization to develop a data model based on ARC/INFO 8.X technology.
The new document, "Concept of Operations and User Requirements," is a collection
of use cases that provide an overview of how the integrated-automated system
would work. A complete copy of the review is available at the NILS
website along with a link to submit
comments. Comments can be submitted via the web at the above address,
via fax at (303) 236-3327, and via mail at BLM NILS Project WO-510, Denver
Federal Center-BLD. 50, PO Box 25047, Denver, CO 80225-0047. The
public comment period ends on January 15, 2000.
The NILS vision is to "provide a business process method to collect,
maintain, and store parcel-based land information that meets the common,
shared business needs of the widest possible spectrum of land title and
resource information providers and customers." NILS goals include:
-
provide a comprehensive, integrated, common data model and framework for
the management of cadastral land tenure records
-
improve access to land title record information, including ownership, uses
and boundaries
-
provide graphic display for land management information
-
facilitate land information data sharing and cooperative collection efforts
-
support the ability to provide a common digital portrayal of land and resource
parcels across all jurisdictions
-
provide for the ability to effectively update information with new of better
sources of information
-
provide framework for decision support for collaborative ecosystem management
-
facilitate data sharing, cooperative collection, joint and multi-use land
management and distribution of data
-
provide the ability to link parcel-based information with other resource
information using geographic information system (GIS) technology to facilitate
analysis
-
improve the quality of the information needed to manage and display land,
including control, coordinates, land descriptions and parcels
-
integrate positional and descriptive land information for both surveyed
and unsurveyed boundaries
-
provide the ability to link alphanumeric (attribute) data with a graphic
representations of where the activity occurs
Submitted by Margaret Baker, AGI Government Affairs
Please send any comments or requests for information to AGI Government
Affairs Program at govt@agiweb.org
Last updated December 17, 1999
