NGA Furthers Geospatial Capabilities
event coverage, global change, sensor web, system of systems October 22nd, 2007
The annual GeoInt Symposium is taking place this week in San Antonio. This is the first year that I’ll miss this important geospatial industry event due to a family obligation. I miss the opportunity to see top-level military speakers and eye-opening visualization and simulation products on the tradeshow floor.
Over the past five years, geospatial intelligence has been the engine of the North American geospatial industry. This in large part is due to the events of 9/11, and the subsequent War on Terror. After these events, we saw the public emergence of the geospatial intelligence practitioners from a previously closed community.
The openness and embrace of private partners was driven by an overwhelming need for interoperability between systems, with intelligence that builds upon the work of others for greater understanding of situations and increased communication between branches of the military. The National Geospatial-Intelligence agency under the helm of General James Clapper, set the tone for this new open organization.
I’ve been impressed over the years with NGA’s use of tools, support for innovation, and the enterprise systems that they’ve built based on a Service-Oriented Architecture. Through their strong commitment to supporting the private sector they have allowed the geospatial industry to grow and thrive.
NGA has successfully communicated their vision to “Know the Earth – Show the Way.” I’m sure we’ll be hearing more details from this week’s event that illustrate the technical competence of this agency and the power of geospatial intelligence.
Posts
October 23rd, 2007 at 2:59 am
Does the militarization of GIS help people who are working for sustainability?
October 23rd, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Here is one example of military and “sustainability”.
http://www.rand.org/news/press/2007/06/28/index.html
I can’t find all the other articles. There have been studies showing there is a higher biodiversity on military bases compared to surrounding under developed public lands. Also, the militray spends alot of money, time and effort to be good land stewards. Now maybe not as much as people would like.
Not sure why people always associate or assume the military or militarization of something is always a bad thing. Especially those who have a wonderful military of their own, the US. And yes, there is some bad apples in it, on the scales of balance, the balance leans positive.
KoS
October 24th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Kos, your point is that shelling, bombing, and manoeuvers are less damaging to ecosystems than ranching, logging, and mining? Do we need more of the former or less of the latter?
Seriously, Mr. Ball, how do you reconcile the defense and intelligence industries served by GEOINT — the military-industrial complex, and the state of perpetual conflict that it requires — with sustainable environments and communities? The editors of worldchanging.com advocate peace and non-violence as key parts of sustainability. Are they high? Are you at V1 writing about a different kind of sustainability?
October 24th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
My post was focused on the spatial tool creation side of the picture. The NGA has furthered the cause for interoperability, collaborative decision making, and real-time decision support with sensor inputs. The funding by the military has furthered the technology toolbox that can be put to good use for sustainable development.
I don’t condone war. I do believe that geospatial technologies are the most peaceful weapon in the military arsenal for intelligent strikes with minimal casualties. Yet they’re still used in conflict that is disruptive economically and socially.
The balance that is sustainable development should ultimately be peaceful and nonviolent, yet in some areas there’s a great deal to be done to resolve the economic piece to the puzzle because conflict exists. I wouldn’t expand the goals of sustainable development to conflict resolution, that’s a first step prior to tackling the broader goals.
Resolution of conflict won’t generally be a topic that I cover. I did feel that an acknowledgment of the role of the military in technology building for both peace and war was fitting for this blog.
October 25th, 2007 at 1:27 am
Again, I wish I could find a certain article. It talked about a study in which the studies authors found higher biodiversity on bases compared to “park” land. The higher diversity was due to all the “changes” going on. According to the authors of the study, the “changes” helped more than it harmed.
From my personal experience, if you ask people who hunt on both military and non-military land which is better, whether in quality and quantity. More times than not, they would say military land. Especially deer hunting in my part of the world.
Ecosystems are not static. Maybe to humans and their life time, they seem to be static in nature. Other time scales, like geologic, they aren’t static at all. There is always change, some positive and others negative.
The military, at least the past decade or so, has taken more consideration in their impact on the environment. Not blindly doing whatever they want to. They do have to file environmental impact studies/statements on most things, not all thou.
On balance they do a good job, there are examples otherwise, like sonar tests which damaged some wildlife. For a time the military didn’t seem to heed those concerns.
On the other hand there have been examples of them not bombing areas because of concerns of wildlife in the area. An example, Fort Hood didn’t shell/bomb certain areas when they found out certain endangered bats where in the area. They even spent money to protect the caves where they roost and hired a biologist to assist in their efforts to protect them.
As more and more of the training goes virtual. There is less pressure or need to do real training in the field and the impact it has on the environment.
Some people argue the military helps “save†land from development. There isn’t much development of housing divisions or the like, not much if any mining, logging or ranching on military land. With the downsizing of the military, some bases are a “shell” of their former selfs. Example Fort Knox, they have lost about half of their population. As a result less housing and support needs, for example.
Personally, there should be a balance. Not lean too far one way or another. We need the military, we need ranching, mining, and logging for now. Especially how our society and world currently operates. Given it’s a current need, we should do the best possible management of those. Whether do with less, replace the resources taken(like re plant trees), even decide as a society certain benefits out weigh their costs, and so and so forth.
A perfect example of cost/benefit, the Atlanta water situation. Maybe people will decide, the cost of losing some endangered species in Florida is the price to pay in order to have a better supply of water for Atlanta.
I know the rest of your comments were not directed at me. But I can’t help to comment. Peace isn’t possible. So long as there are two or more humans with differing opinions/outlooks, peace can’t exist. It’s a nice concept and it’s great people strive for it. It’s all most impossible to have.
I take that back. Those who want peace, generally only get peace when they are either dead or the threats to their peace are dead. Life is short and brutish. To steal someones saying.
And Matt, not to belabor the subject. Don’t condone war at all? Even when it’s life or death? I don’t condone war either, but I am realistic to know when war is necessary and warranted.
KoS
November 3rd, 2007 at 5:48 pm
I received this email today. An interesting bit similar to what I had mentioned earlier.
Copied from the email:
“Ken next travels to “America’s Warfighting Center,” Fort Riley,Kansas, a Department of Defense facility that manages large blocks of land for wildlife – and for hunting.
After being joined in the field by Pheasants Forever president Howard Vincent, he is shocked by the diversity of species he spots. “We hunted bobwhite quail,” Ken says, “but we saw prairie chickens, pheasants, whitetails and one hummer of a bull elk …all in the midst of a military training ground.”
For more information on this or any episode of TRCP’s Life in
the Open, please follow this link:
http://trcp.ga0.org/ct/K7Amdlp1nSCP/”
KoS
May 5th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I am a software engineer for a Defense contractor, and I worked on several contracts for the Defense Mapping Agency, NIMA, and NGA. After the first Gulf War, NIMA integrated many government geospatial responsibilities, increased bandwidth, funded commercial imagery, and developed many advanced analysis techniques. NGA has adopted open geospatial standards, and is developing innovative visualization techniques. Much of this work has civilian applications and has advanced the state of civilian geospatial technology. I remember when LIDAR was used to map the World Trade Center site after 9/11.
I spent 13 years in the U.S. Air Force, including 8 years flying jet fighters in Southeast Asia, Europe, and Korea. I remember navigating across the ocean, and around Europe, before GPS existed, which was difficult. Creating maps is now automated for both military nuclear missions and civilian car trips. Military missions are ultimately dictated by a civilian Congress for better or worse, and many civilians feel safer having the Air Force patrol major cities for our defense. From a technical point-of-view, government agencies like the military, NASA, and the NGA provide a great deal of geospatial data to the public, and they have high-performance, high precision capabilities that are interesting for me to work on.