# Presentation: 657495

## THE NATIONAL MAP: AN AGENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MODELING USING THE WORLD WIDE WEB 

- 8 June 2004

-  Michael P. Finn
- Jeffrey D. Spooner
- David K. Shaver
- E. Lynn Usery

- mfinn@usgs.gov

**U.S. Department of the Interior**
**U.S. Geological Survey**

## Outline

**Objectives**
**What is *****The National Map*****?**
**Architecture (Viewer & Catalog)**
**Environmental Models**
**AGNPS Data Generator**
**Design of the Web Modeling App **
**Conclusions**

## Objectives of the Research

- Feasibility of *The National Map* to Drive Web-Based Environmental Models
- Investigation of Adding Other Appropriate Modeling Tools
- Proof-of-Concept Web Modeling Application

## Feasibility of The National Map to Drive Web-Based Environmental Models

- The National Map as a source of parametric values
- Agricultural Non-Point Source (AGNPS) Pollution Model as a test case
- AGNPS Data Generator (*ADGen*)

## The National Map

- A synthesis of data, tools, and applications
- Seamless, continuously maintained, nationally consistent base geographic data
- Partnerships* *
- 24/7 on the Web* *
- Source for products
- The United States’ geographic information infrastructure

**Notes:**
The concept of The National Map came from the work of a task force commissioned to understand the needs of the many stakeholders, partners, and customers using basic map information.

## The National Map:  Data Content

**Orthorectified imagery**

**Land characterization**

**Elevation**

**Vector layers:**
**Transportation**
**Hydrography**
**Structures**
**Boundaries**

**Geographic names**

**Notes:**
Consider the reality of what USGS does now and what we propose to do for the future.  The data content of the National Map will meet broad user requirements for a foundation of geographic information.

Orthorectified (scale corrected) imagery is a key source of interpreted feature information for The National Map, and is an archive medium in its own right for portraying data that does not lend itself to extraction and symbolization.  Imagery comes from a variety of sources now, including the commercial satellite remote sensing business that is being built.  There are debates about whether or not this industry will be successful, but the fact is that private firms now have licenses to collect high-resolution satellite data, at 1 meter and even .5 meter ground resolution.  And whether it’s today’s business model or some other business model, we believe that there is going to be widely available high resolution imagery from satellites and other sources well within the 2010 time frame.  Image data will underpin the National Map and give us an accurate and current base to work from.

The task force heard time and again that land characterization data is key to scientific studies and to business and government operations.  Users want land characterization data to be integrated with the other products that they also use from the USGS.

## The National Map System Architecture

**Notes:**
Focusing on the catalog-based approach, the system architecture of The National Map currently consists of these components: Viewer Application, Catalog Service, Catalog Database, Web pages, and Web map services. The figure above shows the configuration of these components.
     There are static Web pages at nationalmap.usgs.gov that link to the catalog-enabled Viewer application (aka Phase D Viewer).  The customer interacts with the Viewer to establish a geographic area of interest, a viewing scale, and data themes to view.  The Viewer requests a set of applicable Web services from the Catalog Service based on the criteria established by the customer.  The Catalog Service queries the Catalog Database and does some analysis of the results and then formulates a response to the client application, in this case the Viewer.  (In the future, the Catalog Service can be used by any application that needs access to the “collective” set of services that constitute The National Map.)   The Viewer sends requests to each of the Web map services returned in the result, and displays the resulting images on the customer’s view port.  This sequence is repeated every time the customer zooms, pans, checks/unchecks an option, or hits the refresh button.  This is why any update to the Catalog is only a click away in the Viewer.  
   The Harvest utility automatically gathers service information from a Web service URL that an operator provides and partially populates the Catalog Database. Catalog support staff and automated service checkers are busy updating, adding, and deleting entries in the Catalog Database due to any number of events: new partners, services down, agreements signed, data standards change, and on and on.   (The dashed arrows represent links via URLs.)
    The term “The National Map Catalog” or simply “Catalog”  usually refers to both the database and service components combined.

## The National Map Catalog

- There is only _one_ *The National Map* Catalog
- It represents the set of all Web services that are being evaluated or have been approved as part of *The National Map*
- There are _many_ applications, partners, service providers, standards, teams, and business processes interacting with the _one_ *The National Map* Catalog

## Scalable!

- Application

- USGS Web
- Map Service

- Partner
- WMS 1

- Partner
- WMS 2

- Partner
- WMS n

- Product Generation
- Application

- Every application uses the Catalog to select the appropriate Web Services

- Data comes from  Partner provided Web Services

- Partner
- Application

***The National Map***
**CATALOG**

**Notes:**
The Catalog approach is scalable – it can handle a large number of services and a large number of applications.

The Catalog database is a database of information about geographic Web services from USGS and The National Map  Partners, and the Catalog service is an applications programmers interface (API) to the Catalog database.  The term “Catalog” is used to refer to both the database and the catalog service or interface. The Catalog is a catalog of service metadata and not a catalog of geospatial metadata.  The Catalog and any application such as a Viewer are very separate and distinct components.

The Catalog is a scalable solution to managing hundreds of Web services with collectively thousands of data layers.  It can easily support the addition of applications and manage large numbers of services.  Partnerships can be with federal agencies, state agencies, tribal, regional coops, county agencies, city agencies, private sector, or academia – any group at any level that is willing to maintain and provide access to their geospatial data.

The true power of the Catalog, is that it offers an application programming interface (API) to The National Map. This means other efforts like Geospatial One Stop or any partner can develop applications that can easily have access to all of the data and metadata that constitute The National Map.

## The National Map Viewer

- The Viewer is the first application to use the catalog service
- http://nmviewogc.cr.usgs.gov
- The Viewer has some very advanced behavior because of the logic implemented in the Catalog
- Any catalog-based application could take advantage of this advanced behavior

## The National Map as a source of parametric values

- National Elevation Dataset (NED)
- And derived parameters: slope, aspect, landforms, etc.
- For Natural Process Models
- Surface Runoff, Wildfires, Erosion, Sediment Transport, etc.

## AGNPS Pollution Model as a test case

- Runoff, Erosion, Nutrient Transport
- Focused on Agricultural Watersheds

## Slide 13

## ADGen

- An ERDAS Imagine GIS -– AGNPS Interface
- Elevation, Land Cover, and Soils as sources
- Derive the necessary 22 input parameters to the model

## Slide 15

## Main Interface of ADGen 

## Slide 17

## Creating AGNPS Images

- Red – Total Soluble Nitrogen
- Green – Sediment Attached Nitrogen
- Blue – Drainage Area

## ADGen Image of Nitrogen Output for the EL68D Wasteway, Washington 

## Investigation of Adding Other Appropriate Modeling Tools

- Basin Delineation
- Ground Coordinates
- Basin Area and Perimeter calculations

## Proof-of-Concept Web Modeling Applicationor Controller App

- Uses The National Map Viewer
- User defined Area of Interest
- Query, Download, and Pass to *ADGen*
- AGNPS -> Model Output
- Controller App (controlAp)
- orchestrate, monitor, and report

## controlAp initially emulated or “hard-coded”

- User

- Define AOI

- Query

- Download

- ADGEN
-               AGNPS

- output

## controlAp Next Step

- User

- Define AOI

- Query

- Download

- ANY
-  Environmental Model API
- or
- “Environmental Model” Web Service

## Conclusions

*The National Map* is ideally suited to act as an agent for web-based environmental models
*The National Map*  will be the US’ geographic information infrastructure
- While the Viewer is the primary user interface for *The National Map, *the Catalog is the critical infrastructure behind the scene
- AGNPS as a test case
- ADGen, the Imagine GIS Interface
- controlAP design demonstrates web modeling application or “modeling” web service concept

## THE NATIONAL MAP: AN AGENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MODELING USING THE WORLD WIDE WEB 

- 8 June 2004

-  Michael P. Finn
- Jeffrey D. Spooner
- David K. Shaver
- E. Lynn Usery

- http://mcmcweb.er.usgs.gov/carto_research

**U.S. Department of the Interior**
**U.S. Geological Survey**