U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 
Fiscal Year 2008 

HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM 


SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCE: GEOSPATIAL GUIDANCE 

February 2008 


U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM 
GEOSPATIAL GUIDANCE 

DHS recognizes the important contribution that geospatial information and technology plays in 
strengthening our Nations security posture. Federal, State and local organizations have 
increasingly incorporated geospatial information and technologies as tools for use in emergency 
management and homeland security applications. Geospatial systems improve the overall 
capability of information technology applications and systems to enhance public security and 
emergency preparedness and efficient response to all-hazards including both natural and man-
made disasters. 

There are a wide variety of file formats, levels of accuracy, and varying stages of metadata 
completeness across the landscape. Although such incompatibilities are relatively unimportant in 
the day to day operation of a GIS, when disaster strikes the lack of geospatial interoperability 
becomes a critical issue. 

To this end, DHS strongly encourages all grant recipients to create or maintain their geospatial 
data and resources in an open, interoperable and shareable system. As a specific measure to 
drive interoperability, DHS has developed a standards-based geospatial data model that should 
serve as the baseline for whatever system you may choose to develop. 

The DHS geospatial model should be used for collection, discovery, storage, and sharing of 
geospatial data, and can serve as an extract, transform, and load (ETL) template for content 
aggregation. The model will also support development of the Departments services-based 
geospatial architecture. By conforming to the DHS model, your local geospatial programs will 
develop in concert with the standard view that is evolving within the Department as a whole. For 
those users considering an implementation, a current version of the model should be obtained 
directly from the Federal Geographic Data Committee web site at http://www.fgdc.gov/dhsgdm . 
Model artifacts are available as a Universal Markup Language (UML) package, HTML reference 
product, and technology-specific implementation/physical products. 

Tax parcels and other local-source content produced at similar scales (water, sewer, power 
distribution, facilities information, telecommunications, etc.) are perhaps the most important 
geospatial assets for disaster response. Although other data are no less useful, parcels establish 
the critical link between who, what, and where that can help guide many forms of response and 
recovery. 

Grant recipients should note it is not necessary to implement the entire data structure and schema 
associated with the themes in the DHS model. However, wherever significant overlap occurs in 
geospatial information (e.g. fields, attribution), grant recipients should follow the DHS models 
naming conventions, definitions and metadata attributes. In particular, rigorous adherence to the 
models attribution and metadata requirements will go a long way to assisting in the discovery and 
query operations that are such a significant part of the assistance process. 

Potential grantees should review the guidance provided below, prior to submitting proposals. 
This will ensure that grantees have applied due diligence in reviewing and assessing 
requirements for their objectives that involve geospatial components. 

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM 
A. Considerations 
The following considerations should be made when developing a geospatial program: 

Coordination and Strategic Planning Considerations 

 
Does the State have a homeland security geospatial strategy or, at a minimum, address 
how geospatial data and technologies can support the State Homeland Security Strategy? 
Examples of strategies with geospatial content can be found through the Responder 
Knowledge Base (RKB) (https://www.rkb.us). 
 
Has the State/jurisdiction identified homeland security geospatial requirements? 
 
Does the State have a geospatial coordination council or a statewide coordination effort 
that interfaces and coordinates with private, academic, military, and Tribal communities, 
and government agencies on homeland security geospatial information issues including 
those relevant to homeland security? 
 
Does the State/jurisdiction place an emphasis on making data readily available to other 
local jurisdictions, within their States, and with Federal agencies? Does the 
State/jurisdiction have data sharing agreements in place to support the homeland security 
mission? Does the State/jurisdiction include parcel information in these data sharing 
agreements? 
 
Has the State/jurisdiction reviewed and considered the importance of using IT/geospatial 
for an all-hazards approach to Homeland Security? Examples of state strategies with 
geospatial content can be found through the National Governors Association (NGA) Center 
for Best Practices (http://www.nga.org). 
Operational Considerations 

 
Does the State maintain a current inventory of geospatial assets (equipment, personnel, 
databases, services, metadata, systems, and documentation)? 
 
Does the State have a geospatial data clearinghouse to aggregate and securely store high-
quality local geospatial information? 
 
Does the State have homeland security geospatial data stored in more than one location 
and readily accessible to responders, State and Local fusion Centers, and to emergency 
operations centers? 
 
Does the State have an established trained team of geospatial personnel that can provide 
24/7 expertise and equipment for emergencies? 
 
Does the State incorporate the use of geospatial applications into standard operating 
procedures for homeland security mission areas? 
 
Does the State have education and training programs for the use of geospatial applications 
in homeland security missions? 
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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM 
Compliance with Standards / Use of Best Practices Considerations 

 
Does the State promote interoperability through the use of the geospatial data and services 
by complying with Federally-adopted geospatial standards, specifications, and guidelines 
such as those published by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), the Open 
Geospatial Consortium (OGC), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and 
the International Standards Organization (ISO)? 
 
Does the State register and/or publish the availability of geospatial resources to avoid 
redundant expenditures of time, effort, and funds? 
 
Does the State implement efficient geospatial metadata management capability following 
international and Federal Geographic Data Committee standards? 
 
Does the State/jurisdiction provide their geospatially related lessons learned via the 
Lessons Learned Information Sharing portal (https://www.llis.dhs.gov)? 
B. Recommended Content 
DHS Geospatial Data Model 

The DHS Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), Geospatial Management Office (GMO) 
has developed the DHS Geospatial Data Model (DHS GDM) in support of urgent DHS mission 
requirements. This DHS GDM is a standards-based, logical data model to be used for collection, 
discovery, storage, and sharing of homeland security geospatial data. The model will support 
development of the Departments services-based geospatial architecture, and will serve as an 
extract, transform, and load (ETL) template for content aggregation. Observing the geospatial 
data content requirements reflected in the DHS GDM is the surest way for the Nation to achieve 
the geospatial interoperability required in the planning and execution of multiple Homeland 
Security missions. 

This data model is being constructed in phases. As new versions of the model are delivered, 
associated documentation will be made available through the following web site: 
www.fgdc.gov/dhsgdm. This site will publish the master model (UML format) as well as 
technology-specific implementation products and explanatory documents. 

Data Quality 

Two types of geographic areas are of special interest. For Urban Areas, the data should have the 
currency and positional accuracy qualities typically sought by local governments. For large areas 
(for example, States or groups of States), the data should have the positional accuracy qualities of 
USGS primary topographic map series (typically 1:24,000-scale; 1:63,360-scale in Alaska). The 
table below provides minimum goals for these two classes of data. 

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM 
Table 1  Minimum (no worse than) Goals for Resolution, Accuracy, & Currency 

Urban Areas Large Areas 
Data Theme Minimum Resolution or Minimum Minimum Resolution or Minimum 
Accuracy1 Currency2 Accuracy3 Currency 

Orthoimagery 
1 foot resolution; 3 Two years 1 meter resolution; 11.70 meters Five years 
meters horizontal horizontal accuracy 
accuracy 

Elevation 
1/9 arcsecond (~3 Two years 1/3 arcsecond (~10 meters) (2 Five years 
meters) resolution; 0.73 arcsecond in Alaska) resolution; 
meter vertical accuracy vertical accuracy commensurate 

with contour interval of USGS 
primary topographic map for 
area 

Hydrography 4.68 meters horizontal Two years 13.90 meters horizontal Five years 
accuracy accuracy; 36.69 meters 
horizontal accuracy for Alaska 

Transportation 4.68 meters horizontal Two years 13.90 meters horizontal Five years 
accuracy accuracy; 36.69 meters 
horizontal accuracy for Alaska 

Boundaries 4.68 meters horizontal Two years 13.90 meters horizontal Five years 
accuracy accuracy; 36.69 meters 
horizontal accuracy for Alaska 

Structures 4.68 meters horizontal Two years 13.90 meters horizontal Five years 
accuracy accuracy; 36.69 meters 
horizontal accuracy for Alaska 

Land Cover 
Should align with base Two years Should align with base maps that Five years 
maps that have the have the accuracies listed 
accuracies listed above. above. 

Geographic Same as the associated feature Same as the associated feature 
Names 

1,4 Accuracy statement based on Geospatial Positioning Accuracy Standard, Part 3, National Standard for Spatial Data 
Accuracy (FGDC-STD-007.3-1998) (http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/status/sub1_3.html ). For horizontal accuracies 
(95% confidence level), 3 meters is commensurate with 1:3,075-scale maps under the National Map Accuracy 
Standard, 4.68 meters with 1:4,800-scale maps, 13.90 meters with 1:24,000-scale maps, and 36.69 meters with 
1:63,360-scale maps. For vertical accuracy (95% confidence level), 0.73 meter is commensurate with a four-foot 
contour interval under the National Map Accuracy Standard. 2,5 Estimated currency of the data at the date of service 
initiation; that is, the data served reflects the ground condition sometime during the two (or five) years prior to the start 
of service through The National Map. (Note that, for themes in which the ground changes rarely, older data might 

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meet this condition.) Data should be in the North American Datum of 1983; elevation data in the North American 
Vertical Datum of 1988. 

C. Relevant Initiatives 
The following describes those Federally-maintained, endorsed or adopted initiatives that 
grantees are strongly recommended to review. Many of the specifications, documents, and 
guidance described within these initiatives have been adopted as industry standard. Grantees 
are encouraged to comply with these consensual guidance and standards wherever relevant to 
specific projects and objectives. 

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM 
National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) (http://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/nsdi.html) 
The NSDI was created under Executive Order 12906 calling for the establishment of the NSDI 
defined as the technologies, policies, and people necessary to promote sharing of geospatial data 
throughout all levels of government, private and nonprofit sectors, and the academic community. 
The NSDI clearinghouse is available to Federal, State, local, and Tribal contributors to register as 
clearinghouse nodes where metadata about geospatial data, services, and resources can be 
published and harvested for discovery by any user. FGDC manages NSDI and provides guidance 
and instruction for using and registering nodes on NSDI. 

States are encouraged to utilize Statewide coordinating councils to develop and maintain strategic 
and business plans for efficient Statewide geospatial data infrastructures in support of the National 
Spatial Data Infrastructure. DHS is encouraging States to examine Statewide or large regional 
approaches to the production of certain data, particularly framework (base map) data and critical 
infrastructure data that are conducive to Statewide data maintenance. Adopting this approach will 
align with Presidential directive A-16 for the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, save money, and 
promote data integration for mutual aid response. 

Metadata of an organizations geographic data holdings is an important first step to participating in 
the NSDI. Metadata provides not only a way to inventory and preserve investments in costly 
geospatial data resources within an organization, but also is a means for its discovery and sharing 
with other organizations. Metadata standards recommended to comply include FGDC Content 
Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata, Version 2 (CSDGM), FGDC-STD-001-1998 or when 
available the ISO Metadata Standard 19115 using draft ISO Technical Specification 19139; and 
Metadata Service Guidelines: Metadata must be posted and harvestable through the Geospatial 
One-Stop Portal. 

Geospatial One Stop Portal (http://www.geodata.gov ) 
As a part of one of Office of Management and Budgets 24 Federal E-Gov initiatives 
(http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/), the Geospatial One Stop portal was established to 
promote data sharing across Federal entities and is available to the public for use as a discovery 
portal. Geospatial One Stop portal is an interface to NSDI established under Executive Order 
12906. The portal harvests geospatial resource metadata from nodes registered with NSDI and is 
a repository for all metadata published and accessible on NSDI. Users also have the option to 
publish metadata holdings directly to Geospatial One Stop enabling smaller organizations with the 
ability to share and collaborate on geospatial resources. Version 2 of the portal will be OGC 
standards enabled for OGC Web Map Service (WMS), Web Feature Service (WFS), and Catalog 
Service for the Web (CSW). 

An important feature on Geospatial One Stop for grantees is the geodata.gov Market Place. Here 
users can find information about planned acquisitions of geospatial resources and future projects 
or activities that may align with their own objectives. If grantees find no existing resources on 
Geospatial One Stop in either the metadata searches or in the Market Place, they are strongly 
encouraged to register their planned activities for geospatial data acquisition or future projects and 
activities so that others may prevent from redundant efforts. 

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM 
Ramona GIS Inventory (http://www.gisinventory.net) 
Ramona is a GIS inventory tool designed to work in concert with the Geospatial One Stop Portal. 
Ramona is produced by the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) as a tool for 
States and their partners. Its primary purpose is to track the status of GIS in US State and local 
government to aid the planning and building of Spatial Data Infrastructures. 


FGDC Framework (http://www.fgdc.gov/framework/framework.html) 
GIS applications of many different disciplines have a recurring need for a select few themes of 
data. The framework is a collaborative community based effort in which these commonly needed 
data themes are developed, maintained, and integrated by public and private organizations within 
a geographic area. Local, regional, State and Federal government organizations and private 
companies see the framework as a way to share resources, improve communications, and 
increase efficiency. 

FGDC Standards (http://www.fgdc.gov/standards/standards.html) 
Standards facilitate the development, sharing, and use of geospatial data. The FGDC develops 
geospatial data standards for implementing the NSDI, in consultation and cooperation with State, 
local, and Tribal governments, the private sector and academic community, and, to the extent 
feasible, the international community. 


FGDC Metadata (http://www.fgdc.gov/metadata/metadata.html) 
Metadata or "data about data" describe the content, quality, condition, and other characteristics of 
data. FGDC approved the Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (FGDC-STD-0011998) 
in June 1998. 


National Information Exchange Model (http://www.niem.gov). 
The June 2007 release of NIEM 2.0 rc 1 was driven by practitioner requirements from local, state, 
and Federal stakeholders. The NIEM 2.0 rc 1 serves as a single standard Extensible Markup 
Language (XML) foundation for exchanging information between DHS, DOJ, and state, local, and 
tribal government organizations from supporting domains, such as Justice, Emergency 
Management, and Intelligence. The base technology for the NIEM was the Global Justice XML 
Data Model (Global JXDM). The NIEM leveraged both the extensive Global JXDM reference 
model and the comprehensive Global JXDM XML-based framework and support infrastructure. 
Today NIEM has evolved into the primary standard for NIEM information sharing between 
Federal, State, Local, and Tribal stakeholders to support critical homeland security, law 
enforcement and counterterrorism missions. 

The intended uses of this release are: 

 
To apply NIEM to the broad NIEM stakeholder community within government and industry. 
 
To provide the NIEM model, schemas, tools, and training as a base for creating high value 
information exchanges for homeland security projects. 
 
To allow information technology and standards experts and users to build new 
infrastructure and tools to accelerate the roll out of NIEM exchanges. 
 
To begin to identify additional Universal, Common, and Domain-Specific data components 
that could be added to future versions of the standard. 
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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY | HOMELAND SECURITY GRANT PROGRAM 
D. Relevant Organizations 
The following describe important organizations which support or oversee many of the relevant 
Federal initiatives described previously. Grantees are strongly recommended to consult with 
these organizations as needed regarding geospatial specifications, standards and/or related best 
practices in creating and maintaining open, interoperable solutions; especially those which involve 
publishing geospatial data. 

The Geospatial Management Office (GMO) 

The GMO is a program office serving the Department of Homeland Securitys Chief Information 
Office and was formally established by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 
2004 (TITLE VII, Subtitle B, Section 8201, HOMELAND SECURITY GEOSPATIAL 
INFORMATION). Through its implementation of DHS Management Directive 4030 the GMO 
exercises executive leadership in establishing DHS geospatial information technology programs, 
directives, initiatives, and provides oversight for the integration of geospatial data and technology. 
Grantees may contact the GMO at gmo@dhs.gov. The e-mail should contain the requestors 
name, organization, and description of need. 

Federal Geographic Data Committee (http://www.fgdc.gov) 
The FGDC is a 19-member interagency committee composed of representatives from the 
Executive Office of the President, Cabinet-level and independent agencies. The FGDC is 
developing NSDI in cooperation with organizations from State, local and Tribal governments, the 
academic community, and the private sector. NSDI encompasses policies, standards, and 
procedures for organizations to cooperatively produce and share geographic data. 

National Geospatial Partnership Offices 

Through partnerships that include cooperative arrangements for exchange of data, standards 
development, database development, web mapping services and applications, training, and 
technology exchange, the USGS has established a network of National Geospatial Partnership 
Offices and State Liaison positions across the Nation 
(http://nationalmap.usgs.gov/partnerships.html). 

Open Geospatial Consortium (http://www.opengeospatial.org) 
The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) is a nonprofit, international, voluntary consensus 
standards organization that is leading the development of specifications for geospatial and 
location based services. Through member-driven consensus programs, OGC works with 
government, private industry, and academia to create open and extensible software application 
programming interfaces for geographic information systems and other mainstream technologies. 

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