A regional transportation planning project can use base data supplied by the localities it spans. Local, state, and federal agencies can respond quickly to a natural disaster by combining data. A county can use watershed data from beyond its boundaries to plan its water resources. State agencies can better track the ownership of publicly held lands by working with local governments parcel data. State and local governments can more easily comply with federal reporting requirements.
Many organizations produce and use such data every day.
The framework provides basic information for these data themes. By attaching their own geographic data which can cover innumerable subjects and themes to the common data in the framework, users can build their applications more easily and at less cost. The seven data themes provide basic data that can be used in applications, a base to which users can add or attach geographic details and attributes, a reference source for accurately registering and compiling participants own data sets, and a reference map for displaying the locations and the results of an analysis of other data. The framework is a growing data resource to which geographic data producers can contribute. It will continually evolve and improve.