Core Science SystemsCore Science Systems

Science Strategy Planning TeamDraft Plan DiscussionsScience Strategy Planning TeamDraft Plan Discussions

U.S. Department of the InteriorU.S. Geological Survey

Chip Euliss (co-chair)Sky Bristol (co-chair)Barbara Poore (Core Science Systems, geography science)Brian McCallum (Hazards and Water)David Miller (Core Science Systems, geologic mapping)Dean Gesch (Climate Change)Jay Diffendorfer (Energy)Nate Booth (Water)Nina Burkardt (Ecosystems and social science)Rich Signell (Climate Change)Roland Viger (Climate Change and Water)Suzette A. Morman (Environmental Health)

CSS Science Strategy Planning Team

Core Science Systems OrganizationCore Science Systems Organization

NationalGeospatialProgram

NationalCooperative

Geologic MappingProgram

BiologicalInformatics

Core ScienceInformatics

USGSLibrary

DataPreservation

It’s bigger than that…It’s bigger than that…

EROS Data Center

Water Information

National PhenologyNetwork

CMGP KnowledgeManagementBiological

Status & Trends

MRData

Core Science Systems Vision

Evolve systems for scientific data and analysis and develop the USGS workforce to support a situational awareness for the earth – the knowledge of current and past conditions that form the basis for decision making in complex, dynamic systems Hydrologic Landscape (Winter and Euliss, 2001-2004)Geochmical Landscape (Smith and Goldhaber, 2005)“Data Cube” (Winter, Euliss, and Goldhaber)

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Core Science Systems Goals

• Research and develop new and refined capabilities for understanding the earth’s complex structure and function

• Research and develop new and refined methods of characterizing the earth’s complex systems through maps, models and advanced databases

• Improve coverage, scientific quality, usability and timeliness of synthesized and contextualized scientific information products

• Increase capacity to conduct interdisciplinary research

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• Develop new and refined research capabilities in geologic mapping, topographic mapping, biogeography, and information science

• Understand and predict geological, hydrological, geographical, biological, and social processes and trends and relate them to resources, hazards, ecosystems, and climate change

• Develop methods, protocols, and standards to provide seamless spatial and temporal data in cooperation with partners and citizens

Understand the earth’s complexity

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• Scale up support for how science is conducted

• Facilitate data-intensive science• Modernize scientific software development• Make datasets more discoverable,

accessible, and relevant• Promote stature of data publication and

management within USGS to better contribute to science and society

Characterize the earth’s complexity

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• Increase and improve national coverage of high value thematic maps and databases

• Increase interdisciplinary research to integrate geologic, biologic, geographic, hydrologic, and social databases to create models and maps that more effectively address societal issues

• Look outward when thinking about USGS science• Understand and leverage external science resources• Understand and leverage citizen science resources• Start capturing and publishing scientific workflows

as a new kind of science product

Synthesize and contextualize scientific information

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• Extend “earth science” to include understanding societal impacts

• Develop a workplace model that approaches scientific research from an interdisciplinary, collaborative problem solving perspective

• Influence curricula to prepare the next generation workforce

• Build upon successful methods for collaborative science• Discover and apply best scientific and organizational

practices for interdisciplinary science

Increase capacity for interdisciplinary research

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• Facilitate and support communities of practice that tackle data management, integration, and analysis problems in science teams while contributing to the continually evolving strategic vision for the USGS.

Recommendations of particular import to the Community for Data Integration

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• Improve basic geospatial data themes, including collection and continued improvement of elevation and land cover datasets. Particular focuses should be providing better support for geomorphology and active tectonics studies, land cover change trends studies, and the development of high-resolution, high-accuracy, multi-parameter elevation datasets.

Recommendations of particular import to the Community for Data Integration

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• Integrate currently-produced major USGS datasets (geospatial, geologic, hydrologic, biologic, and social data). These datasets should be logically, spatially, and scientifically consistent so that they can be much more readily used in concert, necessitating development of consensus across the data theme production processes. This will also require research and development of new cartographic production techniques, quality assessment metrics, and geoinformatics. Geospatial data and services provided by The National Map should provide a framework integrating and visualizing the results of USGS science.

Recommendations of particular import to the Community for Data Integration

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• Integrate new datasets, such as high-resolution elevation data, hyperspectral imagery, crustal tomography, potential field data, and data from other evolving technologies, for the refinement of geologic and hydrologic models.

Recommendations of particular import to the Community for Data Integration

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• Use high-resolution elevation data, surficial mapping, and process studies to improve understanding of sediment transport and landscape evolution and its contributing and resulting effects on and from biota.

• Integrate high-resolution elevation data, geologic mapping, geophysics, and high-precision age data to map active tectonic structures and establish crustal strain rates.

Recommendations of particular import to the Community for Data Integration

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• Provide databases for all archived historical maps, aerial photographs, satellite images, and monitoring datasets that allow these resources to be used quickly and routinely.

• Improve compatibility of databases through development of common and complementary data models and use of semantic integration techniques.

Recommendations of particular import to the Community for Data Integration

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• Develop approaches that will allow users to seamlessly browse among several scales and types of maps for a single area to construct a database with powerful single and multipurpose applications.

• Embed quantitative uncertainty information and data quality metrics as metadata in geospatial data available to users. Make uncertainty information accessible for data search, query, and selection tools.

Recommendations of particular import to the Community for Data Integration

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• Vertically integrate base geospatial data layers – a water body or ocean shoreline is exactly the same when extracted from elevation, land cover, boundaries, and hydrography layers. These types of features do change naturally, so when such a feature is updated in one geospatial layer it should trigger an automatic update in the other layers so that vertical integration is maintained.

Recommendations of particular import to the Community for Data Integration

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• Develop an observations registry that combines monitoring locations and a catalog of measurements from systems including NWIS, BioData, NBII, MRDATA, ARMI . Anchor observations from various networks (state, local, citizen, academic) into The National Map. The base data and features in The National Map can serve as a fundamental “anchoring point” for all manner of environmental observations from the USGS and other science partners.

Recommendations of particular import to the Community for Data Integration

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• Evolve data and metadata standards to promote more consistent data delivery and reporting – from open standards such as Keyhole Markup Language and Web Map Services to appropriate community standards such as WaterML and GeoSciML.

Recommendations of particular import to the Community for Data Integration

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• Promote citizen science monitoring and mapping networks and protocols by establishing an online community to support these projects and transmit best practices.

• Pursue new data acquisition streams, particularly from social media, and perform research into methods for more effectively extracting relevant content.

Recommendations of particular import to the Community for Data Integration

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• National Phenology Network – The USGS partners with other agencies, non-profit organizations, citizen scientists, educators and students in the National Phenology Network (http://www.usanpn.org/). Phenology tracks recurring plant and animal life cycles such as leafing and flowering and bird migration. Volunteers not only track and report on changes in plants and animals, but also help digitize hand-written Migration Observer Cards containing observations on bird migration from the late 19th century to the 1950s. National Phenology Network volunteers provide current and historical data that document the effects of climate change on flora and fauna.

Bright Spots

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• USGS Earthquake Program - Did You Feel It? (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/) is a web-based data collection effort that allows citizens to report perceived earthquake intensity that have proven to be a good measure of earthquake ground motion (Atkinson and Wald 2007). The National Earthquake Information Center is analyzing messages from Twitter after earthquakes to gather rapid information from poorly instrumented areas about when and where earthquake shaking was felt (Earle et al. 2010).

Bright Spots

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• Now through end of August – working through review comments from Science ADs

• September 1 – review draft to Director, ELT, and peer reviewers

• November – release of OFR for public comment

• Early 2012 – release of final USGS Circulars

Schedule

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• We need your bright spots. Tell us about what’s working in the organization or between USGS and partners – what we need to be doing more of.

• Provide specific comments following the release of OFRs.

• Get involved in other plans as well.

There’s still time to contribute…