GeoGov Summit serves as an annual event to convene a high-level and forward-looking G2G and G2B forum of leaders and experts from across government, industry, NGOs, and academia to identify and explore opportunities to enhance the national geospatial strategy, to collaboratively map out solutions to improve data and decision-support capability, and to improve governance/coordination of our nation’s geospatial infrastructure.
The highly successful 2023 GeoGov Summit brought together geospatial stakeholders from across the public and private sectors to identify and document a wide range of strategic recommendations regarding the future of the U.S. National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) - our national geospatial ecosystem. Many of these recommendations have been incorporated into the U.S. Government’s 2025-2034 NSDI Strategic Plan due to be released for public comment this Spring.
Today more than ever, location-driven insights are critical for sound policy and decision-making. From the local to national level, the application of location or geospatial information has been critical to improve understanding and ability to address a rapidly growing array of societal, economic and environmental challenges. With the advent of everyday consumer applications such as mobile mapping, availability of consistent and nationwide location-based or geospatial data is often assumed, but this is far from the truth. Inconsistencies in geospatial data availability and quality exist across the nation. Additionally, decision-support tools and infrastructure are not available to every community. Collaborative effort by government, industry, academia, NGOs and citizens is needed to contribute to, improve, and maintain US coverage of data, technologies and supportive infrastructure necessary to provide communities needed capabilities and access to these critical geospatial resources.
The U.S. National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) has advanced over the last 30 years to provide the policies, resources, standards and nationwide foundational geospatial coverages upon which other important location information can be referenced for greater awareness and improved decision making for National Development. The Geospatial Data Act of 2018 refers to the NSDI as:
“The technology, policies, criteria, standards, and employees necessary to promote geospatial data sharing throughout the Federal, State, Tribal, and Local Governments, and the private sector (including non profit organizations and institutions of higher education)”
To be effective, the NSDI is underpinned by a supporting space-based, aerial, and ground-based earth observation, Precise Navigation & Timing (PNT) policy and IT services environment that we refer to collectively as the U.S. Geospatial Ecosystem.