BLM Launches Land Survey Information Web Site

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has announced the deployment of the Land Survey Information (LSI) Web site. As part of the National Integrated Land System (NILS) solution, the Land Survey Information (LSI) Web site at http://www.geocommunicator.gov/lsi will provide users with geographic information from the BLM's Geographic Coordinate Data Base (GCDB) representing the Public Land Survey System (PLSS) of the United States.

The LSI Web site will replace the current BLM GCDB Download Site (http://lm0500.blm.gov/). LSI will use ESRI's ArcIMS (Internet Map Server) software and ArcSDE (Spatial Database Engine) to efficiently manage and serve GCDB to the public over the Internet. The LSI Web site will serve GIS (Geographic Information System) shapefiles instead of GIS coverage files. Geospatial selection tools will make it easy to select an area of interest and download a single shapefile containing one or more townships. Entire counties, U.S. Forests, BLM administrative areas, and BLM 100K map areas are prepackaged for easy selection and quick download. The GIS layers contain FGDC compliant metadata containing information about data contacts, data sources, accuracy, process steps, and data descriptions. Original GCDB flat files used to develop the GIS layers are also available from LSI. These files are provided as zipped township directories for easy download.

"We are very excited about the launch of www.geocommunicator.gov/lsi," said Pete Culp, the BLM's Assistant Director for Minerals, Realty & Resource Management. "The ability to download multiple townships in one file will save the public a lot of time and effort."

The land survey data is a grid of geographic coordinates that are computed from BLM survey records (land survey plats and field notes), private survey records, and geodetic horizontal control information. The control data includes found corners digitized from USGS quadrangle Maps, Global Positioning System (GPS) placements and published USGS triangulation station locations. Geographic coordinates are computed on a township basis. The township, sections, section subdivisions, and special surveys (such as tracts, mineral surveys, etc.) are represented. A Land description is assigned as a label to each land unit.

The LSI township index for the Western United States can be viewed on the LSI Web site, along with U.S. highways and Federal administrative and mapping boundaries. These layers can be turned on and off to help the user locate an area of interest. The survey-based data can be downloaded to the desktop and viewed with GIS tools or incorporated with local data. Future enhancements will include data from other sources to complete the PLSS layer nationwide.

"The Land Survey Information Web site is one more step in the development of NILS to provide land information to the general public", said Leslie Cone, BLM NILS Project Manager.

The NILS project (http://www.blm.gov/nils/) was launched in order to create a business solution by integrating survey-based coordinate data with parcel-based land records in a GIS environment and to develop a common land data model. GeoCommunicator (http://www.geocommunicator.gov/) an interactive Web-based land information portal providing a state-of-the-art solution for locating, accessing, and sharing geographic information was the first of the NILS modules to be released (June 2001). Other NILS modules scheduled to be deployed are Survey Management and Measurement Management in September of 2002 and Parcel Management in September of 2003.

The BLM, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, manages more land B 264 million surface acres B than any other Federal agency. Most of this public land is located in 12 Western states, including Alaska. The Bureau, which has a workforce of about 9,000 employees, also administers 700 million acres of sub-surface mineral estate throughout the Nation. The BLM preserves open space by managing the public lands for multiple uses, including outdoor recreation, livestock grazing and mining, and by conserving natural, historical, cultural, and other resources on the public lands.

Leslie Cone, BLM L&RPO Project Manager WO-330D
P.O. Box 25047 - Denver, CO 80225
(303) 236-0815
Email: leslie_cone@blm.gov

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