THE GEOSPATIAL CRISIS By DANIAL L. PERRY, MBA, PLS, Professor of Surveying and Mapping, Utah Valley University Recently, I attended a wedding reception of a family member, and because I didn’t know exactly where this event was being held, I opened a common mapping application on my cell phone and entered the desired address. Once I tapped GO, I received accurate real-time updates on my location relative to the location of the wedding reception. En route, I received information about pertinent weather, road and traffic conditions, along with a current ETA. This information made a potentially painful traveling experience into a simple and comfortable drive. Like you, I have not only become accustomed to such information, but I have found myself getting irritated or even incensed when on occasion something goes wrong with some part of this system. While you may not have attended a wedding reception this past weekend, I’m very confident you know exactly what I am talking about with your own dependence on such great technologies. I am equally confident you will be surprised to learn that these and hundreds of other related technologies in the United States are in serious jeopardy of a collapse unless we address what is becoming known as “The Geodesy Crisis” named such by 15 of the top Geodesists in the United States, as described in a white paper released for public consumption on Jan. 1, 2022. This article is now almost two years old, and little has been done in response to its claims. This brief article is intended to inform you of this crisis, what it means to us as professional engineers and surveyors, and perhaps a few action items we can take to thwart at least some of the negative impacts of this crisis. WHAT IS GEODESY? A common definition is: “The applied science for determining the size and shape of the Earth, designing and realizing reference frames, and determining where you (and anything else) are on the Earth.” (Zilkoski, 2020) HOW DOES GEODESY AFFECT ME AS AN ENGINEER OR SURVEYOR? In another article for GPS World, author and former National Geodetic Survey (NGS) Director David Zilkoski said: “The advancements in satellites and computers have enabled geodesy to expand into many different disciplines. Geodetic science and technology now underpin many sciences, large areas of engineering (such as driverless vehicles and drones), navigation, precision agriculture, smart cities and location-based services. Geodesy is actually more important than ever.” (Zilkoski, 2020) The inverted geospatial pyramid helps to illustrate how the $1 trillion-dollar Geospatial Economy is based on Geodesy. If you look carefully at this illustration, you will note near the top of the pyramid “Geospatial Applications” and in the smaller print near the bottom “navigation, GIS, cartography, and photogrammetry.” Each of these disciplines and their associated product applications affect the everyday work of civil engineers and surveyors along with many others. Instruments and equipment like GPS which is one of several Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) and Drones with Remote Sensing (Aerial Photogrammetry and LiDAR) applications, GIS and mapping based on projections of the earth’s surface, etc. not to mention the typical, less accurate GPS used on our cell phones to navigate to the job site or even a wedding reception. Imagine for a moment not having these technologies working accurately, precisely and harmoniously every day. We should be able to get a good idea of what it would be like from the few times they don’t work perfectly. What a mess we would be in! Figure 1 The Inverted Geospatial Pyramid by Dana Caccamise II (Zilkoski D. B., 2022) 56
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTg3NDExNQ==