Great Smoky Mountains National Park Maintained Landscapes

Geospatial data can provide valuable visualization and analytical abilities to Facility and Resource Managers in regards to maintained landscapes throughout the NPS. Maintained landscapes are records in the Facility Management Software System (FMSS) and can include battlefields, ornamental gardens, picnic areas, and other types. To map a maintained area and the features within it at the enterprise level, a geospatial data service is needed to ensure consistency, accuracy, and thorough documentation of data lineage. The Maintained Landscape Spatial Data Service will structure maintained landscape data into a common format that will enable GIS data to be easily integrated, traced, analyzed and shared across the park. Such a structure will increase users’ ability to discern the quality and accuracy of the data enabling the user to make better data driven decisions. This schema is designed to match the structure and hierarchy of FMSS so that should this system become spatially enabled this data could be utilized. Within the FMSS database, features are organized in locations records and assets records. A location record could be thought of as a bin, within which component assets records are stored. Park Facilities Management Division(PFMD) Employees of the National Park Service are tasked with managing facilities such as roads, trails, buildings, and landscapes. To properly manage these assets PFMD must make management decisions based on spatial and non-spatial data. This service allows the accurate geographic representation of maintained landscapes in a common service-wide schema. Furthermore, the establishment of a maintained landscapes spatial data service will allow for the integration of several NPS managed databases. These include (but are not limited to) the Facilities Management Software System (FMSS), the Cultural Resources Enterprise Geographic Information System (CRGIS), the Cultural Landscapes Inventory (CLI), and the List of Classified Structures (LCS). The Cultural Resource Enterprise GIS dataset contains the cultural landscapes inventory spatial data, list of classified structures spatial data, National Register spatial data and links to all of these databases, as well as other partner programs