Timothy W. Foresman
Urban issues, related to the dynamics of social, environmental, and economic conditions within the greater Baltimore area, continue to challenge the public and private political and administrative agents attempting to service the disadvantaged and ameliorate symptoms of poverty. One challenge facing researchers and community-oriented services agencies regarding urban conditions lies in defining which variables to study or monitor as a basis for measuring and mapping urban humanity's elements of complexity. Resources, derived from federal, state, municipal, and private organizations to assist with urban population stability issues, must be efficiently applied under current trends of diminishing societal resources at regional and national scales. Populations in acute need of assistance, are significantly affected by the access to services and service agents' ability to actively plan and operate among spatial realities of locations, transportation networks, and support sites. The critical nature of the impact of these urban geographic factors on the ability to meet the immediate demands for providing housing, health care, food, safety, and other social programs cannot be overstated. Longer-range issues of environmental health, education, and economic promise for the disadvantaged can also be linked to the imperatives of urban geography. Data and systems which facilitate the manipulation of baseline geographic information can be viewed as requisite components for any strategy to meet the demands affecting service and accessibility for major population segments within any urban setting. Baltimore's regional urban environment contains all elements of the spatial interactions and accessibility topic, thereby providing an opportune backdrop for communicating the status and promise of spatial technologies for the urban human condition.
Servicing Challenges for Urban Disadvantaged
Many challenges exist regarding the provision of services and access to urban disadvantaged portions of the populace. In Baltimore, the use of spatial technologies to meet some of these challenges has met with various degrees of success by a wide cross section of agencies. Common applications for many of these agencies include categories under geographic handling of street address locations, delivery and routing, transportation access, and service location siting. In addition, the capacity to maintain customer/client files linked to geography remains a common theme. Analytical requirements for assessing demographic trends, ratios, and related social indices represents an additional recurrent capability desired under most community service oriented programs. These common features of spatial technology support requirements exist among various agency charters, however, the commonality provides the ability to investigate data needs, analytical procedures, and technical capacity within a comparative framework. This urban analysis framework can be instrumental for further analysis on potential improvement capacity of spatial technologies to meet fundamental demands of community services related to disadvantaged and poverty program administration. Research by UMBC is directed at examining the potential of regional spatial databases, along with geographic information systems, to support a variety of community service programs. These programs include the Shriver Foundation, Meals on Wheels, Baltimore Neighborhoods, Inc., Revitalizing Baltimore, Inc., Urban Resources Initiative, Save Our Streams, Medicaid, and the Urban History Project. These programs cover the gamut from food to health, from environment to volunteer mentoring, and from urban restoration to urban forestry regeneration. Their common theme resides in the goal of improving the quality of life for the lower strata of society and the need for spatial analytical tools to assist with their goals.
Evolving Potential Solutions
An evolving trend, well demonstrated in the Baltimore region, is in the creation and sharing of spatial data infrastructures. Federal support of this trend can be identified through the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) initiative, directed under Executive Order 12906 and being guided in part by the Federal Geographic Data Committee's activities. NSDI objectives are fostering the development of digital spatial data resources throughout federal and state agencies making available to the public vast quantities of quality digital data. the ability to bridge the spatial data resources gap is a topic being addressed by a new research initiative known as the baltimore washington regional collaboratory. The baltimore-washington regional collaboratory consists of a series of partnership research initiatives supporting investigations into land use spatial dynamics and human impacts for social, economic, and environmental studies. These projects examine the use of spatial data from the NSDI for meaningful scientific inquiry, land use management, and policy or ecosystem analysis. A challenge to the collaboratory is the coordination of the data collection, methodologies, and research results. This challenge was addressed by sharing data in a distributed fashion through the internet and regular communication through workshops and conference calls. The baltimore-washington collaboratory effort is critical to the NSDI concept and implementation as this project encourages and facilitates inter-agency collaboration and the sharing of myriad types of data. The collaboratory includes in its scope the widest data user community possible, including universities, federal, state, and local government, as well as the non-traditional GIS/geospatial data community (e.g. Historians, neighborhood coalitions). The collaboratory will provide a data documentation schema that is "user friendly", which is the first and most basic step towards data sharing and the implementation of NSDI concepts and for the integration of disparate data sets among interdisciplinary scientists, resource managers, planners, and educators. A compelling argument can be made with regards to the need to improve the connections of a wide base of researchers and data creators to the NSDI. This data can provide a framework or foundation for many environmental, social, and economic enterprises in the urban setting. Initially these data provide a framework of roads, political boundaries, land use, hydrology, and census information at effective scales not larger than 1:24,000. This scale has proven valuable for most applications above the neighborhood or block level. However, increased levels of spatial data, and data categories, will be needed to provide neighborhood organizations the spatial context for managing their range of pressing concerns, probably down to the individual housing unit level.
The Baltimore-Washington Regional Collaboratory is addressing some of the major elements needed to provide spatial technologies to the urban setting. The Collaboratory began as a cooperative research program with UMBC and the U.S. Geological Survey to study the human impacts on land transformation processes, specifically that of urbanization, over the past couple hundred years. This study incorporates the gathering, processing, and management of multiple spatial data sets for the greater Baltimore-Washington metropolitan areas. Federal collaboration on this project has grown to include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Bureau of Census, and the Smithsonian Institute, with other agencies in communication for future involvement such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Housing and Urban Development Agency, and the National Biological Service. Many state agencies are involved with the Collaboratory through Memorandums of Agreement, including Maryland Department of the Environment, Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and Maryland Historic Trust. At the local level, counties and municipalities are participating in the Collaboratory with the express interest of advancing the state-of-the-practice regarding the application of spatial data and technology to improved land management, environmental protection, planning, and social services. Various police and emergency service organizations are providing important infrastructure components to apply spatial technology on a real-time basis for safety and emergency response. The Collaboratory provides an atmosphere fostering data sharing and improved understanding of the role that spatial technology can play among urban service organizations.
Another important function of the Baltimore-Washington Regional Collaboratory is in providing the spatial data framework and expert resources for validation, calibration, and testing geospatial application models related to the human ecological urban studies. Interest exists among a loose coalition of university, private, and government organizations regarding the identification and parameterization of factors along an urban-rural gradient for interdisciplinary modeling. Another coalition working with the Collaboratory is interested in defining methods to empower disadvantaged groups with the technology required to secure and manage community block grants for improved handicapped access to community services. These examples demonstrate a sampling of the Collaboratory's potential utility to serve as an incubator, or testing facility, for groups seeking spatial technology solutions that might not otherwise have access to sufficient resources to determine the efficacy of these spatial tools. The involvement of local groups has a significant impact on the extension of the Collaboratory resources. These local groups bring to the table valuable data resources that would prove extremely costly to garner through traditional data collection methods. In the aggregate, these locally contributed data resources may prove instrumental in fulfilling many of the long range objectives for urban revitalization and sustainable development.
Implications for Future Trends in Urban Studies
A pragmatic result of the Baltimore-Washington Regional Collaboratory is the collection of functional data and processing requirements for a litany of urban related applications. This style of interactive relationships among multiple disciplined groups tends to foster the identification of major research areas under the heading of spatial technology. Research categories range from methods to interlink process, flow, network, and dynamic feedback models to object-oriented spatial query and analysis structures. Distributed storage and access of spatial data via electronic networks and access to suites of spatial statistical algorithms represent additional research and development arenas, in addition to the list of fundamental research questions attendant to theories of the edge city, corridor growth, and urban decay. The rich urban research environment, afforded through the Collaboratory's interacting partners using shared digital spatial data resources, can be viewed as a prototype for future urban research programs where theory, policy, research, and practical solutions are juxtaposed within a geographic context. This is a critical feature if academic and government research results are to reach any potential for operational practice. The combination of grassroots initiatives within the organized constructs of expertise in theoretical understanding of urban structures may yield valuable products, tools, and new theories for improving the urban condition in this country. The advent of spatial technologies's capacity for measuring, mapping, and modeling provides the catalyst for these potential future trends.
Biographical Sketch - Timothy W. Foresman
Dr. Tim Foresman has over 19 years of professional experience in the fields of remote sensing and geographic information system applied to environmental protection and urban/rural land use management. He received his doctorate in geography at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Tim has been a project scientist for the Department of Defense and the U.S. EPA where he brought the technologies of remote sensing and GIS to a variety of environmental protection programs including Superfund. His experience includes private consulting and county government use of spatial analysis tools. He currently serves as Assistant Professor of Geography and is the director of the Spatial Analysis Laboratory at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Dr. Foresman is Principle Investigator of the NCGIA and NASA funded Remote Sensing Core Curriculum program and the Baltimore-Washington Regional Collaboratory project.
Short Vitae - Timothy W. Foresman
Present Position:
Assistant Professor of Geography;
Director of Spatial Analysis Laboratory, University of Maryland Baltimore
County
Research Area:
Integration of remote sensing and geographic information systems.
Experience:
Tools for land use management. Design of large scale
spatial database systems. Environmental model linkage to spatial data
systems.
Education:
1987 Doctor of Philosophy in Geography,
University of California at Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California
1981 Master's of Science in Environmental
Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
1978 Master's of Science in Ecology, San Diego
State University,San Diego, California
1974 Bachelor's of Science in Biology, San
Diego State University,San Diego, California
Positions Held:
1991-1992 Executive Consultant, PlanGraphics, Inc.
Frankfort, Kentucky
1988-1991 GIS Manager, Clark County, Las Vegas,
Nevada
1987-1988 Environmental Consultant, Lagunitas,
California
1986-1987 Manager, Remote Sensing/GIS, SAI, Inc.
San Rafael, California
1984-1986 Environmental Scientist, US EPA, Las
Vegas, Nevada
1978-1984 Research Ecologist, US Naval Civil.Engr.Lab., Port Hueneme, CA
Professional of Science, Societies:
American Association for the Advancement of Science,
American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, AM/FM
International, Association of
American Geographers, Ecological Society of America, Sigma Xi, Urban
Regional Information Systems Association
Special Honors and NASA-ASEE Summer Awards:
US. Naval Engineering Fellowship (1982); Faculty Fellowship (1993, 1994);
Who's Who in American Engineers and Scientists(1992); Registered
Ecologist(1980)
Special Experience:
Dr. Foresman has been a leading researcher on the application of remote
sensing and GIS technologies
towards environmental and land use management topics. He was the
principal investigator for both the US Navy and the US EPA research
programs focused on the design and implementation of spatial information
systems for land use management and hazardous waste management
(Superfund). He currently heads the UMBC Spatial Analysis Laboratory,
and is principal investigator for NASA sponsored grant on Remote Sensing
Core Curriculum and a long-term NASA research grant for global ecosystems
and EOS. He serves on the executive committee for the NSF funded NCGIA
#15 Multiple Roles for GIS in U.S. Global Change Research).
Key Publications:
"Integration of Remote Sensing and GIS Technologies for Planning," (with
Tom Millette) in J. Star and J. Estes, eds., Remote Sensing and
Geographic Information Systems Integration, Cambridge University Press
(in press).
"Remote Sensing and Core Data Needed to Support Planning and Policy Decision Making," (with J. Estes, J. Garegnani, and D. Porter) International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1996.
"Assessing Disease Vectors Using Remote Sensing: Unlocking the Door to Detection and Control," (with T. B. Serpi) ASPRS/ACSM Annual Convention and Exhibition Technical Papers, Baltimore, Maryland, Vol. 1, pp. 9-18, 1996.
"Origins and Philosophy of Building a Temporal Database to Examine Human Transformation Processes," (with W. Acevedo and J. Buchanan) ASPRS/ACSM Annual Convention and Exhibition Technical Papers, Baltimore, Maryland, Vol. 1, pp. 148-161, 1996.
"Education Innovation with the NCGIA Remote Sensing Core Curriculum," ASPRS/ACSM Annual Convention and Exhibition Technical Papers, Baltimore, Maryland, Vol. 1, pp. 524-530, 1996.
"Developing a Multimedia Package for Remote Sensing Education," (with P. Masuoka, S. Samadi, and M. Khosand) ASPRS/ACSM Annual Convention and Exhibition Technical Papers, Baltimore, Maryland, Vol. 1, pp. 531-538, 1996.
"Development of the Temporal Transportation Database for the Analysis of Urban Development in the Baltimore-Washington Region," (with S. Clark, J. Starr, W. Acevedo and C. Solomon) ASPRS/ACSM Annual Convention and Exhibition Technical Papers, Baltimore, Maryland, Vol. 3, 1996.
"Developing a Temporal Database for Urban Development for the Baltimore-Washington Region," (with J. Crawford-Tilley, W. Acevedo, J. Buchanan, and W. Prince) ASPRS/ACSM Annual Convention and Exhibition Technical Papers, Baltimore, Maryland, Vol. 3, 1996.
"New Techniques for Visualizing Baltimore Regional GIS Data," (with P. Masuoka, W. Acevedo, S. Fifer and M. Tuttle) ASPRS/ACSM Annual Convention and Exhibition Technical Papers, Baltimore, Maryland, Vol. 3, 1996.
"Design and Documentation of a Baltimore-Washington Regional Spatial Database Testbed for Environmental Model Calibration and Verification," Third International Conference/Workshop on Integrating Geographic Information and Environmental Modeling, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1996.
"Visualization Techniques for the Analysis of Baltimore Regional GIS Data," (with P. Masuoka, S. Fifer, W. Acevedo, S. Clark, J. Crawford, and J. Buchanan) GIS/LIS '95 Annual Conference and Exposition Proceedings, Nashville, Tennessee, Vol. 2, pp. 704 - 712, 1995.
"Metadata Myth: Misunderstanding the Implications of Federal Metadata Standards," (with H. Wiggins and D. Porter) First IEEE Metadata Conference, Silver Spring, Maryland, 1996.
"The NCGIA Core Curriculum in Remote Sensing," (with J. Estes, J. Star, M. Goodchild, T. Cary, R. Eastman, N. Faust, J. Jensen, and T. Shupin) Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, Vol. 59, No. 6, pp. 945-948, 1993.
"Managing Error -- An Approach to Digital Spatial Accuracy," (with Dale Loberger) Proceedings of the Thirteenth Annual ESRI User Conference, Palm Springs, California, Vol. 2, pp. 291 299, 1993.
"Digital Image Databases to Support GIS Operations," (with Thomas Lenzen) GIS World, Vol. 6, No. 11, pp. 36-38, 1993.
"Tactical GIS Helps Marines Preserve Natural Resources at Camp Lejeune," Geo Infor Systems, Vol. 3, No. 5, pp. 44-47, 1993.
"Digital Communications for GIS in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.," (with Dave Edwards) in P.W. Newton, P.R.Zwart and M.E. Cavill, eds., Networking Spatial Information Systems, pp. 145-154, Belhaven Press, 1992.