Grant Project Summary:
Great Lakes Commission
Great Lakes Information Network Data Directory
August 2002 to July 2003 
Project Summary
This Great Lakes Commission and the NOAA Coastal Services Center entered into
a project that resulted in a state-of-the-art portal and retrieval system
that provides resource management decision-makers and researchers with
the appropriate and complete level of detail on the data and information
specific to the use and management of the Great Lakes resources. The
Great Lakes Commission formed a staff team of Web specialists, GIS technicians,
and a Working Advisory Group of federal, state/provincial, and local
resource managers to create an Internet-accessible directory that is
not only a data collection and dissemination tool, but also designed
to guide the standardization of metadata and provide uniform baseline
data for the Great Lakes basin.
With many coastal areas under increased pressure from development interests,
tools for resource managers and policy makers are critical in developing
sustainable practices and ecological conservation. Throughout the Great
Lakes basin, greater coordination of geographic information systems
data collection and dissemination efforts have been requested to better
establish the status and trends of the Great Lakes coastal natural resources.
The project collected approximately 2,000 coastal spatial data sets
from local, regional, state, provincial, and federal levesl and involves
several current basin-wide projects examining coastal wetlands, water
resources, lake levels, and ecosystem health studies such as beach monitoring
and human health issues. The directory answers the need for a central
depot with data descriptions, hyperlinks to data, publishing contacts,
and all relevant information on each data set the directory will house
in compliance with Federal Geographic
Data Committee standards. Spatial data sets and metadata are posted
on the Web under http://www.glc.org/glin/.
NOAA Coastal Services Center's Role
This was a grant project and NOAA did not have substantial involvement with
the work.
Grantee Overview
The Great
Lakes Commission, headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is a binational
public agency dedicated to the use, management, and protection of the
water, land, and other natural resources of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence
system. In partnership with the eight Great Lakes states and provinces
of Ontario and Québec, the Commission applies sustainable development
principles in addressing issues of resource management, environmental
protection, transportation, and sustainable development. The Commission
provides accurate and objective information on public policy issues;
an effective forum for developing and coordinating public policy; and
a unified, system-wide voice to advocate member interests. The vision
of the Great Lakes Commission is a Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system that
offers a prosperous economy, a healthy environment, and a high quality
of life for its citizens by applying sustainable development principles
in the use, management, and protection of water, land, and other natural
resources. For the last 45 years the Great Lakes Commission has addressed
a range of issues involving environmental protection, resource management,
transportation, and economic development. A committee and task force
structure is the primary vehicle for identifying and addressing issues
and recommending the adoption of policy positions by the membership.
Observer organizations -- including U.S. and Canadian federal, regional,
and tribal governments -- participate extensively in Commission activities.
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