Call to Action - What can you do now to help preserve critical geospatial data

US GPN members are encouraged to express concern with recent policy changes that are severely disrupting the collection, storage, and availability of geospatial data. Consider contacting your Senators and Representatives to urge them to reinstate all discontinued geospatial (map-based) data collection and distribution activities.

GPN's Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) and Board have provided suggested verbiage in this letter. Feel free to download the template and adjust it to your particular interests. Find your representatives and senators here: https://www.congress.gov/members/find-your-member

The content of the letter includes...

These datasets, historically maintained by agencies such as NOAA, USFS, USGS, EPA, and NGS, have long been made available, often at no cost, through federal agency websites and are essential for protecting lives, supporting scientific research, and enabling the foundational technologies behind modern mapping.

The discontinuation of these data programs threatens to create long-term gaps that will be difficult and costly to repair. Many scientific and policy studies rely on consistent, long-term data series to identify trends. Interruptions introduce blind spots that undermine the accuracy and credibility of research and decision-making.

I urge you to consider the immense value these datasets provide. Halting their collection offers no economic benefit—in fact, the opposite is true. The availability of geospatial data has consistently paid for itself through:

• Emergency Response & Disaster Preparedness: Real-time mapping supports incident tracking, resource allocation, and life-saving interventions.

• Agriculture: Farmers use spatial data to monitor field conditions, optimize inputs, and increase yields while reducing environmental impact.

• Public Safety: Law enforcement and emergency services depend on spatial data for situational awareness and strategic planning.

• Real Estate: Location intelligence informs property valuation, investment decisions, and urban development.

• Transportation & Logistics: Routing, fleet management, and infrastructure planning all depend on accurate geospatial data.

• Urban Planning & Development: Planners rely on spatial data to design resilient, efficient, and equitable communities.

• Utilities: Infrastructure monitoring, outage response, and service optimization are all enhanced by geospatial insights.

• Retail & Market Analysis: Businesses use location data for site selection, customer segmentation, and market forecasting.

For example, programs including the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP), Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data (HIFLD Open), and critical meteorological data provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), have been targeted because of proposed budget cuts. Collectively, these programs embody one of the highest-value returns on taxpayer investment by enabling smart, evidence-based decision-making and driving innovation across the United States.

Eliminating funding for these data programs and the professionals like myself who manage them, risks crippling our nation’s capabilities in these critical sectors. Once dismantled, rebuilding these systems will be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming.