Skip to main content

Community of Practice

To address the national lack of geodetic expertise and to further strengthen relationships and collaborative efforts between NOAA and its sister agencies in the fields of geodesy, geology, geophysics and geomatics, a Geodesy Community of Practice was established in 2023. This government working group is comprised of geoscience researchers from NOAA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Geo-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the US Geological Survey (USGS) who share two main goals: strengthen relationships within the geodesy community and increase the geodetic expertise in the U.S.

The four federal agencies discuss various research topics that each agency is doing and how the other agencies can complement these efforts. Together, the federal agencies have identified more than 30 academic centers within the United States that are also grant recipients of one of the agencies, such as the NOAA Geospatial Modeling Grant or NGA’s GEO-ESCON. During these meetings, the Community of Practice working groups discussed the challenges of recruiting students, conducting geodetic and geophysical research, and maintaining faculty in their departments. By listening to their concerns, members in the working groups realized the importance of a shared community. Through these working groups, the federal agencies used the network of academic partners and structured them by geographic region to enable collaboration. Each network is having virtual meetings, discussing funding opportunities to support the academic centers (including funds for recruited students and faculty), and exploring potential participation in national and international scientific forums.

The outcomes of the above-noted collaboration among the academic partners and the governmental agencies of NOAA, NASA, USGS, and NGA were more professional opportunities for both government and academia alike in the field of geodesy and geomatics. As a result of our close partnership, the NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey (NGS) has also committed to providing access to materials and beta versions of its tools and services (e.g., processing data and reference system transformation) for academic researchers and their students, to better prepare students for their academic and/or professional careers (https://alpha.ngs.noaa.gov/).

Common challenges

Through the Community of Practice, key issues that were identified with the respective governmental stakeholders identified challenges that required multiple inter-agency coordination activities and support in research. The expected outcomes for creating common challenges among the members of the Geodesy Community of Practice agency, will:

  • Assist with coordination
  • Avoid duplication of efforts and
  • Allows stakeholders to be aware of common efforts within the Community of Practice

Examples of some of these challenges include:

Geometric reference system

  • Can a geometric reference system be determined without the use of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)?
  • Can we use the same principles for defining a geometric reference system for Earth on other celestial bodies, e.g., the moon or planets in our galaxy?

Geopotential reference system

  • Alternative technologies for measuring the gravity field and defining the geopotential surface?
  • Hardening of gravimeters (absolute and relative) to work in different conditions on Earth and in space.

Reference Frames and height relationships

  • Reference frame realization software codes that can be generalized to any celestial body
  • Datum unifications processes that can be used for defining, assessing, and correlating all height measurements processes to create a unified height system.
  • Uncertainties associated with transformations between the different reference systems.

Satellite Geodesy

  • Vertically reference maritime boundaries using satellite geodesy
  • Data integration/fusion of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) with remote sensing technologies, such as Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) in support of land motion applications.

Education and training

  • Development of educational material that can support teachers in K-12 programs.
  • Coursework to support professional competencies at an undergraduate/graduate level.
  • Creation of student internship programs across the nation.
  • Offering professional continued education programs.
  • Supporting organizations that offer professional certification programs for civilians and government employees.