1. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Enterprise Management of
Lands Tract, Boundary, & Ownership Data
Roger Johnson

2. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
NPS Mission Support
The Land Resource Division (LRD) is responsible for the exchange and acquisition of lands for the National Park Service. As a result of this activity LRD is the official repository of all NPS land record data and continually maintains dynamic land ownership, parcel, and boundary datasets.
Directors Order 19 - “The Land Resources National Program Center is the office of record for the acreage, interest and ownership for NPS land acquisitions. All land acquisition records and related records should be managed according to procedures established in Director's Order 25: Land Protection, and its accompanying reference material.”
Director’s Order 25 – “Land status maps will be prepared to identify the ownership of the lands within the authorized boundaries of the park unit. These maps, showing ownership and acreage, are the "official record" of the acreage of Federal and non-federal lands within the park boundaries. While these maps are the official record of the lands and acreage within the unit’s authorized boundaries, they are not of survey quality and not intended to be used for survey purposes. ”

3. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
LandsNet Intranet -
Guidelines
Acreage Reports
General Resources
Archive includes acreage reports from 1934 to present
Data Downloads
MS Access Table – entire NPS
For assistance, contact multiple NPS WASO-Lands employees via to
DBF Tables – individual park units

4. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
TractsNet Intranet -
Document Archives
ANTI
Please note: TractsNet is a tool for online data visualization and discovery only. It may contain preliminary information. Final approved GIS boundary data is only available via download from NPS Data Store or by contacting a LRD cartographer.
Change Orders
Deeds
Legislation
Legal Descriptions
Segment Maps
Miscellaneous Maps
Metadata

5. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Land Ownership Databases
Midwest
National Capital
Intermountain
National Trails
Alaska
Northeast
Pacific West Oakland
Pacific West Seattle
Ownership Databases
Southeast
Naples

6. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Land Ownership Databases
Management Information System (MIS) is the database used to track the acquisition process of land in the National Park Service
Master Deed Listing (MDL) houses deed information once the acquisition process is complete.
The MDL is available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA); whereas the MIS is protected under the Privacy Act.
LRD’s acreage figures come from acreage listed in Deeds.
Acreage figures reported by LRD are supported by several legal documents.
Using a modern method of calculating acreage does not invalidate methods employed in the past that provided the acreage figures in the current recorded legal documentation.
Acreage calculated using a manual “Least Squares” method may seem as wrong to today’s GIS professional as not using elevation to calculate acreage will seem to future users but it does not invalidate the figure or change the fact that an approved method was used to create the Deed that is currently what will be used to describe the property in a court of law.

7. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Land Ownership Databases
MDL data is updated daily & posted on LandsNet in both dBase & Access formats
Numerous reports are available from the MDL database.
- Contact or for additional details
“Listing of Acreage Reports” dating back to 1934 are available on LandsNet
- Fee The maximum possible estate one can possess in real property. It is of indefinite duration, freely transferable and inheritable.
Optioned, Estate = FEE, Status = FED
- Less Than Fee Any estate that is less than full Fee ownership (i.e. Scenic Easement, ROW…)
Optioned, Status = FED, Estate = SCENIC, EASEM, ROW Not Optioned, Status = OTFED, Estate = SCENIC, EASEM, ROW
- Other Federal Tracts under the administration of another Federal agency (i.e. Forest Service,
Coast Guard…)
Not Optioned, Estate = FEE, Status = OTFED
- Public A non-Federal tract that is owned by the State, County and/or other municipalities, including quasi-public entities such as the South Florida Water Management.
Not Optioned, Status = PUB, No Deed #, Estate = FEE, SCENIC, EASEM, ROW, AGREEMENT or LEASE
- Private A privately owned tract before it is acquired by the Federal government. (i.e. Individuals, corporations, companies, trustees, partnerships)
Not Optioned, Status = PRIV, No Deed #, Estate = FEE, SCENIC, EASEM, ROW, AGREEMENT or LEASE
- No lands outside a units legislated boundary are counted
- Tracts with a Method of Acquisition of DISP/EXCH or DISP/OTHR calculate acreage as a negative value

8. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Digital Data Conversion
Goal: To create and maintain a single digital file for each of the National Parks Services units. This file will contain topologically clean tract, boundary, and ancillary information represented in a single geographically contiguous model. All digital elements will be fully attributed allowing for them to be easily identified, manipulated, exported, and queried against other geospatial information. Separate layouts will also be created in the single digital file for each individual segment map using the single model that covers the entire unit.
Benefits: This will allow Lands to quickly update and maintain multiple segment maps by editing a single geographically accurate model in a fully digital environment.
Geographically positioned digital data allows Lands to easily take advantage of numerous data sources regardless of projection or format of the information.
Lands data can be easily exported to support government-wide initiatives like NILS. Timely access to tract and boundary data with “spatial intelligence” supports better and faster decision making within NPS. This project also makes more accurate and usable information available to the general public.
Digital data allows Lands to quickly export our data into numerous different production platforms providing for greater speed and flexibility when comparing Lands data to other information and producing special purpose map products.

9. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Digital Data Conversion
Digital Data Conversion Steps
Digitization
Land Acquisition Procedures Manual – Chapter 5
Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
Digitization of Land Segment Maps and Georeferencing of the entire data set (scale & rotate only, no rubbersheeting)
COGO legal descriptions and “best fit” the separate parcels to create a topology
Once in-house or contract digitization is complete, topology and GIS validation tests are run on the data. If it passes it’s posted on TractsNet so it can be visualized and queried against LRD’s ownership databases & shared among NPS employees in different offices across the country.
QA/QC – Data Validation
Time consuming process of verifying the accuracy and attribution of all model and layout elements.
Tract and boundary data are checked against supporting documentation. (legislation, legal descriptions, deeds, survey plats, hardcopy segment maps, change orders, etc…)
Once the regional office approves the data it is posted on the NPS Data Store for download.
Continual Maintenance
HOFR & ELRO

10. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Data Distribution
229 NPS units have been through LRD’s digital data conversion.
189 of those units have completed LRD’s QA/QC process.
“Current Administrative Boundaries”
- NPS Data Store -
- Harvested by Geospatial-One-Stop (GOS)
- LRD units that have completed QA/QC are used to update the file.
- LRD updated units are tagged with “Lands” in the GIS_Notes field of the DBF.
- Boundaries from the 2001 GIS Collection Effort & the Horizon Project still exist.
Metadata
- All LRD updated units are listed in the “Current Administrative Boundaries” metadata file.
- More detailed individual park level metadata records that point to the “Current Administrative Boundaries” file are also uploaded to the NPS Data Store.
- Links to the park metadata records are also in the GIS_Notes field of the DBF.

11. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Data Priorities & Statistics
 Conversion Priorities 2008
Currently need QA/QC 
Online Data Statistics
Online Documents = 105,000
Deeds = 87,498
Segment Maps = 3,986
Legal Descriptions = 4,083
Change Orders = 4,982
Legislation = 1,319

12. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Policies & Procedures
The “Land Acquisition Procedures” Manual (LAPS) Chapter 4 defines the policies and procedures of building, maintaining, and distributing the LRD’s ownership databases.
LAPS Chapter 5 defines Land Status Mapping Standards. LRD also has created a Digital Map Conversion SOP that outlines the technical processes used in the creation of cartographic & geospatial products.
Legislative Map Guidelines and Template developed in conjunction with the Office of Legislative and Congressional Affairs
Questions about boundaries, acreage, or other LRD data sets should be directed to LRD’s regional cartographers or our WASO offices in Washington DC or Fort Collins.
Boundaries in the “Current Administrative Boundary” file that were not created by LRD and are not scheduled to go through the Digital Data Conversion process in the near future can be temporarily updated at the request of appropriate NPS personnel.
- Submit your request to LRD’s WASO-Fort Collins office
- Provide metadata and a point of contact for the dataset
- Temporary boundaries will be replace when LRD completes the units digital data conversion.

13. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Segment Maps - Model Space

14. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Segment Map Layouts

15. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Sources - Hardcopy Segment Maps

16. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Sources – Legislation, Deeds, & Legal Descriptions

17. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Sources – NPS GIS, Surveys, Imagery

18. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Sources – NPS Data Store, Federal, State, & Local Government

19. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Continual Maintenance
Ownership Databases

20. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
What’s on the Horizon
Complete the digital data conversion for all 391 NPS units
Migrate LRD’s ownership databases to SQL Server
Serve LRD’s tract and boundary polygons up as a foundation layer in an enterprise-level GIS mapping application.
- Continue active membership in the Geographic Information Systems Committee (GISC) and the Enterprise Geographic Information Systems Subcommittee (EGIS)
- Work with key GIS staff members of the Office Chief Information Officer (OCIS) on pilot web mapping and enterprise data layer projects
Define and implement a system and associated geodatabase to create, manage, and maintain spatially accurate cadastral geometry that can support the GIS community while maintaining original survey accuracy.

21. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Survey to Topology Issues
Typical errors when creating a topology from COGO or digitized data.

22. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Future Initiatives
Goals: Define and implement a system and associated geodatabase to create, manage, and maintain spatially accurate cadastral geometry that can support the GIS community while maintaining original survey accuracy.
Requirements: - The system must be extendable
- Must be able to follow approved survey methods
- Must improve LRD datasets by allowing new parcels to be joined and tools for editing existing parcels
- Must maintain spatial relationships between the Cadastre and associated features
- Should have an explicit topology, defined by common parcel corners
- Topology should be inherent in the data model in order to automate application of topologic rules
- Should be able to adopt and refine control points external to survey measurements
- Should allow for ranking of measurements & control points so the entire data set can be modified by a process like least squares adjustment where data adjusts to higher quality data, displacement vectors should be recorded and accessible
- Must maintain and use the original survey measurements even if output geometry has been modified through the creation of topologically clean GIS data
- Should maintain and be able to access historic and or retired parcel data
Options: - Cadastral Fabric, ArcGIS 9.x Survey Analyst functionality new in Service Pack 3
- Autodesk Civil 3D 2008

23. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Future Initiatives
Differentiate Source information from Derived information
Differentiate Survey Rules information from GIS Rules

24. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Future Initiatives
Parcels are represented by :
parcel line features,
parcel point features, and
parcel polygon features,

25. National Park Service - Land Resources Division (LRD)
Future Initiatives