Seattle-Tacoma Partnership Project

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Seattle-Tacoma is one of the nation’s fastest growing areas and is ranked among the nation’s highest priority urban areas in terms of homeland security needs. The Seattle-Tacoma Partnership Project is trying to support those needs by developing an implementation of The National Map in the greater Puget Sound region including Seattle and Tacoma. The six-county area (King, Pierce, Island, Snohomish, Thurston, and Kitsap) includes urban areas, agricultural lands, Fort Lewis and McChord Air Force Base, Everett and Bremerton Naval Shipyards, the Muckleshoot Indian Reservation, Mt. Rainier National Park, and much of the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest. USGS Geographers are working with the six counties, the Puget Sound Regional Council and state and federal agencies to develop the Seattle-Tacoma implementation of The National Map as a seamless, integrated online mapping service. The project is designed to involve the local government community to meet their information needs while also supporting identified homeland security requirements.

High-resolution orthoimagery was completed over part of the partnership area in 2002. Discussions are underway to develop an ongoing imagery consortium for continued orthoimagery acquisition. Data sets from cities and counties, including transportation, boundaries, and land use, have been integrated into The National Map.

The partnership area will also be the site of a pilot project of the Washington Transportation Framework Project (WA Trans). The pilot will gather city and county data using a common data model and standards. Data from WA Trans will then be available through The National Map.

The partnership area also contains LIDAR data collected by the Puget Sound LIDAR Consortium. USGS Geographers have added critical FGDC-compliant metadata and are entering the LIDAR data into The National Map through the National Elevation Dataset. Additionally, in partnership with NOAA, the USGS is merging topographic and bathymetric datasets using the available LIDAR and filling in with 10 meter Digital Elevation Models to produce a new higher-resolution seamless elevation dataset for the Puget Sound.

For information on our partners, the data included in this project, and other technical information, please see the Seattle-Tacoma Partnership Project on The National Map Web site. To view this project in The National Map viewer, select the Seattle-Tacoma Partnership Project in Utah in the “Zoom Region” box on the left side of Viewer.

Point of Contact:
Samuel T. Bardelson
Washington Partnership Liaison

US Geological Survey
Northwest Geographic Science Office

Phone: 206-220-4563

E-mail: stbardelson@usgs.gov