Government Geoplatform to Launch by October

When the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and began gushing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, mapping divisions at the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and numerous other agencies all had a stake in providing timely, accurate information.

Each division was building those maps inside its own servers, however, and there was no single place where they shared all their mapping data, EPA Geospatial Information Officer Jerry Johnston told Nextgov. Often geographic information systems leaders had to call or email each other to see if someone else already had built a map they could use, or to offer up a map they'd built...