contingent upon demonstrating achievement of the four assessment criteria and continued improvement over time. Other incentives could include access to NSDI software tools, applications software, training materials, etc.

In addition to the core goal of populating the Framework, several other critical issues must be addressed in order for the NSDI to be a success, especially in regard to the broader objectives of improving decision making through increasing the effective use of geospatial data at all levels of government, by citizens, and in the private sector. As with Framework data production, partnership programs are needed to address these issues effectively, since both the definition of potential solutions and the implementation of the solutions need to occur in the geospatial community at large.

• Data integration (vertical and horizontal). If the enormous potential benefits of the NSDI are to be realized, datasets produced by different organizations, covering different themes and geographic areas, and at different scales, must be used in conjunction with each other, as well as with non-Framework datasets. While the focus on transfer standards and metadata standards has been a necessary step in realizing true integration, it is now necessary to use the standards to actually achieve integration. Vertical integration ensures that data elements from disparate themes over the same geographic area demonstrate logical and geometric consistency. This is difficult enough to achieve when integrating data of the same structural type (e.g., vector hydrographic data and vector transportation data), but becomes even more problematic when integrating disparate types (e.g., raster orthoimagery, matrix-based terrain elevation data, and vector data). Nevertheless, even though these themes may be produced by different organizations, they must be technically compatible in order for the full benefits to be realized. A critical component of this type of integration will be the acceptance of standards that are being developed by the FGDC subcommittees. For example, the Ground Transportation Subcommittee’s proposed standard on transportation features provides a model for different