Written by Rj Zimmer, LS and Stewart Kirkpatrick, GISP
04 June 2009
An Amerisurv Feature article... In April 2000 by the Western Governors Association adopted the Bureau of Land Management's Geographic Coordinate Database (GCDB) as the preferred representation of the Public Lands Survey System (PLSS) for GIS applications.
The PLSS as a GIS Control
In April 2000 by the Western Governors Association adopted the Bureau of Land Management's Geographic Coordinate Database (GCDB) as the preferred representation of the Public Lands Survey System (PLSS) for GIS applications. This is significant in the western states where most land ownership and stewardship boundaries and administrative boundaries are based on or referenced to the PLSS. That means that any GIS data of those boundaries must use the PLSS as the mapping framework. It is important to standardize on a single representation of the PLSS in order to integrate GIS and mapping data that come from a variety of sources. The BLM's GCDB program sought to create a single source PLSS database that could serve to unify cadastral GIS information across the western United States. The GCDB, as implemented by the BLM and as adopted by the Western Governors Association does meet that requirement, and the GCDB is now available for most of the western states.
