Data requires maintenance to stay accurate. For machine-generated data, monitoring the structure to ensure you’re collecting valid records is probably enough maintenance. For other types of data, however, it’s a bit more involved. Geospatial data, for example.

Molly Taft, writing for Wired in Trump Cuts Are Killing a Tiny Office That Keeps Measurements of the World Accurate shines a light on the National Geodetic Survey (NGS), which is responsible for maintaining spatial data for the United States of America:

NGS is currently responsible for maintaining and updating what’s known as the National Spatial Reference System, a consistent system of physical coordinates used across federal and local governments, the private sector, and academia. This includes not only latitude and longitude, but also measurements of depth and height as well as calculations around Earth’s gravitational field—crucial mathematics that inform much of the basic infrastructure around us, from constructing bridges to mapping out water and electric lines.

The Earth isn’t static — it’s constantly moving (remember, our land masses are basically just floating on magma!) and our data need to adapt to that movement. Modern engineering demands more precise data, and thus more precise measurements.

If you want to build a high speed train network across miles of desert, you need to know exactly where to lay that train track and build the bridges — not just in each acre but across the entire length of the rail line.

Measurements don’t just appear, they have to be made, and then accurately modeled to form an accurate spatial representation that is usable across the country (and continent). Who makes these precise measurements and builds the models? Geodesists. Unfortunately, the United States hasn’t spent much on their geodesy prowess:

In 2022, a group of leading geodesic experts authored a paper on what they dubbed the US’s “geodesy crisis,” detailing how other world powers have invested in training geodesists over the past three decades while the US has wound down funding and training. China has invested particularly heavily in creating more geodesists: the country graduates between 9,000 and 12,500 geodesy students per year, many of whom are then employed by the government.

Without these experts, what you’re left with instead is high demand without expertise:

Many industries now “want that high accuracy positioning” that comes with advanced geospatial technology, [Dave] Doyle [a former chief geodetic surveyor at NGS] says, “yet they don’t understand the basics of the science. Now you’ve got all these people punching buttons and getting numbers, and only a tiny percentage of them really understand what the numbers mean, and how one set of numbers relates to another.”

Whenever you encounter something built with data, remember that someone was there in the background, crafting and curating that data to ensure its accuracy, relevance, and utility. When we ignore, devalue, and defund these data workers, the quality of our data is diminished, and so too is the quality of anything that we build with that data.

Via The Map Room blog, in their post NOAA Cuts Threaten Spatial Reference System Update.