Investigating U.S. geological survey needs for the management of temporal GIS data

The U.S. Geological Survey is investigating its needs for management of temporal information in the National Digital Cartographic Data Base. Future production methods and customer requirements will probably require a capability to capture the history of individual features within the database. Updates to the digital database may be accomplished on a feature by feature basis, rather than through a revision of the entire map sheet, as has been the case in the past. Under this scenario, the ability to support queries involving the historical evolution of map features will require additions or modifications to tire existing database structure