Spatial Data Sources by Type

Administrative, Biological, Elevation, Fire, Hydrology/Water, Land Cover (Includes GAP), Satellite/Imagery, Soils, Vegetation, Wetlands

Administrative

United States Census Bureau - leading source of quality data about the nation's people and economy.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) WONDER - provides a single point of access to a wide variety of reports and numeric public health data.

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) - housing and community development data.

GeoCommunicator - Bureau of Land Management's National Integrated Land System (NILS) data for federal land stewardship, land and mineral use records.

Biological Data

National Biological Information System  - The NBII is a broad, collaborative program to provide increased access to data and information on the nation's biological resources. The NBII links diverse, high-quality biological databases, information products, and analytical tools maintained by NBII partners and other contributors in government agencies, academic institutions, non-government organizations, and private industry.

NASA's Global Change Master Directory - GCMD is a comprehensive directory of descriptions of data sets of relevance to global change research. The GCMD database includes descriptions of data sets (DIFs) covering climate change, agriculture, the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere & oceans, geology, geography, and human dimensions of global change.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - The NOAA Coastal Services Center works with various branches of NOAA and other federal agencies to bring information, services, and technology to the nation's coastal resource managers. The Center is a partner in over 100 ongoing projects geared to resolve site specific coastal issues.

NatureServe - A source for information about rare and endangered species and threatened ecosystems.

USDA PLANTS National Database - a single source of standardized information about plants. This database focuses on vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories.

Elevation

NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) - elevation data on a near-global scale to generate the most complete high-resolution digital topographic database of Earth hosted at EROS.

USGS National Elevation Dataset (NED) - dataset provides seamless coverage of the United States, HI, AK, and the island territories.

USGS Earth Resources Observation & Science (EROS) - GTOPO30 global digital elevation model (DEM) developed to meet the needs of the geospatial data user community for regional and continental scale topographic data.

Fire

Geospatial Multi-Agency Coordination Group (GeoMAC)

LANDFIRE, the Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools Project, a multi-partner project producing maps and data describing vegetation, wildland fuel, and fire regimes across the United States.

MODIS Active Fire Mapping Program Forest Service's Remote Sensing Applications Center.

NOAA Fire Weather Information Center - sites and information on the latest weather forecasts, including satellite images and graphics.

Hazard Mapping System (HMS) - NOAA's interactive map site that displays the locations of fires and significant smoke plumes detected by meteorological satellites.

USGS's Natural Hazards Support System (NHSS) - designed to provide a comprehensive overview of current natural hazards events for the public as well as our Federal, State and local partners.

Hydrology/Water

Data:

Goddard DAAC Climatology Interdisciplinary Data Collection (CIDC) - Interdisciplinary On-Line FTP Data.

NOAA's Hydrology Laboratory - conducts studies, investigations and analyses leading to the application of new scientific and computer technologies for hydrologic forecasting and related water resources problems.

USGS's National Water Information System Web Site (NWISWeb) - Selected water-resources data for approximately 1.5 million sites across the United States from 1857 to present.

National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) - comprehensive set of digital spatial data that contains information about surface water features.

Tools:

Documentation and Tools for Utilizing USGS Hydrologic Unit Data - for 1:250,000 and 1:2,000,000 data. Includes text files, DBF files, and background information references.

Documentation and Tools for Utilizing the National Hydrography Dataset - a combination of the USGS hydrologic units and River Reach files. 1:100,000 coverage is available now with a more detailed coverage in progress.

Land Cover

GAP Analysis Program - datasets documenting land cover in addition to stewardship (ownership and management), vertebrate and invertebrate species habitat models, and species richness.

USGS Land Cover Institute (LCI) - land cover topics from local to global scales, and in both domestic and international settings.

The Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) - is a center for land cover science with a focus on research using remotely sensed satellite data and products to assess land cover change for local to global systems.

Global Land Cover Characteristics database - for use in a wide range of environmental research and modeling applications, developed on a continent-by-continent basis.

Satellite/Imagery

Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) - part of NASA's Earth Observing System. ASTER is a cooperative effort between NASA, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and Japan's Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center . ASTER is being used to obtain detailed maps of land surface temperature, reflectance and elevation.

The Landsat Program is the longest running enterprise for acqusition of imagery of the earth from space. The images, archived in the United States and at Landsat receiving stations around the world, are a unique resource for global change research and applications in agriculture, geology, forestry, regional planning, education and national security.

Landsat 7 Program is a part of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise. Landsat 7 is the latest NASA satellite in a series that has produced an uninterrupted multispectral record of the Earth's land surface since 1972. It provides repetitive coverage of continental Earth surfaces in the visible, near-infrared, short-wave, and thermal infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) is playing a vital role in the development of validated, global, interactive Earth system models able to predict global change accurately enough to assist policy makers in making sound decisions concerning the protection of our environment.

Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium is specifically designed to meet the current needs of Federal agencies for nationally consistent satellite remote sensing and land-cover data. However, the consortium also provides imagery and land cover data as public domain information, all of which can be accessed through this website.

NASA Earth Observatory provides a freely-accessible publication on the Internet where the public can obtain new satellite imagery and scientific information about our home planet. The focus is on Earth’s climate and environmental change.

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) - NOAA's NESDIS provides and ensures timely access to global environmental data from satellites and other sources, provides information services, and develops science products.

National Climatic Data Center's (NCDC) Historical Significant Events Imagery database (HSEI) - satellite images capturing some of the more important weather and environmental events over the last 30 years.

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) - archives photographs from its mapping projects and from those of some other Federal agencies. In addition, many images from such space programs as Landsat are held by the USGS. Most satellite scenes can be obtained only in digital form for use in computer-based image processing and geographic information systems, but in some cases are also available as photographic products.

USGS Commercial Remote Sensing Space Policy (CRSSP) - USGS is the lead federal civil agency for implementation of the civil aspects of the CRSSP and is responsible for inter-agency short-term requirements and the establishment of an operational infrastructure.

Soils

Data:

NRCS Soil Data Mart - part of the National Cooperative Soil Survey, an effort of Federal and State agencies, universities, and professional societies to deliver scientifically-based soil information.

NSSC Soil Survey Laboratory Research Database - allows users to generate, print and download reports containing soil characterization data stored and maintained by the NSSC Soil Survey Laboratory.

Goddard DAAC Climatology Interdisciplinary Data Collection (CIDC) - production and distribution of this data set are being funded by NASA's Mission To Planet Earth program.

Tools:

Documentation and Tools for Utilizing NRCS Soils Data - for 1:24,000 (SSURGO) and 1:250,000 (STATSGO) soils data. This includes notes on locating and downloading, and importing the data into ArcView as well as background information on the attribute data.

Vegetation

National Plants Database The Natural Resources Conservation Service maintains a searchable on-line database that provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories.

FGDC Vegetation Subcommittee Home Page This is the official FGDC site. You can get the complete standard here and review the history of the process.

USGS/NPS Vegetation Mapping Program A good overview discussion of the vegetation standard, applications on several National Parks and related data and other products.

USFWS Vegetation page includes tools.

Wetlands

USFWS Wetlands Digital Data and Mapping - current geospatially referenced information on the status, extent, characteristics and functions of wetlands, riparian, deepwater and related aquatic habitats.

For additional information regarding this Web page, contact Deb Southworth Green, in the Division of Information Resources and Technology Management, at Deb_Green@fws.gov

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Keywords=GIS, data, metadata
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