Bowl Games and Big (10) Data

By Jeffery Robichaud

Three of our four States have a college football team travelling to a bowl game this holiday season (Sorry Missouri, karmic payback for moving to the SEC I suppose).   Iowa State, Kansas State and Nebraska all get to take a trip someplace warmer.  Of course I type this as snow falls behind me outside the window.  I don’t watch many bowl games nowadays, but in my younger (read pre-wife and kids) days I watched way too much football.  One thing I remember from bowl games was the short infomercials about each of the schools, attempting to woo kids into thinking that Upper-Middle Northern Technical State College of the Plains was an awesome school by sharing stirring visuals of their picturesque tree-lined campus where everyone smiles and carries a handful of textbooks.  So in the spirit of sharing, I thought I might take this season to share a few of our favorite sites, where data abounds.   In order of historic bowl wins, Nebraska gets to be first.

Awesome Artistic Rendering of NE in Beef in "Beef Stakes," designed by art and technology student Sarah Hallacher

First up is the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources’ Nebraska Data Bank which is charged with developing, storing, processing and managing natural resources data relating to land and water resources of the State.  My personal favorite data set at the Data Bank is their Dams Inventory.

Next we have the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.  If you want to find a great place to camp or fish in Nebraska they have your map.  You can toggle between boating, fishing, hunting, parks, and trails by clicking on the tabs above the map.

Finally, the University of Nebraska – Lincoln, hosts quite a bit of GIS data within their School of Natural Resources.  They have some great holdings including climatology resources as do the folks at UNL’s Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies (CALMIT).  Give these folks a couple days to get over their Bowl Loss to Georgia  before you call them for further information (I’m going to take heat for this prognostication from several of my colleagues who are HUGE Big Red fans).

I know it is fun to read blogs but since it is still the season for sharing please share your favorite data sets…or how about data that is on your wish list in the comment section below.

Jeffery Robichaud is a second generation EPA scientist who has worked for the Agency since 1998. He currently serves as Deputy Director of EPA Region 7′s Environmental Services Division.  His Alma Mater, the University of Pennsylvania, won the Ivy League Championship yet again this year.  Go Quakers!