GIS Data
This category contains introductory text about GIS data such as types of error in GIS datasets, types of GIS data (raster and vector), and metadata.
National Digital Stewardship Alliance Releases Report: “Issues in the Appraisal and Selection of Geospatial Data”
The National Digital Stewardship Alliance (NDSA) has published a report titled "Issues in the Appraisal and Selection of Geospatial Data" in PDF format.
University of Florida Website Offers Free GIS Data
Tracy Dash, a GIS specialist with a surveying company near Jacksonville, Florida, introduces the FGDL Metadata Explorer which provides access to free GIS data. Dash holds an undergraduate degree is in Sustainable Design, and a graduate certificate in GIS.
How to Check Your GIS Data
GIS manager Noam Rozenfeld discusses the significance of error-checking in GIS data and evaluates Esri's ArcGIS Data Reviewer.
New Portal for Free SPOT Vegetation Satellite Data
There is a new distribution portal for accessing SPOT vegetation data. The Belgium site, VITO (Flemish Institute for Technological Research), ...
If Google and Facebook Were Empires: Age of Internet Map
If the most visited websites became the ruler of each country, what would a map of the world look like? ...
Map of Great Britain Created for Minecraft by the Ordnance Survey
The staff at Britain's Ordnance Survey have created a map of the United Kingdom for use in Minecraft.
Map Projection Selection Tool
The Map Projection Selection Tool was developed to help cartographers pick the best map projection for making maps in a GIS software program.
Assessing a School’s Economic Background Using GIS
I do pro bono GIS work from time to time, and a recent contribution was towards a local school that ...
The Urban Observatory Uses GIS to Seek to Better Understand Cities
The Urban Observatory is a live museum that allows access to a large amount of data about major cities around the world. The observatory allows users to compare and contrast a wide variety of GIS data covering areas such as water distribution, power grids, street networks, population density, public transit, and open public spaces.
Crowdsourcing with the USGS
The U.S. Geological Survey is putting out a call for citizen scientists (that means you) to help them track and gather geographic information on what is happening all around the globe. Here are the some of the most well-known USGS crowdsourcing projects.
Near Real-Time Satellite Imagery Being Launched by MapBox
MapBox has announced that it will be launching MapBox Satellite Live later this summer which aims to provide near real-time access to satellite imagery within six hours of any event anywhere in the world.
California Supreme Court Rules that GIS Data are Public Record
After a lengthy battle in the court system, California’s Supreme Court has finally ruled in favor of allowing public access to the government’s GIS data in Orange County. Back in 2007, the Sierra Club sued the county for the right to use its GIS data for environmental mapping projects. Orange County resisted, however, claiming that the digital maps did not fall under the Public Records Act.
FEMA Flood Map Challenges
FEMA has been constantly updating and maintaining its Flood Hazard Mapping Program in order to provide ongoing flood risk assessments.
Map of Twitter Users by Smartphone
MapBox Labs has mapped out 280 millions tweets from around the world to look at smartphone types. Tweets posted from Smartphone devices were analyzed in order to understand global and local geographic patterns of Android, iPhone, and Blackberry devices.
Mapping Antarctica’s Bedrock with Bedmap2
The map, called Bedmap2, provides a detailed look at Antarctica from its surface of ice all the way down to the bedrock. The map was compiled by the British Antarctic Survey using data from other research organizations around the globe including NASA
Can Spatial Big Data Build a Better Everyday Life?
Mike Sanderson, the Director of Strategy at 1Spatial, provides a perspective piece on the rise of big spatial data and the importance of being able to base management decisions on correct real-world data.
Near Real-time Bike Share Map
The global bike share map updates every 2-10 minutes with bike inventory data for 85 cities around the world.
Mapping the Salinity of the Ocean
The European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are mapping the salinity of the ocean to understand how the ocean helps recycle of our planet’s water resources and our climate.
Open and Machine Readable Now the Default for Government Data
On May 9, 2013, President Barack Obama sign an executive order making the default for government data "open and machine readable". The executive order was accompanied by the White House's Open Data Policy.
Timelapse Satellite Imagery – View Changes on Earth over Time
The series of Landsat satellites has been collecting global imagery continuously since 1972. A total of eight satellites and millions ...
Help Map Historical Weather From Ship Logs
The Old Weather project is a crowdsourcing data gathering endeavor to understand and map historical weather variability.
OpenStreetMap Editor Designed by MapBox Goes Live
iD is a new easy-to-use OpenStreetMap editor that allows anybody with minimal technical knowledge to contribute GIS data to this crowd sourced mapping project.
Mapping Ecological Change with NEON
With Earth Day nearing, it is an opportune time to highlight a developing project, the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON). ...
Map of Every Photo Taken of the Earth by the International Space Station
The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth houses a collection of over a million archived photos taken by the International ...
Explore John Snow’s Cholera Map using GIS Data
John Snow's well known cholera map is often cited as one of the earliest known examples of using geographic inquiry to understand a health epidemic although his famous dot map was actually created after the cholera epidemic to show disease clusters.
Grassroots Aerial Mapping
Aerial imagery has evolved into a more complex and sophisticated enterprise with most aerial imagery today being captured by aircraft ...