NR 322: Acquiring Data

Jim Graham

Fall 2008

Chapter 5

Vector Data Sources

• USGS National Map Seamless Server

• National Weather Service

• GoeCommunity

• MapMart

• Tree Ring Database

• GBIF

• I3

• GIS.com

National Map Seamless Server

• http://seamless.usgs.gov/

• Mostly common rasters

• Have to download small datasets

GIS Data Depot

• http://data.geocomm.com

• GeoCommunity

• Commercial

• Good for county-level basic data

• Free for small datasets

• Pay for CD-ROM or fast download

National Weather Service

• Search for “National Weather Service Shapefile”

World Data Center for Paleoclimatology• Tree Ring Database

• http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/treering.html

Colorado Oil and Gas Convervation Commision• http://www.oil-gas.state.co.us/infosys/Ma

ps/gismain.cfm

• Search on “oil well shapefile colorado”

Successful Hunts

• Individual resource units: – Escalante National Monument

• Individual states:– Wyoming

• Individual cities:– Fort Collins

• Knowledge specific sites:– Tree Ring database

• ESRI Data set (World Atlas)

Tips to Acquiring Data

• Know what you need• Be as flexible as you can be• Search during quite time ☺• Write down:

– Where you have been– What worked– What didn’t

• Ask! • Check the data and the metadata