SSCI301L - Maps and Spatial Reasoning: Physical world

WorldClim is a set of global climate layers (gridded climate data) with a spatial resolution of about 1 km2. These data can be used for mapping and spatial modeling.

These links provide quick access to many of NCEI's climate and weather datasets, products, and various web pages and resources.

The PRISM Climate Group gathers climate observations from a wide range of monitoring networks, applies sophisticated quality control measures, and develops spatial climate datasets to reveal short- and long-term climate patterns. The resulting datasets incorporate a variety of modeling techniques and are available at multiple spatial/temporal resolutions, covering the period from 1895 to the present. Whenever possible, we offer these datasets to the public, either free of charge or for a fee (depending on dataset size/complexity and funding available for the activity).

Access to Weather Underground API. Reliable data, accurate forecast, & global coverage in 80 languages.

Web Soil Survey (WSS) provides soil data and information produced by the National Cooperative Soil Survey. It is operated by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and provides access to the largest natural resource information system in the world. NRCS has soil maps and data available online for more than 95 percent of the nation’s counties and anticipates having 100 percent in the near future. The site is updated and maintained online as the single authoritative source of soil survey information.

National Geologic Map Database.

The National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) and Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD) are digital geospatial datasets that map the surface water of the United States and are a part of The National Map.

NHDPlus is a geo-spatial, hydrologic framework dataset built by the US EPA Office of Water, assisted by the US Geological Survey. Since its first release in 2006, NHDPlus has been made available to the wider water resources community and has been used for many diverse applications by Federal, state, and local governments, as well as non-profit oganizations, private companies and educational institutions. The NHDPlus user community has developed tools and ancilliary data to support their NHDPlus applications. Some of these applications are listed here.

The Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD) defines the areal extent of surface water drainage to a point, accounting for all land and surface areas. Watershed Boundaries are determined solely upon science-based hydrologic principles, not favoring any administrative boundaries or special projects, nor particular program or agency.

A Gap Analysis consists of mapping three data layers — land cover, predicted distributions of vertebrate species, and a stewardship layer depicting both location and conservation status of protected areas. This data is then assessed to determine how much of a target species’ (plant or animal) habitat is in conserved areas. From this assessment, planning decisions can be made about whether further protection is merited.

The primary objective of the MRLC NLCD is to provide the Nation with nationally complete, current, consistent, and public domain information on the Nation's land cover. Land cover information is critical for local, state, and federal managers and officials to assist them with issues such as assessing ecosystem status and health, modeling nutrient and pesticide runoff, understanding spatial patterns of biodiversity, land use planning, deriving landscape pattern metrics, and developing land management policies.

All MRLC NLCD data products are available at no charge to the user.

LiDAR is used to detect potential obstacles that present hazards to air navigation.
Lidar is used to detect potential obstacles that present hazards to air navigation.
The 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) initiative is being developed to respond to growing needs for high-quality topographic data and for a wide range of other three-dimensional representations of the Nation's natural and constructed features. The primary goal of 3DEP is to systematically collect enhanced elevation data in the form of high-quality light detection and ranging (lidar) data over the conterminous United States, Hawaii, and the U.S. territories, with data acquired over an 8-year period. Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (IfSAR) data will be collected over Alaska, where cloud cover and remote locations preclude the use of lidar over much of the State. The 3DEP initiative is based on the results of the National Enhanced Elevation Assessment.

Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model.

Data on America’s elevation have typically been represented as contour lines and bare earth digital elevation models (DEMs) in The National Map. With the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) operational, light detection and ranging (lidar) and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (ifsar) data (in Alaska) are now the primary sources of elevation data for 3DEP, and provide opportunities for measuring, mapping and monitoring not only the bare earth surface, but above ground features as well. As a result, in addition to the traditional bare earth DEMs, USGS now provides the source lidar point clouds, ifsar digital surface models (DSMs) and orthorectified radar intensity images (ORIs) over every area where data have been acquired for 3DEP and The National Map. Contours derived from these elevation data are used in the US Topo digital topographic maps.

OpenTopography facilitates community access to high-resolution, Earth science-oriented, topography data, and related tools and resources.

Shuttle Land Elevation Data - highest-resolution topographic data generated from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM).

In september 2014, the White House announced the release of the Digital Elevation Model, generated from the delivered data of the NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) on 2000, at his highest resolution (~30m).

The full disclosure of this data in september 2015, together with previous experiences we carried out in relief generation, encouraged us to tackle a rendering project with a global scope.

The interactive map you can find in this webpage allows you to download the relief images we have produced in two different graphic resolutions: 15m and 30m/pixel, all of them for free.

eBird’s goal is to maximize the utility and accessibility of the vast numbers of bird observations made each year by recreational and professional bird watchers. It is amassing one of the largest and fastest growing biodiversity data resources in existence. For example, in May 2015, participants reported more than 9.5 million bird observations across the world!

A place where you can record what you see in nature, meet other nature lovers, and learn about the natural world.