GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS GIS DATA SOURCES

GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS GIS DATA SOURCES

Esri ArcGIS Online - add data through ArcMap

USGS National Map Viewer - coverage: U.S. - although the web site is a bit confusing to navigate - excellent resource - download DEMs, admin boundaries, transportation, NHD, NLCD and imagery - this is the only site that contains the most recent updates to the National Elevation Dataset

NRCS Geospatial Data Gateway - coverage: U.S. states and counties - great site for imagery DOQs, DRGs, and SSURGO soils - county mosaicked DRGs and DOQs, - also cropland data and watershed boundaries

National Atlas - coverage: U.S. - lots of different layers - most datasets are 1:1,000,000

U.S. Census Bureau

- coverage: U.S. and U.S. states - the source for TIGER data and related census information - from the main page, go to Geography - then select TIGER - for demographic data, you will have to join attributes data from downloaded Census tables - good luck on this - you are better off getting prepackaged Census demographic data from Esri

GIS Data Depot - coverage: U.S. and U.S. states ? some global - much of the data on this site is in the public domain and available elsewhere for free

NaturalEarth - coverage: U.S. and the world - cultural and physical features - a relatively new public domain website offering free vector and raster datasets - datasets are fairly generalized, 1:10M, 1:50M and 1:110M

Note: many federal agencies, states, urban counties, large cities and nonprofit organizations also have data. - many of these sites are cataloged at - often, the best way to find data is to simply do a Google search

Texas Data

Texas Natural Resources Information System (TNRIS) - excellent site for obtaining Texas DOQQs, Compressed County Mosaics (CCMs) and DRGs - data for Texas include TxDOT roads, rivers, political boundaries, etc.)

Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) - some useful layers related to water - one of the few sites where data can be downloaded as a shapefile or geodatabase

Texas General Land Office (GLO) - many basemap layers and lots of coastal layers

Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) - source for monitoring-site layers relevant to the TCEQ mission

BASEMAP DATASETS

Elevation Data

NED (National Elevation Data Set) - very good DEMs derived from the best available source - U.S. coverage - 1 arc second (approx 30 m grid cells) and 1/3 arc second (approx 10 m grid cells) - always download DEMs from USGS National Map Viewer (it is the most up-to-date data)

SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission) - global 1 arc second data ? approx. 30 m grid cells

ETOPO1 - global DEM with ocean floor (can also select bedrock or ice surface) - 1 arc minute data (approximately 2 km)

GMTED2010 - global DEM (replaces GTOPO30) - can download at three different resolutions (grid cell sizes) - 30 arc second (approx 1 km), 15 arc second (approx 0.5 km), 7.5 arc seconds (225 m)

National Boundaries - Esri Data and Maps - be careful that some datasets might be generalized boundaries

State and County Boundaries - use TIGER data downloaded from Census for U.S. counties - you can then merge county layers to create state boundary files - StratMap political boundaries (Texas only ? download from TNRIS) - more generalized boundaries are available from Esri Data and Maps, USGS and Census Bureau

Roads - TxDOT roads (Texas only ? download from TNRIS) - otherwise try ArcGIS Online - good luck knowing which is most up to date - use whatever road layer works for your application

Rivers and Lakes - NHD (National Hydrography Dataset) ? derived from Census TIGER rivers and water polygons - Census TIGER rivers and lakes (hydro lines and water polygons)

Soils - STATSGO ? generalized soils database for the U.S. ? complicated to use - SSURGO ? digitized soil surveys ? complicated to use

Climate Data - PRISM climate data - monthly and annual maximum and minimum temperature and precipitation for the continental U.S. - downloaded in an .acs use ArcToolbox to convert to an Esri raster format - approximately 4 km resolution (grid cell size)

High Resolution Imagery - individual DOQQs ? download from TNRIS - county mosaic NAIP imagery ? download from NRCS Geospatial Data Gateway or TNRIS

Satellite Imagery, Aerial Photography, Land Cover and LiDAR - USGS Glovis (Global Visualization Viewer) - download Landsat, MODIS, ASTER and other satellite imagery - USG EarthExplorer - download aerial photography, satellite imagery, LiDAR and land cover data - Global Land Cover Facility (GLCF) - download satellite imagery from Landsat and other different platforms - NASA - MODIS Rapid Response System (downloadable MODIS imagery at no cost) - MRLC - Multi-Resolution Land Cover Consortium - National Land Cover Database (NLCD)

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