USGS bird and land-cover data: Regional bird conservation internet mapping tool takes flight with GIS
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A 125 year history of topographic mapping and GIS in the U.S. Geological Survey 1884-2009, part 2: 1980-2009
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) entered the mainstream of developments in computer-assisted technology for mapping during the 1970s. The introduction by USGS of digital line graphs (DLGs), digital elevation models (DEMs), and land use data analysis (LUDA) nationwide land-cover data provided a base for the rapid expansion of the use of GIS in the 1980s. Whereas USGS had developed the topologically structured DLG data and the Geographic Information Retrieval and Analysis System (GIRAS) for land-cover data, the Map Overlay Statistical System (MOSS), a nontopologically structured GIS software package developed by Autometric, Inc., under contract to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, dominated the use of GIS by federal agencies in the 1970s. Thus, USGS data was used in MOSS, but the topological structure, which later became a requirement for GIS vector datasets, was not used in early GIS applications. The introduction of Esri's ARC/INFO in 1982 changed that, and by the end of the 1980s, topological structure for vector data was essential, and ARC/INFO was the dominant GIS software package used by federal agencies.
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A 125 year history of topographic mapping and GIS in the U.S. Geological Survey 1884-2009, part 1: 1884-1980
On December 4–5, 1884, John Wesley Powell persuaded the U.S. Congress to authorize the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) to begin systematic topographic mapping of the United States.
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The USGS/EROS Data Center produces seamless hydrologic derivatives with GIS
Increasingly, many local, state, and federal agencies mandated to manage water resources are finding that their needs are not being met by existing digital data sets. Current national coverage of digital data sets, such as drainage basin boundaries and consistent elevation-derived parameters, does not exist or is not of a suitable scale or consistency to allow management of small or midsize watersheds. This problem has become more significant as the management of water resources, both in terms of quantity and quality, is becoming more and more based on the watershed scale.
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