NAWQA GIS resources

News and ongoing projects

NAWQA Area-Characterization Toolbox - (Nov 2010)
A Python-based toolbox that implements the AML tools and some other commonly used AMLs in NAWQA (GRIDBUF, WEEDPOINT, SHRINK) in ArcGIS 9.3.x has been released as USGS Open-File Report 2010-1268. Contact: Curtis Price

Major Update to Enterprise GIS Tools - (April 2010)
Curtis Price has updated the USGS EGIS tools with lots of fixes and has added a python module he built (egis.py). These tools are included in the EGIS enhancements that are part of a standard USGS ArcInfo install. The absolute most recent version of the toolbox and egis.py are posted in the EGIS ftp area. Contact: Curtis Price

Satellite images depicting agricultural land cover in the U.S. - (January 2010)
USDA NASS has released crop-specific, cropland data layers (CDL) that can be used to study pesticide risk, epidemiology, transportation, fertilizer usage, and carbon dioxide flux and to monitor crop rotation patterns, land use changes, water resources and carbon emissions. The CDL are available at the USDA National Resources Conservation Service's Geospatial Data Gateway.

Census of Ag on Watershed Boundaries - (May 2009)
The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service has released a new publication presenting selected data from the 2007 Census of Agriculture that conforms to watershed boundaries set by USGS, rather than to state and county boundaries. See the news release.

SSURGO data - (April 2009)
Mike Wieczorek has processed SSURGO data for every county available from NRCS as of Feb. 13, 2009. He has produced areal and depth weighted averages and has assembled the data by state as grids at 10-m resolution. Attributes include percent sand, silt, clay and organic matter; available water capacity; bulk density; field capacity; K-factor; KSAT; average horizon depth; and porosity. The data is available by state. Contact: Mike Wieczorek

National Land Cover Data 1992-2001 Retrofit Change Product - (February 2009)
USGS scientists and Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium cooperators recently completed a report about the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 1992-2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit product. This product was developed to provide more accurate and useful land cover change data than was possible by independent comparison of NLCD 1992 and NLCD 2001 products. Implementation of this product required production across many Landsat path/rows using a hybrid change analysis process to produce a 30 meter product identifying change at Anderson Level I classes. Results for the conterminous United States indicates about 3 percent of the land area changed between 1992 and 2001. The full report, Completion of the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) 1992-2001 Land Cover Change Retrofit Product (OFR 2008-1379) is available online at http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2008/1379/. Contact: Gail Thelin

Enhanced National Land Cover Data 1992 Revised with Population Data - (September 2008)
Two GIS data sets are now in the spatial library and can be cited in reports.
1). NLCDep0306 - Enhanced National Land Cover Data 1992 revised with 1990 and 2000 population data to indicate urban development between 1992 and 2000. (NLCDep0306 superseded NLCDep0905 and is significantly different from NLCDep0905.) 2). NLCDep0905 - Enhanced National Land Cover Data 1992 revised with 2000 population data to indicate urban development between 1992 and 2000. These are 30-m resolution data NAWQA used to represent land use in the early 2000s before NLCD 2001 became available. Contact: Kerie Hitt

National Land Cover Data 2006 Status and Plans - (August 2008)
USGS has finalized the methods for NLCD 2006. These will be reported potentially in a paper submitted to Remote Sensing of Environment. Also completed: a hands-on manual and training for all 5 USGS mapping teams on operational procedures. Initial production has now begun on land cover and imperviousness. Tree canopy is still unfunded. The initial goal is to complete production in 18 months; however, after production results for two months a more reliable timeline can be estimated. Contact: Gail Thelin

National Land Cover Data 2001 Accuracy Assessment - (August 2008)
Of the 10 super zones, all are completed except one. Overall, NLCD 2001 accuracy has improved significantly from NLCD 92. Overall, Anderson level two accuracy from 1992 was about a 50% as a national average. NLCD 2001 is running about a 70-75% as a national average. So far, the most problematic classes have been barren, wetland, herbaceous, and shrub. Cropland accuracies have been quite good and have varied from 77 to 92%. These are only preliminary analysis numbers and a complete analysis including all zones, collection scenarios, class specific accuracies and other topics will be evaluated in the future. Contact: Gail Thelin

Enhanced NLCD 1992 (NLCDE 92) - (November 2007)
In 2003, National Synthesis GIS people developed a standard land use data set for use by synthesis projects and others. We used enhanced historical GIRAS data to better represent orchards, tundra, and residential areas, which were underrepresented in the raw NLCD. The NLCDE 92 data set, which was revised in September 2005, now is posted in the spatial data library so that people can cite it. Contacts: Naomi Nakagaki, Curtis Price, Kerie Hitt, James Falcone

National Land Cover Data 2001 - (October 2007)
Collin Homer of EDC briefed members of the Pesticides and Nutrients Synthesis Teams and the Hydrologic Systems Team to help us understand how the NLCD 2001 was compiled, the NLCD 2001 accuracy assessment, how NLCD 2001 compares to NLCD 1992, what we can expect from the upcoming change product, and so forth. Contact: Gail Thelin

Land Use/Land Cover around NAWQA Wells - (September 2007)
Terri Arnold, Illinois WSC, will oversee NAWQA's land use/land cover (LULC) characterization around wells. Terri's oversight will include providing technical assistance to Study Units regarding software for field mapping of land use and land cover around wells, QA and archiving mapped LULC data, maintaining a record of the status of LULC characterizations by Study Units, and the maintenance of a revised LULC web page. Contacts: Terri Arnold, Wayne Lapham

NLCD 2001 - (August 2007)
National Synthesis GIS and SPARROW are discussing how to evaluate NLCD 2001. This probably will involve comparing the NLCD 2001 to other data sets such as Census of Ag, NRI, CPG well data, and population data. After the evaluation, National Synthesis will decide whether to use NLCD 2001 and whether the data set needs to be "enhanced" similar to what we did for NLCD 1992. Contacts: Mike Wieczorek, Gail Thelin

Enhanced GIRAS - (May 2007)
Enhanced historical land use/land cover (GIRAS) has been published as USGS Data Series 240. Contact: Curtis Price

NRI - (August 2006)
National Resources Inventory data have been compiled by county, and NRI land use data have been compared to NLCD. Contacts: Mike Wieczorek, Andy LaMotte

NID - (August 2006)
Greg Schwarz is indexing the National Inventory of Dams on NHDPlus. Contact: Greg Schwarz

NAWQA AREA CHARACTERIZATION TOOLBOX - (July 2006)
We are developing a menu driven system to run the tools. Contact: Gail Thelin