Online Spatial Data Sources - FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESOURCES

THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY: (http://www.usgs.gov/). Home of the National Mapping Division, host for the Federal Geographic Data Committee (http://fgdc.er.usgs.gov/), the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, and headquarters for the data archive at the EROS Data Center (http://edcftp.cr.usgs.gov/).
THE UNITED STATES CENSUS BUREAU,  Department of Commerce: Home of the TIGER data for computer mapping.  (http://www.census.gov/)
TERRASERVER: An amalgam of government and private-sector companies, this site is part of the Microsoft network, in collaboration with the USGS, Compaq, Storage Works and Spin-2.  The site allows users to download aerial photos and satellite images, searchable by name or location in a variety of scales.  Claiming to be the largest online database, it contains over 3 TeraBytes of digital information. Very cool!  (http://www.terraserver.microsoft.com/)
NATIONAL GEOPHYSICAL DATA CENTER: Location for all sorts of geologial and earth resources information and data. (http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/ngdc.html)
NATIONAL OCEAN SERVICE: Center of information for mapping and charting of ports and oceans etc. (http://www.nos.noaa.gov/)
NATIONAL IMAGERY AND MAPPING AGENCY. The Agency's site provides ready access to the world's imagery, imagery intelligence and geospatial information.  (http://164.214.2.59/)
DEFENSE MAPPING AGENCY TERRAIN MAPPING PROJECT OFFICE: Data collections and information on terrain mapping. (http://164.214.2.53:8001/)
NASA: Source of much existing data, and includes details of planned future systems. Many links
to follow, including a master data base to facilitate searching. (http://www.nasa.gov/)

ArcGIS Network Analyst and the Network Dataset

ArcGIS Network Analyst provides network-based spatial analysis, such as routing, fleet routing, travel directions, closest facility, service area, and location-allocation. Using ArcGIS Network Analyst, you can dynamically model realistic network conditions, including one-way streets, turn and height restrictions, speed limits, and variable travel speeds based on traffic. You can easily build networks from your GIS data by using a sophisticated network data model.

With ArcGIS Network Analyst, you can

• Find shortest routes.
• Produce the most efficient routes for a fleet of vehicles that must visit many locations.
• Use time windows to limit when vehicles can arrive at locations.
• Locate closest facilities.
• Determine optimal locations for facilities by performing a location-allocation analysis.
• Define service areas based on travel time or distance.
• Create a network using your existing GIS data.
• Generate a matrix of network travel costs from each origin to all destinations.

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Geographic information systems, remote sensing and mapping for the development and management of marine aquaculture

FAO Fisheries Technical Paper. No. 458 Geographic information systems, remote sensing and mapping for the development and management of marine aquaculture

James McDaid Kapetsky  Consultant and José Aguilar-Manjarrez Fishery Resources Officer Aquaculture Management and Conservation Service FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department

FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS Rome, 2007 Table of Contents Download full ZIP file (8,534 KB)

Kapetsky, J.M.; Aguilar-Manjarrez, J.
Geographic information systems, remote sensing and mapping for the development and management of marine aquaculture.
FAO Fisheries Technical Paper. No. 458. Rome. FAO. 2007. 125p.

ABSTRACT

Geographic Information Systems (GIS), remote sensing and mapping have a role to play in all geographic and spatial aspects of the development and management of marine aquaculture. Satellite, airborne, ground and undersea sensors acquire much of the related data, especially data on temperature, current velocity, wave height, chlorophyll concentration and land and water use. GIS is used to manipulate and analyze spatial and attribute data from all sources. It is also used to produce reports in map, database and text format to facilitate decision-making.

The objective of this document is to illustrate the ways in which Geographic Information Systems, remote sensing and mapping can play a role in the development and management of marine aquaculture per se and in relation to competing and conflicting uses. The perspective is global. The approach is to employ example applications that have been aimed at resolving many of the important issues in marine aquaculture. The focus is on the ways tools have been employed for problem solving, not on the tools and technologies themselves. In this regard, we consider GISFish, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Internet gateway to GIS, remote sensing and mapping as applied to aquaculture and inland fisheries, as a complementary resource to this technical paper.

The underlying purpose is to stimulate the interest of individuals in the government, industry and educational sectors of marine aquaculture to make more effective use of these tools. A brief introduction to spatial tools and their use in the marine fisheries sector precedes the example applications. The most recent applications have been selected to be indicative of the state of the art, allowing readers to make their own assessments of the benefits and limitations of use of these tools in their own disciplines. Other applications have been selected in order to illustrate the evolution of the development of the tools.

The main emphasis is on GIS. Remote sensing is viewed as an essential tool for the capture of data subsequently to be incorporated into a GIS and for real time monitoring of environmental conditions for operational management of aquaculture facilities. Maps usually are one of the outputs of a GIS, but can be effective tools for spatial communication in their own right. Thus, examples of mapping for aquaculture are included.

The applications are organized issue-wise along the main streams of marine aquaculture: culture of fishes in cages, culture of shellfishes and culture of marine plants. Both the recent and historical applications are summarized in tables. Because data availability is one of the prime issues in the use of spatial tools in marine aquaculture, a case study is included that illustrates how freely downloadable data can be used to estimate marine aquaculture potential and a section is devoted to describing various kinds of data. Because the ultimate purpose of GIS is to aid decision-making, a section on decision support tools is included.

Finally, we summarize our findings and reach some conclusions on the state of the application of GIS, remote sensing and mapping for the development and management of marine aquaculture.

(http://www.fao.org)