7.2.1 Copyright

Copyright is a legal means to protect original works of authorship created in a tangible medium, whether published or unpublished; this includes cartographic, pictorial, and graphic creations, but excludes ideas, procedures, process, and systems (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.d). Thus, maps and geospatial data fall under copyright protection; yet, the process of mapping such as using geographic information systems to produce maps is not covered under the laws of copyright. This is in part why open-source GIS, such as QGIS or GRASS, may be used without permission or fees.

In a literal sense, copyright means the right to copy. In a legal sense, copyright becomes the exclusive right to copy, which belongs only to the author or copyright holder. According to the U.S. Copyright Office (n.d.b), copyright law identifies the author as not only the “…creator of the original expression in a work” but also “…the owner of copyright unless there is a written agreement by which the author assigns the copyright to another person or entity, such as a publisher.” If the author creates the works for hire, authorship belongs to the employer or commissioning agent.

Copyright laws assigning rights of ownership were created to prevent piracy. Piracy or copyright infringement “…occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner” (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.b). According to U.S. Copyright Office (2010), they serve as an office of record and do not provide legal advice, but the website has a complete how-to account of defining infringement, explaining enforcement options, and accessing litigation resources. In the past, it was easy to know whether a work was protected by copyright, because a copyright notice was evident. Copyright notice consists of the symbol © followed by the date of first publication and the copyright owner's name (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.b). However, copyright exists automatically in the United States today whether or not the author included the copyright notice. A brief history of copyright law follows.

7.2.2 Copyright Law

Writers of the Constitution addressed copyright for scientists, artists, and authors in order to promote creativity and innovation in the United States. A Federal Copyright Law was passed in May 1790, 2 years after the U.S. Constitution was ratified with a provision submitted by James Madison, “to secure to literary authors their copyrights for a limited time” (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.c). The resulting law protected books and maps for a period of 14 years, with one renewable 14-year time period. Less than 3 weeks after the Federal Copyright Law was enacted, the first cartographic resource was registered to John Churchman for his Magnetic Atlas and Variations Chart (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.c). Given the resource's age, the fact that the cartographer is deceased, and LOC inclusion in the online catalog, use of this resource is now considered in the public domain and has fair-use status, see Fig. 7.2.

The original 1790 federal law only applied to U.S. domestic copyright protection. This isolated position in the world meant there was no legal recourse for global intellectual piracy; for example, foreign publishers could translate and reprint U.S. citizens' works, from books to maps, without requesting permission or providing payments. This was a worldwide problem that many countries recognized could be solved by crafting and agreeing to international copyright provisions. A convention was held in Berne, Switzerland in 1886 to address the protection of works and rights of authors. If countries signed the Berne Convention, all contracting parties or signatory countries would recognize copyrights held by citizens of other signatory countries. Subsequent conventions expanded the scope of the Berne Convention. Links are online to a Berne Convention summary, including the complete treaty from September 9, 1886 through numerous revisions and amendments ending on September 28, 1979 as well as a list of contracting parties (World Intellectual Property Organization, n.d.a). While this treaty for international protection of literary, scientific, and artistic works became effective in 1887, the United States did not initially participate in the Berne Union of member states. Instead, the U.S. Congress passed the International Copyright Act of 1891, which empowered the President to extend copyright protection to works of foreign nationals of select countries that reciprocated the arrangement for U.S. citizens (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.c).

When the copyright law was enacted in 1790, district courts were the first to handle copyright registration (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.e). Congress removed the process from the courts and created the U.S. Copyright Office and Administrator, Register of Copyrights, as a separate department within the Library of Congress in 1897 (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.e). While the Copyright Office provides expert, impartial assistance to the three branches of the federal government on law and policy, it serves primarily as a place where claims to copyright are registered and documents related to copyright are recorded. The copyright catalog has records back to 1891 and today the catalog can be searched online (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.f).

On March 1, 1989, the United States signed on as a member state of the Berne Convention, adhering to the 1971 Paris Act (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.c). A quick summary of this treaty is that copyright protection is equally recognized among all signatory states and is independent of copyright law in the country of origin of the author's work. One of the significant changes for the United States was accepting the concept that a copyright does not require registration application and approval in each country, but rather it is an automatic right that exists the moment a work is written, drafted, or recorded (World Intellectual Property Organization, n.d.b). Even though registering works for copyright protection has no longer been mandatory since March 1989, the Copyright Office still processed more than 700,000 registration claims in the fiscal year 2011 (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.e). In addition, the registration and records systems together form the largest database of copyright works and ownership information in the world (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.e).

In the 18th century, federal law granted a copyright holder's exclusive rights lasting a maximum of 28 years; today, the duration of protection is longer but more complex because of the Copyright Act of 1976 and subsequent to joining the Berne Convention. Despite this, copyright has never precluded the use of a creative work; if permission for use was granted by the copyright holder or if protection had expired, then the work may be considered fair use. Fair use is the legal right to use copyright material without requesting permission, if all restrictions are understood and adhered to by the public. Nevertheless, the 21st century has seen a shift whereby the creator, or copyright holder, can assign the work to a Creative Commons license, which helps further define its fair use and delineate its copyright status.

7.2.3 Creative Commons

When images, maps, or other original creative works display the Creative Commons notice, the author has chosen to retain some of the restrictions granted with copyright, see Fig. 7.3. Creative Commons is a U.S. nonprofit organization with global affiliates who help individuals to legally share personal works of creativity using free copyright licenses. The CC empowers creators by allowing them to more deeply participate in the sharing-friendly nature of the Internet, while staying aware of the need to protect creative works from abuse, particularly unauthorized commercial use. There are different levels or conditions to choose from when applying a CC license to a work, and the CC website has an interactive page that helps users to determine what license is right for them (Creative Commons, n.d.a). It is important to understand that a work licensed with the CC is not the same as a work being in the public domain; most CC licenses have use restrictions, the most common being the need for attribution. A CC license may allow users to share adaptations of a work freely, stipulate that adaptations are acceptable as long as the end product is released under the same or equivalent CC license, or allow free reproduction while prohibiting adaptations of the work. The CC also allows a user to grant or prohibit the ability to use their work in a commercial endeavor. While most CC licenses seen online are not the equivalent to public domain, the CC does have a version, CC0, that is “…a public domain dedication for rights holders who wish to put their work into the public domain before the expiration of copyright” (Creative Commons, n.d.b).

Unsurprisingly given the complexity of copyright laws, the breadth of potentially copyrightable materials, and international legal considerations, the CC has gone through several revisions. According to the Creative Commons (n.d.c), “…in November 2013, Creative Commons published the version 4.0 license suite… the most up-to-date licenses offered by CC, and are recommended over all prior versions.” Materials that continue to use an older version of the CC license are still protected, although in some cases the 4.0 license can add clarity, particularly in regard to sui generis database rights (Creative Commons, n.d.d).

7.2.4 Fair Use and Public Domain

Fair use has a simple definition, but unfortunately a complex determination as to whether the concept applies in any given situation. This is an especially relevant topic to be familiar with given the ease of access the Internet provides to text, images, maps, code, software, and other resources. Fair use refers to transforming, reproducing, and/or distributing copyrighted material for purposes of personal, educational, and commercial use and “…a defense against a claim of copyright infringement” (Stanford University Libraries, 2005–2016c). The Copyright Statute includes four factors that judges consider to determine fair use, mainly “…the purpose and character of your use, nature of the copyrighted work, amount and substantiality of the portion taken, and the effect of the used upon the potential market” (Stanford University Libraries, 2005–2016a). Since it is difficult to predict how a judge might rule, being familiar with past rulings may help; this information can be accessed through the U.S. Copyright Office website. This website offers a Fair Use Index that tracks “…judicial decisions to help both lawyers and non-lawyers better understand the types of uses courts have previously determined to be fair—or not fair” (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.a). For each indexed decision, a summary of the facts, relevant questions, and court decisions are given.

Two U.S. university libraries at Stanford and Columbia have excellent copyright and fair-use resources and serve as examples for other libraries. At Stanford, the overview webpage provides links to all materials on the copyright and fair-use website (Stanford University Libraries, 2005–2016b). The source for much of the online information and blog at Copyright & Fair Use are from the book Getting Permission by Stim (2010). The Copyright Advisory Office was founded by Columbia University Libraries to support faculty and students as well as to provide awareness and education about copyright as it applies to teaching, researching, and publishing (Columbia University Libraries, n.d.a).

If fair use is contested by the copyright holder, the courts will weigh circumstances to determine the outcome. The following scenarios are paraphrased from two copyright advisory offices' webpages at Columbia University Libraries (n.d.b) and Stanford University Libraries (2005–2016a). Courts favor nonprofit educational use where the work is transformed into something new vs. commercial use and a direct reproduction of the copyright work. Courts are more protective of fiction and creative works including art, music, and films vs. nonfiction; courts do not accept correspondence or unpublished work as fair use, because copyright owners should have rights to first publication. Although quantity limits are not set, the more of a work used, the less often it is considered fair use. This has implications for commercial maps and aerial photography since the user would likely need the entire image, which is less likely to be fair use; however, cropping out a portion of the map or reusing low-resolution or thumbnail images for educational and research purposes may be fair use. It is not fair use if the works in question can be purchased or licensed; this directly affects mapping software and videos.

Resources that fall under public domain are fair use. With regard to copyright, public domain is a designation whereby works can be freely used without permission from the author. Among the reasons work is considered public domain status include the expiration of copyright protection or public property works that are produced by the U.S. government and as such do not meet requirements for copyright (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.b). Lastly, an author may voluntarily give up copyright to dedicate the work in the public domain or release it under a Creative Commons license.

7.4.1 Google Earth

Let's start with an important free program that is widely used, Google Earth. It has played a large role in increasing spatial awareness and spatial thinking in the popular culture. Google Earth is used in education at all grade levels, as a leisure activity by individuals, and by professionals creating visualizations of the world. Despite this, Google Earth is not a true GIS software package. It is an excellent tool for visualizing data, but lacks database and analysis capabilities beyond measuring distances and surface area. This is not to downplay the quality or usefulness of the program, but rather to counter popular misconceptions of what GIS is. It is likely that well-intentioned patrons will have used Google Earth. That personal experience combined with fictional media representations of GIS, similar to the “science” employed in popular television crime procedurals, might lead them to expect that the technology could accomplish impossible things quickly and with little effort.

Google Earth is currently available in a few versions, the standard package and Google Earth Pro. The Pro version was formerly a paid product, but is now free for anyone to use. It adds more advanced capabilities such as the ability to print at high resolutions and export movies at full 1080p HD resolution. It also includes more advanced measurement tools, extra data layers, the ability to import Esri shapefiles, MapInfo .tab files, and more addresses in a spreadsheet simultaneously. A commercial version still exists, Google Maps for Work, although it is primarily oriented to developers in businesses. An image showing the main Google Earth Pro window can be seen in Fig. 7.4.

7.4.2 ArcGIS

ArcGIS from Esri, an acronym for Earth Systems Research Institute, dominates the market and is considered the industry standard for GIS software. Esri began as a consulting firm, and first made its software commercially available as ARC/INFO in 1980. It has evolved over the decades, beginning in a mainframe context with work occurring exclusively at the command line. In 1992, ArcView was released adding a mouse-driven graphical user interface (GUI); this is not to be confused with the current ArcView, which is the name given to the entry-level version of ArcGIS for Desktop. The older ArcView version 3 is still in use in some places, especially internationally, in part due to the high cost of current ArcGIS offerings. Since ArcGIS 8 was released in 1999, Esri's flagship desktop GIS software has remained more-or-less the same, although new capabilities and improvements continue to be added. The largest change has come with ArcGIS Pro, released in January of 2015, which adds a new ribbon-style interface, similar to that introduced to the Microsoft Office suite in the 2007 edition. ArcGIS Pro also adds some modern updates, including 64-bit, hyperthreaded, multicore processor support, the ability to have multiple 2D and 3D views displayed simultaneously, and many other updates. Currently it does not support all of the functionality of ArcMap, but more tools and features continue to be added.

The primary program in the ArcGIS suite is ArcMap, where much of the analysis and map making occurs. Other components of the ArcGIS suite include ArcCatalog for managing data, ArcScene for 3D visualization of data, and ArcServer for hosting maps and GIS services online. While it is not official, it is quite likely that ArcGIS Pro will replace ArcMap as the primary Esri GIS application in a few years in a transition not unlike that between ArcView and ArcGIS. A screenshot of ArcMap 10.3 can be seen in Fig. 7.5.

Despite being the industry standard for GIS software, ArcGIS is generally considered to be frustrating to work with at times. The software includes a great number of tools and options, and can be quite daunting to a novice user. While the program has improved greatly in speed and reliability over the years, it also retains a reputation for crashing regularly, and some tools require conditions that seem strange by current standards. These conditions include things such as having short character limits for file names or crashing due to spaces in file paths. Even with these issues, the fact that the software has been used commercially for more than 35 years means that an enormous amount of support exists, both via the extensive official documentation and through online support forums. Esri also hosts large annual conferences including the User Conference every summer in San Diego, California, and the Developer Summit every March in Palm Springs, California. Esri also hosts many smaller conferences all over the world on a variety of topics. These conferences offer a mix of training, product announcements, and networking opportunities.

7.4.3 MapInfo

MapInfo is another commercial GIS product that has been around for many decades. It beat Esri to the punch by releasing the first desktop GIS package then known as the Mapping Display and Analysis System (MIDAS) in 1986. For some time, the 3D toolset that MapInfo offered was considered superior to those offered by Esri, and MapInfo found a home with geologists doing subsurface work. Today owned by Pitney Bowes Software, it is a fully functional GIS package offering tools comparable to other large GIS packages. While it does not enjoy the same size market share as ArcGIS, it is still commonly used by GIS professionals. Fig. 7.6 shows a view of the software.

7.4.4 Free and Open-Source GIS: QGIS, GRASS GIS, and Others

Open-source GIS software packages are often used as an alternative to ArcGIS. Since 2006, the nonprofit Open Source Geospatial Foundation has existed to support open-source developers creating geospatial free and open-source software (FOSS) (OSGeo, 2015). They have helped to support several widely used desktop platforms, in addition to server and client web mapping packages. Open-source software has some distinct advantages over Esri's ArcGIS: it is free, often available not just on Windows, but also on Mac and Linux platforms, and the code can be freely and legally modified to create custom analyses or tools. The major downsides are that they are often not quite as polished as commercial software, tend not to offer the same breadth of functionality, and may not have as much support available to end users. That being said, many open-source packages are quite impressive, and can be used as everyday GIS tools.

QGIS began life as Quantum GIS in 2002 led by developer Gary Sherman. As of 2016, it is a mature, powerful desktop package with an extensible design, meaning that it is easy to add plugins and connect to other toolsets. Since QGIS is open-source, a number of free tools exist to meet specific needs whether they be analysis or visualization related. A view of the QGIS environment can be seen in Fig. 7.7.

GRASS GIS is an older project, with its development beginning in 1982. As such, the interface is somewhat less friendly to today's typical computer user, see Fig. 7.8, and it still uses a command-line functionality for some operations. The software can be used on its own, or it may act as a backend for packages like QGIS or the statistical package R. Primary development was overseen by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, although since then many different partners have assisted in development, including other federal agencies, private companies, and universities (GRASS Development Team, 2014). Due to the long relationship with academic institutions, GRASS has frequently been used in research contexts.

While many mature desktop GIS applications exist in the open-source community, there are fewer options for free GIS software used for other purposes (Steiniger & Hunter, 2012). This makes sense, as the desktop is the primary location where GIS work occurs. A couple of other notable open-source GIS packages include PostGIS, which provides spatial components to the PostgreSQL database software for online GIS, and GeoDa, which allows users to explore spatial datasets through different data visualizations, see Fig. 7.9. More open-source GIS software, including software libraries for development and web-mapping packages can be found through http://www.freegis.org, http://www.opensourcegis.org, and the Open Source Geospatial Foundation at http://www.osgeo.org (Steiniger & Hunter, 2012).

7.4.5 ERDAS IMAGINE

While there may not be as much open-source activity for remote sensing software as there is for GIS, there are several commercial remote sensing packages that are commonly used. ERDAS IMAGINE from Hexagon Geospatial is the largest of them, occupying a spot in the remote sensing world much like that of ArcGIS in the GIS world. The software also has a history similar to ArcGIS, beginning in 1979 with the desire to create a user-friendly system that could integrate Landsat and SPOT imagery with other sources of GIS data (Finlay, Brantley, & Skelton, 1984). Over the years the software evolved along with changing hardware and interface contexts. The first version, ERDAS 4, supported 8-bit Z80 processors and command-line functionality. Beginning in the mid-90s, IMAGINE has operated in a Windows PC environment (Beaty, 2009). Since the 2010 version, it has used a ribbon-style interface. Fig. 7.10 shows the main IMAGINE window displaying a Landsat 8 scene in false-color.

7.4.6 ENVI

Exelis Visual Information Solutions' ENVI (ENvironment for Visualizing Images) is another commercial remote-sensing package. It evolved from the Interactive Data Language (IDL) originally created by David Stern in 1977 to work with data from the Mariner Mars 7 & 9 space probes (Exelis, 2015). The ENVI program as it is known today was first released in 1994 as a hyperspectral image-processing package. While it does not hold as large a market share as IMAGINE, ENVI is a complete remote-sensing package, and is popular in research environments. Fig. 7.11 shows the main program window displaying a Landsat 8 scene in false-color.

7.4.7 TerrSet

TerrSet is a commercial geospatial software package produced by Clark Labs. The software was originally created by J. Ronald Eastman in 1987 as a raster-based remote-sensing package, then known as IDRISI. The latest release integrates the IDRISI GIS Analysis and IDRISI Image Processing tools into a larger framework for geospatial modeling and analysis (Clark Labs, 2015a). Despite being a fully featured raster analysis package with vector capabilities, TerrSet's market share is miniscule when compared to IMAGINE and ENVI. However, due to low cost and an easy-to-use interface, it has been popular in educational environments. Fig. 7.12 shows the main TerrSet program displaying a Landsat scene.

7.4.8 Mobile GIS

The world of mobile GIS is changing quickly. This area may have lagged a bit when compared to desktop and online GIS, but has been growing rapidly due to the explosion of GPS-enabled mobile devices in the market. Much of the use of mobile devices revolves around viewing maps and the collection of data in the field rather than analysis, largely thanks to GPS integration in most mobile devices. Anyone with a GPS-enabled mobile device may collect spatial data, and many apps exist on all the major platforms to accomplish this. Unsurprisingly, Esri is a large player in this area with their ArcPad program. ArcPad only runs on the Windows Mobile platform versions 5 through 6.5 which are lacking by today's standards, and Windows 8 tablets. However, a great number of devices today use either Apple's iOS or Google's Android platforms and cannot run ArcPad. Esri used to offer a single ArcGIS app for these platforms, but it has been retired from the iOS App Store and Android Google Play store as of August 2015. Replacing it are multiple apps designed to focus on specific functionality rather than one single app covering everything. Explorer for ArcGIS is designed to view cloud-shared map content; crowdsourcing functionality can be handled by a few different apps including Crowdsource Reporter; and field data collection and editing are handled primarily by Collector for ArcGIS, seen in Fig. 7.13.

There are other applications for Android and iOS that offer GIS functionality on mobile platforms beyond Esri's offerings. Although it is still early in development, the QGIS project's QField is freely available for Android devices and can open and edit QGIS project files. On the iOS side, GIS Kit and GIS Pro are commercial apps that have field data collection capabilities. Unfortunately, they come with hefty price tags of $99.99 for Kit and $299.99 for Pro.

There are far too many other apps that offer some amount of GIS functionality to discuss here, but keep in mind that many are not full GIS solutions. No mobile app is going to replace the capabilities of a desktop GIS program entirely. In fact, quite a few apps that advertise themselves as GIS offer no more than the ability to stream preexisting map content via Google Maps, ArcGIS Online maps, or another map service, locate the user via GPS, and make some simple measurements of distance and area. When looking for mobile solutions be aware of these limitations: read the feature list carefully and try any available demos before committing to a paid mobile app. That being said, the speed with which the overall mobile space has grown and changed in the past few years means that it is likely that mobile GIS apps will continue to improve in the future, with more options and greater capabilities found in both commercial and FOSS packages.

7.5.1 U.S. Census Bureau and Censusreporter.org

For cultural and demographic information about the United States, the U.S. Census Bureau is the largest and best source of information. Mandated in the Constitution in Article I, section II, the decennial census records the population of the nation, and over the past 22 censuses a great number of other demographic factors have been added to the count. Data from the 1790 through 1940 censuses are available through the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration; 1950 to present data are hosted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Census Bureau also runs continuous surveys in addition to the decennial census, including the American Community Survey (ACS), the American Housing Survey, the Current Population Survey, and many others. These provide data updates between the decennial censuses and address additional facets of American life. For example, the ACS provides a constantly updated source of information about the U.S. population used by policy makers, planners, members of the business community, and many other organizations to direct federal funds and prepare for changing demographics (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015b).

All of the post-1940 information is available via the Census Bureau's website, specifically using the American FactFinder. The FactFinder interface allows users to specify locations and programs from which to pull data, making it possible to find specific tables representing places, the term used to describe cities or towns, counties, states, regions, or the entire nation for individual or multiple datasets such as the decennial census, ACS, etc. However, this interface may be daunting and confusing for new users to access.

For the newest data releases, one website that can help users more easily browse census data is CensusReporter.org. The site is not officially associated with the Census Bureau, but rather it is a Knight News Challenge-funded project that acts as a third party front-end to make decennial and ACS data more accessible (Census Reporter, n.d.a). Not only does the site allow users to easily search for data by location or by topic, it also provides interactive charts and maps that may be embedded in webpages, as well as GIS versions of the data. Any available census table can be downloaded through Census Reporter in the tabular formats CSV or Excel, or as spatial data formats GeoJSON, Google Keyhole Markup Language (KML), or Esri Shapefile.

The interface is straightforward, and the options for downloading or embedding the data online are impressive and easy to use. Fig. 7.14 shows an example of the visual profile for a location, in this case, the city of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The only downside is that while the data comes straight from the Census Bureau, it only shows the most recent information, from either ACS estimates or the decennial census. Accessing older data can still be done through the American FactFinder, or for pre-1940 information, the Historical Census Browser via the University of Virginia Geospatial and Statistical Data Center or the National Historical Geographic Information System hosted by the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota (Regents of the University of Minnesota, 2010; University of Virginia, 2004). The 1940 decennial census is available online through the 1940 Census website hosted by the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (2015).

With the Census Bureau's need for storage and tabulation of data, the bureau has been at the cutting edge of computing and spatial methods since the early days. The 1890 census utilized a mechanical system invented by Herman Hollerith that relied on punch cards for data entry and storage (Pretzold, 2000). Hollerith's machine allowed the volume of information collected to be doubled while reducing processing time by about a third compared to the 1880 census. The company Hollerith set up to produce and sell the machine was known as the Tabulating Machine Company and still exists to this day, although it has gone through a few changes since, not least of which includes a 1924 name change to International Business Machines, or IBM.

With that legacy in mind, the Census Bureau has been a heavy user and driver of GIS technology, and some of the major products they provide are GIS datasets. While the bureau hosts multiple types and sources of data, the Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing, or TIGER, program is one of the most prominent. It began in the 1970s and was officially first used in the 1990 census as a way of modernizing data collection and storage (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015a). TIGER files provide a backbone to the modern census as well as countless GIS professionals by officially defining geographic areas and providing a spatial component to census data. This allows census data to be mapped, visualized, and analyzed using modern GIS techniques. These data are updated regularly and much like tabular census data, are used by a variety of agencies and individuals to help monitor and analyze trends in the United States. Datasets can be downloaded in multiple formats, including Esri shapefiles and geodatabases, Google KML files, and via an online GIS server for streaming data to GIS software. An example of TIGER data is the U.S. states shapefile shown in Figs. 7.5–7.7.

7.5.2 Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)

CIESIN is a research unit within the Columbia University Earth Institute focused on providing data on a broad variety of interdisciplinary topics (The Trustees of Columbia University, 1997–2016a). CIESIN's homepage can be seen in Fig. 7.15. The Information Network is the hub of many international research collaborations including projects like hosting the socio-economic data and scenarios used for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments and the Africa Soil Information Service, which works with African scientists to create detailed digital soil data for sub-Saharan Africa. The CIESIN website is also a portal to data available on a large number of topics, including agriculture, biodiversity and ecosystems, climate change, data preservation and access, economic activity, environmental assessment and modeling, environmental health, environmental treaties, indicators, land use/land-cover change, natural hazards and vulnerability, population, poverty, and remote sensing for human dimensions research (The Trustees of Columbia University, 1997–2016b). The Information Network also places an emphasis on education and outreach to decision makers, the educational sector, and the general public. It has resources for GIS training and a number of undergraduate and graduate courses that are regularly offered at Columbia University in New York City on various Earth Science topics.

7.5.3 Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook

Realizing the need for intelligence about the world during World War II ultimately led to the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1947 (Central Intelligence Agency, n.d.a). The World Factbook is a product of the CIA, including “information on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities.” (Central Intelligence Agency, n.d.b). This publication was first released in 1962 as a classified document, and has been published in an unclassified format since 1971. Today it is published online and is updated weekly as new information is gathered, see Fig. 7.16. It may also be purchased in an annual hardcopy edition via the Government Printing Office. It is intended to be used by U.S. policymakers, but as a federal product is freely accessible for anyone to utilize. The CIA also publishes the Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments on a weekly basis.

In addition to these sources, the CIA digitally distributes maps showing world physiographic features and political boundaries. Some countries are available as stand-alone maps showing administrative boundaries, physiography, and transportation, but not every world country gets this treatment. An example of one of these maps can be seen in Fig. 7.17. Regional and world maps are also available showing political and physical features. The CIA previously sold paper versions of these maps, but publishing of paper maps has ceased and they are now available in digital form only.

7.5.4 European Environment Agency

The European Environment Agency, consisting of 33 member states, is tasked with providing environmental information to be used by policy makers and the general public in the European Union, as well as coordination of the European environment information and observation network (European Environment Agency, 2015). The EEA's website hosts a variety of products on different environmental topics, including maps and data. Reports, articles, and video content are available on topics such as air pollution, soil, agriculture, and others. Published content is generally written at a level that is accessible to a lay audience. Geospatial data are also available to download for some topics and are provided in a few different file formats. In other cases, data are available in a nonspatial tabular form. Premade maps can also be found on the website to view or download.

7.5.5 European Union INSPIRE

The Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe is an ambitious effort dictated by the INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC put in place by the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament (INSPIRE, n.d.b). It is designed to create a standardized infrastructure for the geospatial data resources of the 28 participating EU member states. This helps to address inconsistencies in spatial data collection, fill gaps in spatial data documentation, address compatibility issues between datasets and local spatial data infrastructures, and remove barriers of all kinds that may be preventing or delaying the sharing of geospatial data (Craglia, 2010). Not surprisingly, this is an ongoing challenge since variation exists in geospatial data and available data services from one EU member state to the next. Beyond that, practical challenges are also presented by factors such as language barriers and funding disparities. The INSPIRE Directive lays out 34 themes including administrative boundaries, geology, hydrography, land use, soil, and others. These themes were chosen to cover the information required for environmental applications (INSPIRE, n.d.a). Ultimately, INSPIRE will host data related to all of these themes for each member state in formats that are interoperable, providing scientists and policy makers access to information that is not truncated by national borders. Given the relatively small physical size of many member states, this will provide a much more holistic perspective on some of the environmental challenges the EU faces.

For those seeking geospatial data, the INSPIRE Geoportal is an important resource. The Discovery/Viewer tool allows users to search for data based on thematic content or location via an interactive map interface, as seen in Fig. 7.18. Individual search results can be expanded to show the metadata and formats available for download, and the footprint of the data layer is simultaneously displayed on the map viewer. For data that are stored in a language foreign to the user, an embedded Microsoft Translator is available to assist. Unfortunately, like most automated translators this solution is not perfect, and the language may be confusing. Technical terms in particular may cause problems and remain untranslated. Some layers that are returned in a search may also have usage restrictions, depending on the country of origin and the nature of the data represented. That being said, this is still a valuable resource for searching data across national and language barriers within Europe.

The INSPIRE Geoportal also provides metadata tools that help users meet the INSPIRE standards. A validator exists that will scan existing metadata and report back any omissions or mistakes in the metadata. An editor also exists that allows users to input information and generate metadata that is up to the required standards.

7.5.6 Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth

The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth website collects all of NASA's manned photos taken from space, beginning in 1961 with Mercury 3, the first manned mission (Stefanov, n.d.). These primarily focus on photographs of the Earth's surface, but other astronomical features and images of astronauts are included in the collection as well. The collection is distinct from the imagery generated by NASA's satellites, probes, and rovers; photos here are all taken by astronauts in space rather than unmanned or remotely controlled platforms. They can be easily searched using a few different methods, including the ability to use a Google Maps-based interface to find photos of specific areas of interest (AOI) on the surface. Fig. 7.19 shows an example of a photo housed in this collection.

7.5.7 Gazetteers

Gazetteers record the names and some demographic or contextual information about places. They come in different styles, with some including not much more than location and place names, and others having longer, encyclopedia-style descriptions of the locations recorded. Some gazetteers will have an accompanying map series, and list the specific page and location on the map where the place can be found. Many library collections have physical copies of gazetteers with local, regional, and global scopes, some quite old, others more recent in their publication. Governments often use gazetteers as a way of recording and standardizing place names in an official capacity. For example, the U.S. Census Bureau makes a yearly updated digital gazetteer available as a record of officially recognized places and names (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015c).

Online, a large number of gazetteers are accessible as well, and a quick search will uncover dozens that are available for browsing for information. Some of the larger ones include the aforementioned U.S. Census Bureau Gazetteer Files, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's GEOnet Names Server (National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, 2016; U.S. Census Bureau, 2015c; U.S. Geological Survey, 2015e). Naturally, other countries also host gazetteer information online as well, such as the Geographic Names Board of Canada's online Geographical Names Search (Natural Resources Canada, 2014). While these represent current names, historic gazetteers can also be found online. The American Association of Geographers hosts one list of online historic gazetteers on their website (American Association of Geographers, n.d.).

7.5.8 Geospatial Multistate Archive and Preservation Partnership (GeoMAPP)

Given that geospatial data are often updated regularly, older versions of data may be at risk of being overwritten in the update process if an archival plan is not in place. In the world of purely paper-based documents, this was less of an issue, as the creation of a newer version of a map did not hinge on the destruction of the older versions of the data. In a digital context however, it is entirely possible that updates to a dataset over time could effectively erase the original data.

To help raise awareness and combat this, the GeoMAPP project focused on the topic of preserving data considered at-risk and temporally significant (North Carolina Office of Archives and History, 2011). It ran from 2007 to 2011 and partnered with archives departments in North Carolina, Kentucky, Montana, Utah, and the Library of Congress' National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP). One of the outcomes of the project was the creation of guidelines for how best to identify and preserve historic geospatial data of value. The GeoMAPP website does not host any geospatial data. Instead, it provides valuable information on how to assess the state of an institution's geospatial data, and how to build and implement a plan for the archival of geospatial data. This information can be found in the GeoMAPP Geoarchiving Business Planning Toolkit, a zip file containing documents and a spreadsheet for calculating costs. Based on these documents, an institution can more effectively determine how to meet its needs for data archiving.

7.5.9 Global Visualization Viewer (GloVis) and EarthExplorer

GloVis and EarthExplorer are two platforms hosted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for downloading satellite imagery and many other types of geospatial data. Originally, the USGS’s Earth Resources Observation Systems (EROS) provided online data through a system called the Global Land Information System (GLIS). This system was released in 1991 and remained in service until September 2003. Both the GloVis and EarthExplorer platforms that have replaced GLIS have some overlap in their functionality, as they provide some of the same data, but their interfaces are built on different technology and have different methods of searching for data. GloVis focuses mostly on satellite imagery, with products from the Landsat, ASTER, EO-1, MODIS, and TerraLook platforms, recent aerial photography, and other data (U.S. Geological Survey, 2015a). It was developed at USGS and went live in April of 2001. GloVis has a custom Java-based front-end that runs in a web browser seen in Fig. 7.20, although a major update to the system is planned (B. Van Keulen, personal communication, February 18, 2016).

EarthExplorer first began operations in 1999 to support Landsat 7 data, and used software provided by the Canadian company Compusult (B. Van Keulen, personal communication, February 18, 2016). In 2011, the EarthExplorer platform was updated to use a Google Maps-powered interface that uses both Oracle and Postgres databases for managing data, see Fig. 7.21. EarthExplorer has a larger breadth of data available to download from over 180 collections. These include the satellite platforms that GloVis provides, along with other products such as USGS aerial photography both recent and historic, elevation, land cover, Digital Line Graphs (DLGs), Digital Orthophoto Quadrangles (DOQs), and other layers. It also has some commercial satellite imagery, such as data from the French SPOT program, IKONOS-2, and ORBVIEW 3. Other data include declassified satellite imagery from early U.S. programs like CORONA, ARGON, and LANYARD. The search capabilities also provide more advanced options than those of GloVis, allowing users to search by address, place names, satellite path and row, a user-defined polygon, shapefiles or KML files, and by date range. Both the EarthExplorer and GloVis platforms may be used to download or order data in bulk, and the same user account can be used to login to either as well.

7.5.10 Hazards Data Distribution System (HDDS)

The HDDS is a USGS-hosted service that provides data related to areas that have suffered natural hazards (U.S. Geological Survey, 2015b). The data come from other sources, such as Landsat satellite images, and are organized by event. Using the same interface and user login account as the USGS EarthExplorer website, users can search by year and hazard event to find and download data that cover affected regions. The HDDS also provides GIS servers that can be accessed by ArcGIS and other GIS software to load pre- and post-event imagery and data layers directly into a desktop GIS environment. The HDDS is not limited to U.S.-based events, as some international hazard events are listed along with domestic ones. See Fig. 7.22 for a view of the HDDS interface.

7.5.11 The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the national library for the United States, but has foreign-language materials in more than 460 languages (Library of Congress, 2008). It was established by an act of Congress in 1800 and while open to the public, the LOC continues to serve the U.S. Congress in a research capacity (Library of Congress, n.d.). Among the first items acquired were cartographic resources, and by 1897 the collection had 47,000 maps and 1200 atlases (Library of Congress, 2011). Today, the Geography and Map (G&M) Division of the LOC has the largest cartographic library collection in the world, with over 5.5 million maps, 80,000 atlases, 38,000 CDs/DVDs, 6000 reference works, 3000 raised relief models, 500 globes, and more (Library of Congress, 2016). The majority of these resources are located in closed library stacks, but examples of the map collection are illustrated online if copyright has expired or the resources were in the public domain such as the atlas displayed in Fig. 7.23.

7.5.12 The National Atlas

Some library staff and patrons may remember using map data provided by the National Atlas in the past. The Atlas integrated data from multiple federal agencies, but it has been retired as of September 2014 (U.S. Geological Survey, 2015d). The 1997–2014 edition can be downloaded via Data.gov. Current small-scale map data and web services can still be accessed via The National Map. These data include both raster and vector GIS layers in multiple formats. For more information, see the section detailing The National Map, later in the chapter.

7.5.13 National Geologic Map Database

In 1992, the National Geologic Mapping Act was passed in the United States, which mandated the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, or NCGMP (U.S. Geological Survey, 2016c). This program is still active today and involves partnerships between the USGS and the Association of American State Geologists, with the aim of creating standardized digital geologic maps for the United States (U.S. Geological Survey, n.d.b). One important part of the NCGMP is the creation of guidelines for standardized geologic map symbology. As discussed in Chapter 2, current geologic maps employ a variety of colors and symbologies to represent geologic features. While geologic features do not end at administrative boundaries, the way they are symbolized may vary from one state to the next, or even from county to county on currently existing maps. These standards will eventually lead to a consistent symbology for the entire United States, making it easier to work with geologic maps. The primary portal for accessing and downloading U.S. geologic maps is the USGS-hosted mapView. This tool, seen in Fig. 7.24, uses an intuitive, interactive map interface to find more than 90,000 geologic maps from the past 200 years (Data.gov, 2015). This system is relatively new, with mapView going live in late 2012 and undergoing upgrades since then, improving the interface and technology to be more accessible for users (U.S. Geological Survey, 2012). Once a user has selected a desired map, extra information pops up in a new browser tab or window, including an interactive preview and options for download. Maps can be downloaded in multiple formats depending on the user's needs, see Fig. 7.25.

7.5.14 National Geospatial Digital Archives (NGDA)

Much like the GeoMAPP program, the NGDA was a project focused on preserving and archiving geospatial data partnered with the Library of Congress' National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (University of California, Santa Barbara, 2009). The project also involved groups at Stanford University, University of California Santa Barbara, University of Tennessee Knoxville, and Vanderbilt University. Unlike the GeoMAPP program, which focused on generating plans for preservation of historic geospatial data, the NGDA project created a tool for accessing said data. The Globetrotter geospatial data search tool provides access to data based on spatial location, the date of publication, and the digital format of the data. Globetrotter is housed and accessible via the UCSB's Alexandria Digital Library, specifically the Map & Imagery Laboratory (University of California, Santa Barbara Library, 2010). At the time of writing, Globetrotter is undergoing a move and is not currently available, but should return.

7.5.15 The National Map

The National Map (TNM) is the primary U.S. resource for geographic information that describes the United States (U.S. Geological Survey, 2013). TNM products and geospatial data are used in a number of industries, research, and recreational capacities. TNM is responsible for the creation of the current US Topo series of maps and data, as well as providing the Historic Topographic Map Collection, but it also houses quite a few other products as well, all freely available in multiple formats (U.S. Geological Survey, 2016d). The National Land Cover Database (NLCD) is a Landsat-based land-cover dataset that covers the entire nation. These data are used for a variety of environmental and planning applications across the country. Elevation data are provided in raster format through the National Elevation Dataset (NED), including layers at multiple resolutions, and the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) is currently improving and updating the nature of the elevation data that are available. The 3DEP is a USGS partnership with multiple federal, state, and tribal agencies concerned with generating a high-resolution LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) dataset for the country. LIDAR elevation data are significantly of higher resolution than the older data in the NED, to the point that now objects as small as individual trees and automobiles can often be distinguished in the data. This level of resolution can provide a significant advantage in terms of modeling and analysis. Currently, the 3DEP program is ongoing, collecting data one segment of the United States at a time.

The National Map also houses water-related data: The National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) and the Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD). Both datasets store information as vector data. The NHD includes streams and lakes at the 1:24,000 and 1:100,000 scales. Some areas even have supplemental data at a scale larger than 1:24,000 (U.S. Geological Survey, 2014). The WBD represents watersheds in the United States at multiple scales with the country being divided and subdivided by Hydrologic Unit Codes (HUC). The number of digits in a HUC defines the scale of the hydrologic unit, with two-digit codes representing the largest watersheds, and twelve-digit codes the smallest. It is common to refer to this watershed data as HUC two or HUC eight as a way of describing the spatial scale involved. Fig. 7.26 shows how these different scales of watershed data are nested within each other.

The National Map also houses orthoimagery. This is aerial photography that has been orthorectified to remove the distortions inherent to camera angle and lens distortion, see Chapter 4 for more discussion on this type of imagery. All the imagery for the United States has at least a 1-m spatial resolution, but many urban areas have a higher resolution of two feet or less. Data may also be found through TNM on transportation features like roads, airports, railroads, etc.; structures such as human-built facilities, inclusion largely based on the needs of disaster planning; and boundaries including administrative units such as states, counties, Native American lands, etc. All of the various thematic data mentioned is available to download through The National Map Viewer. Both map products and GIS data are available to browse using the viewer's interactive map interface. Fig. 7.27 shows an example of 2011 NLCD data being previewed for the Kansas City region. The viewer allows users to preview the data on the right and easily select from the various datasets with the menus on the left.

7.5.16 Natural Resources Canada's GeoGratis

The first true GIS implementation was created in Canada in the 1960s by Roger Tomlinson, who is credited as the father of GIS (University Consortium for Geographic Information Science, 2015). It is only natural then that the Canadian government would have publicly available geospatial data hosted online. The current collection combines what used to be three separate data sources, GeoPub, Mirage, and GeoGratis (Natural Resources Canada, 2015). Together, these data include satellite imagery, scanned topographic maps, Geologic Survey of Canada (GSC) maps, vector files representing a variety of thematic content, and written publications from the GSC and the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing. The search functionality is straightforward, allowing users to search via text by spatial location, subject keywords, and product types. The advanced search also allows users to define a spatial bounding box in lat/long, and use an embedded map to define the location of interest, see Fig. 7.28. Geospatial data are available for download in multiple formats, and can be freely used under the Open Government License for Canada (Government of Canada, 2015).

7.5.17 Soviet Topographic Maps

Within the boundaries of the former Soviet Union, cartography was a sensitive subject. Access to accurate maps was a tightly controlled commodity limited largely to the military and Soviet planners. The maps available to the general public were of a low spatial accuracy with inconsistencies and mistakes intentionally added as both a method of information control and a way to prevent accurate spatial data from falling into enemy hands (Miller, 2015). However, the maps produced by the state for military and planning uses were highly accurate and covered virtually the entire globe, a larger reach than any other national mapping initiative at the time or since. The quality was so high that maps they produced are often still the best available source of spatial information in some parts of the world (East View Geospatial, 2015).

After the Soviet Union collapsed into its constituent nation-states, many of these maps found their way onto the market and are available for purchase from resellers. While these maps have not been updated since the late 1980s at best, they remain highly accurate views of the world at that time. They may be desirable as historical documents, present-day references for some areas, particularly developing nations, or as curios of the Cold War. Some library collections house physical copies of Soviet maps, such as the University of Georgia Libraries' Map and Government Information Library, which holds Soviet maps covering most of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union (University of Georgia Libraries, 2015). Companies may be found online that sell Soviet topographic maps as paper copies or in digital format as raster or vector files. A good list of sources for Soviet topo maps, including websites where digital copies can be downloaded freely, is available at the website of John Davies, who has studied the Soviet mapping program and the map products they created for more than two decades (Davies, n.d.).

7.5.18 USDA Geospatial Gateway and Web Soil Survey

While we have seen that the USGS hosts an enormous amount of geoscience data for the U.S. federal government, it is not the only federal agency that serves important geospatial information. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA NRCS) hosts data as well, perhaps most importantly their soil data collections. The SSURGO and STATSGO2 soil databases provide generalized soil information for the United States along with territories, islands, and commonwealths associated with the NRCS (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, n.d.a). STATSGO2 maps soils at a smaller scale, with the continental United States being represented at 1:250,000 scale, and is designed primarily for broader-planning use (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, n.d.b). SSURGO works at a larger scale, with data presented at 1:12,000 to 1:63,360 scales and is better suited for detailed local soil information (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, n.d.a).

The two ways in which data can be downloaded from the NRCS are the Geospatial Data Gateway and the Web Soil Survey (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, n.d.c; USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, n.d.d). The Geospatial Data Gateway has a broader range of data, including layers that are available from other sources, like Census TIGER data. The interface lets users search data by region through a few different methods. The default search type is to select a state, then select any or all of the counties within the state. Other search methods involve selecting entire states at once, individual places, setting a lat/long bounding box, or using an interactive map interface to choose a location. Once the place selection has been made, a list of data sources can be checked on or off to indicate which layers the user wants. These layers include TIGER data, precipitation data in both vector and raster formats, air temperature data, NRCS conservation easement information, NED elevation rasters, geographic place names, surface geology, administrative boundaries, NHD hydrography data, hydrologic units, NLCD land-cover data, topo map indices, orthographic imagery from the National Agricultural Imagery Program, soil data, digital raster graphics (DRGs) of topo maps, and TIGER transportation data (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, n.d.c). After selecting the desired data layers, any existing options regarding data formats are presented to the user, then a choice of delivery format. Data can be provided in physical form on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM at a price, or the data can be downloaded for free. Regardless of the delivery format selected, the user must then enter contact info; for digital deliveries, an FTP link is sent to the email address provided by the user.

The Web Soil Survey (WSS) has a narrower focus on soil information and it uses a different search interface. In some ways the WSS search is more powerful, as it allows the user to specify more precise AOI. Rather than providing premade layers that overlap with that AOI, the data provided match the exact boundaries of the user-defined AOI, even if the boundary is an irregular polygon, see Figs. 7.29 and 7.30. This allows users to specify precise AOIs without having to deal with extraneous data that they might not find useful. GIS data for SSURGO information can be downloaded based on the defined AOI, and comes in Esri shapefile format, see Fig. 7.30. Since STATSGO2 data is recorded at a smaller scale, it is not defined by user AOI, but can be downloaded for individual U.S. states.

The WSS interface also includes an Intro to Soils section under the Soil Data Explorer tab which provides scientific information about soils and many other topics related to soils. Descriptions of terms used in relation to cropland, forested land, pasture and hay land, and other land-cover types are included in this section as well. For any user who might not already be a soil expert, this assistance provides valuable context to the information represented in the data.