Daymet: Daily Surface Weather Dataset Published

The ORNL DAAC is pleased to announce the release of Daymet: Daily Surface Weather Data on a 1-km Grid for North America, Version 2, http://daac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/dsviewer.pl?ds_id=1219.

Data set prepared by P.E. Thornton, M.M. Thornton, B.W. Mayer, N. Wilhelmi, Y. Wei, and R.B. Cook.

This data set provides Daymet output data as mosaicked gridded estimates of daily weather parameters for North America, including continuous surfaces of day length, precipitation, shortwave radiation, snow water equivalent, maximum air temperature, minimum air temperature, and water vapor pressure. The Daymet data product was derived from selected meteorological station data by interpolation and extrapolation algorithms.

The current data product covers the period January 1, 1980 to December 31, 2012. Data are available on a daily time step at a 1-km x 1-km spatial res- olution in Lambert Conformal Conic projection with a spatial extent that covers the conterminous United States, Mexico, and Southern Canada as meteorological station density allows.

Daymet mosaic data sets are available from the ORNL DAAC via two download mechanisms: 1) Data files may be obtained through DAAC search and order tools or directly from the FTP site. 2) Data can be subset spatially and temporally prior to downloading via the THREDDS (Thematic Real-time Environmental Data Services) Data Server. Data are provided in Climate and Forecast (CF) metadata convention compliant (version 1.4) netCDF file formats.

Other tools are provided on the ORNL DAAC Daymet website, http://daymet.ornl.gov, that allow extraction of Daymet variable daily data as a text file for a single pixel or the download of gridded Daymet data in 2 degree by 2 degree tile data sets.

The ORNL DAAC, http://daac.ornl.gov, is one of twelve NASA funded Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), http://earthdata.nasa.gov, Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs) archiving and distributing terrestrial ecology and biogeochemical dynamics data.

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Prague Geoportal - English Version Launched

The City Development Authority Prague has launched an English-language version of a number of online applications, from the Prague Land-Use Plan and relation regulations to what it is calling the first municipal Geoportal in the Czech Republic.

The apps aim to simplify digital map data utilization of the city of Prague for non-Czech speakers as well as to help orient international specialists with regards to land-use possibilities and restrictions in Prague.

The geoportal is the main gateway to information about the Czech capital’s geographical data and the development of the city’s geographical information system. It complies with the EU Directive on the administration of spatial data (INSPIRE). For the purposes of the INSPIRE directive, this geoportal is the official geoportal of the City of Prague as a mandated organization.

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Greenhouse Gas Data Online from Cape Grim

Check out the latest greenhouse gas data updated monthly from one of the cleanest air sources in the world.

Air samples are analyzed at the Cape Grim station to determine concentrations of greenhouse and ozone-depleting gases, other air pollutants, including aerosols and reactive gases, and radon.

Also measured are weather and climate indicators like wind speed and direction, rainfall, temperature, humidity and solar radiation.

Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station
Cape Grim, on Tasmania’s west coast, is one of the three premier Baseline Air Pollution Stations in the World Meteorological Organization-Global Atmosphere Watch (WMO-GAW) network. Baseline stations are defined by the WMO to meet a specific set of criteria for measuring greenhouse and ozone depleting gases and aerosols in clean air environments.

These baseline stations are crucial points of reference for the larger global network of atmospheric gas observing stations.

The Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station monitors Southern Hemispheric air. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii has been continuously monitoring and collecting data related to atmospheric change since the 1950s.

The Cape Grim station is positioned just south of the isolated north-west tip (Woolnorth Point) of Tasmania. It is in an important site, as the air sampled arrives at Cape Grim after long trajectories over the Southern Ocean, under conditions described as ‘baseline’. This baseline air is representative of a large area of the Southern Hemisphere, unaffected by regional pollution sources (there are no nearby cities or industry that would contaminate the air quality).

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US GIS Data Repository - GIS Data Free Download

The United States GIS Data Repository (USGDR) is on a mission of “Making Public Data Public” and needs federal, state, and local GIS departments to join in. Kyle Souza, a Director at the USGDR, explains, “The government generates a large amount of vector data, but lacks the resources to distribute their data. This is where the USGDR comes in; as a non-profit we are not in this for “the money,” we are here to help both the data creators and the data users. We want to partner with those who manage data, to help them cut costs, while at the same time making it easy for end-users to freely access this data.”

The mission of the USGDR is accomplished by making an arrangement with the data author/manager (such as a state GIS department) that allows that organization to upload their GIS data to USGDR servers. Anyone who visits to the USGDR website (www.usgdr.org) can then download the data for free.

The USGDR is looking for federal, state, and local GIS departments that want to save money without compromising quality. By pooling the resources of many organizations everyone can save money, especially those looking to download data. If you are interested in partnering with the USGDR please email info@usgdr.org.

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New Zealand Land Use Datasets Free Online Download

New Zealand Land Use Datasets Free Online Download. New Zealanders will now be able to download the latest land use data following the completion of a major mapping exercise by the Ministry for the Environment.

The integrated land use map (LUM), which provides an in-depth snapshot of land use in New Zealand from 1990-2008, has been produced as part of the Land Use and Carbon Analysis System (LUCAS).

Users of the LUM will be able to:

• Measure changes in land uses between 1990 and 2008.
• Assess the relationship between land use and pressures on freshwater systems as a result of these changes.
• Use the data as an evidence-base for academic research projects.
• Use data as a base on which to overlay operational data to help shape decisions and policies.

LUM was derived from satellite imagery provided to government agencies as a result of an all-of-government licence negotiated by the Ministry for the Environment.

The data is available now for electronic download from www.koordinates.com, a geospatial data distribution site.
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National Spatial Data Infrastructure - GIS Portal in Brazil

Report: The design of a new highway, the construction of a hydroelectric power plant, the installation of an industrial complex. Decisions on resource planning and management, as well as the elaboration of public and private policies, will be facilitated with the introduction of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (INDE), to which users will have access by means of an internet portal, the SIG Brasil. Initially, the portal will integrate geospatial data of federal institutions of the Brazilian government and will permit information visualization and access, making it possible to mix geospatial information in the internet environment. During the next decade, other national organizations – at state and municipal level, for example – will be able to join INDE. The signing of INDE launch minutes will mark the portal inauguration, and will take place on April 8, at the auditorium of the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management, in Brasília, with the presence of minister Paulo Bernardo Silva; the president of CONCAR and secretary of Strategic Planning and Investments Afonso Oliveira de Almeida; the substitute president of CONCAR and president of IBGE Eduardo Pereira Nunes; the executive secretary of CONCAR and director of Geosciences of IBGE Luiz Paulo Fortes, besides representatives of other entities.

The portal SIG Brasil is a practical result of the introduction of INDE, an initiative of the Federal Government aimed at cataloging, integrating and harmonizing geospatial data produced or kept by institutions of the Brazilian government, so that they are easily located, handled in their characteristics and accessed for the more diverse uses, by any client with internet access. INDE foresees the establishment of norms and standards for data production, storage, share and dissemination. Also, the celebration of interinstitutional agreements of data share, besides qualification and training for producers and users of such information.

Instituted by Decree no. 6.666, on November 27, 2008, INDE is being implanted under the coordination of the National Commission of Cartography (CONCAR), a collegiate organ of the Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management, counting on the participation of several ministries, federal and state institutions, and enterprise associations involved in geospatial information production and use. It is up to IBGE, as the entity responsible for technical and administrative support to CONCAR, to construct, make available and operate INDE access portal, the SIG Brasil.

INDE aims at arranging the generation, storage, access, share, dissemination and use of geospatial data of federal, state, district and municipal origin; promoting the utilization, in geospatial data production, of standards and norms ratified by CONCAR; and avoiding double actions and resource wasting in the attempt to obtain geospatial data by public administration organs, through the publishing of metadata related to these available data at public entities and organs.

INDE implantation plan has the duration of 10 years and three cycles: the first began in August of last year, and its conclusion is expected for the end of this year; Cycle II will take place from 2011 to 2014; and Cycle III, from 2015 to 2020. At the end of Cycle I, portal SIG Brasil is expected to count on a minimum infrastructure of hardware, software and telecommunications, with engines of geospatial data and metadata search, handling and access. The portal will be fed and updated with geospatial information from diverse organs.

Geospatial information are, for instance, cartographic and topographic data that represent territory, satellite images, orthophotographs, the network that represents transport infrastructure, the location and descriptions that represent protected areas, the description and representation of urban and rural properties, as well as the distinct uses of soil. Also considered geospatial information is that of statistical nature describing demographic aspects, as well as the population distribution or socioeconomic variables. INDE information is classified in three groups: Reference Data – related to Geodetics, topographic and registry charts; Thematic Data, related to vegetation, soils, geology, land coverage and use and other themes, defined especially by the physical environmental characteristics and by the action of economic sectors; and Value Added Data. This group originates from the previous two, added by users or producers (public or private) to the Reference Data, due to a certain interest and specific utilization, and may have a wide diversity of thematic detailing and geographic coverage.

Access the portal here.

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MapSys Philippines - Map Online Service

Philippines' first fully-automated web GIS parcellary mapping service at www.mapsys.ph, has been launched. It was the project of the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders’ Associations (CREBA). Now, locating and determining the classification or attributes of a piece of land anywhere in the Philippines would not be a problem.

Rodolfo G. Valencia, author of the landmark Abot-Kaya Pabahay Fund Law and other laws related to housing and real estate, a congressman and former Mindoro Oriental governor, hailed MapSys.ph as a revolutionary, potent tool not only for the private land sector but also for local government units (LGUs). The MapSys web service generates an accurate lot plan and information-packed vicinity map for any parcel of land in the country. The information can be downloadable via Internet.

Addressing real estate industry practitioners at the membership meeting of CREBA, Valencia said that the pioneering system used by MapSys.Ph may be adopted to help resolve, among others, decades-old contentious issues on land classification and conversion. The colourful and professionally laid-out map displays the parcel polygons plotted on a vicinity map that contains multi-layers of spatial information, such as the road networks, waterways networks, LGU-approved land use, Strategic Agriculture and Fisheries Development Zones (SAFDZ) and land cover.

The information also includes administrative boundaries from the provincial down to barangay level, elevation and slope, fault lines, banks, schools, churches, hospitals, commercial/industrial and tourist establishments, power/ water facilities and many others. Valencia said that with this information about the parcel and its vicinity, the map would serve many purposes, among them, determining the economic value of the land and its sustainability for either agricultural or non-agricultural purposes.

Valencia said that this particular issue has been a bone of contention among private land owners, LGUs and the Department of Agrarian Reform in the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Programme (CARP). The MapSys map could provide a reasonable or factual basis in helping resolve such issue.

Visit the site here.

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Maps of Submerged Lands in America

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) produces fundamental geologic and environmental information about America's submerged lands. This information includes maps, geospatial data, and interpretations that characterize the geology of the continental shelf, estuaries, and large lakes. The information addresses a wide range of scientific and management issues that are important to the environment and economy of coastal communities and entire Nation. USGS studies are undertaken in locations chosen to respond to these key issues, and are developed in cooperation with other Federal and State agencies and academic institutions.

This website provides a portal to access published USGS maps, reports, and digital data that depict the bathymetry, surficial geology, and/or subsurface structure of submerged areas over a wide range of scales. The digital data are available as shape files, images, or grids in Geographic Information System (GIS) format. The map on the right shows the outlines (colored polygons) of maps currently available; it will be updated as new maps are completed. Click on an outline to see the report title and links to the report and to the data catalog. Use the scrollbar or mouse wheel to zoom in. Navigate around the map using the arrows in the upper left corner or the pan tool; zoom in and out using the scroll bar.

The need for comprehensive scientific information about America's submerged lands is increasingly recognized by researchers, policy makers, and resource managers at all levels. The U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy (2004), the National Research Council (2004), and the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force (2009) all stress the need for scientific information to inform decision-making, and the importance of regional, State, and local engagement in developing and applying science products.

Visit this the USGS page for the list of maps by geographic area.

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DigitalGlobe Image Library

DigitalGlobe announced that its content library now contains more than one billion square kilometres of earth imagery, 33 percent of which is less than one year old. Jill Smith, CEO of DigitalGlobe, said, “The power of our industry-leading constellation enables us to persistently break new ground for the industry and we strive to offer our customers the largest collection of accurate, current satellite imagery available.”

DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-1, QuickBird and recently launched WorldView-2 satellites combine to form the industry’s largest satellite constellation. These three satellites, together with DigitalGlobe’s aerial network, enable the company to offer the highest collection capacity of high-resolution earth imagery to customers around the world, adding roughly 1.5 million square kilometres of imagery every day or three times the Earth’s landmass annually. The result is DigitalGlobe’s highly complete ImageLibrary, containing imagery used to inform critical decisions across a range of industries.

To learn more about DigitalGlobe and its ImageLibrary, please visit www.digitalglobe.com.

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CartoUS 2010 - Ready to ship or download

Spatial Insights released CartoUS 2010, an up-to-date, affordable nationwide mapping database ready to ship or download. Based on the US Census Bureau TIGER files just released in October, CartoUS 2010 boasts 54 layers of mapping data packaged into layers by county, state, region, or nationwide. It includes an additional 18 tables of attributes.

The geographic layers of CartoUS 2010 include roads (primary, secondary, and local), Census boundaries (from block group and larger), metro areas, legislative and school district boundaries, water features, American Indian reservations and ZIP code tabulation areas. Military installations, Economic Census boundaries, landmarks, and railways have also been updated.

This annual update heralds six new layers over the last release, including the 111th Congressional District boundaries. Other new esoteric though useful improvements include name changes, explicit area measurement for polygons, and the addition of internal point coordinates.

Formats of the dataset are MapInfo ProfessionalTM TAB (with enhanced display characteristics built in) and ESRITM SHAPE file. Expedited delivery is available via ftp download. Puerto Rico and the US Territories are also available.

Check it out here.

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Real time GIS data to firefighters

San Diego State University’s Homeland Security program has developed a system to make up-to-date geographic information on wildfire conditions available to firefighters in the field, even when they are cut off from terrestrial wireline and wireless networks.

The system combines satellite and aerial imagery, weather radar and topographical data in a format optimized for delivery over the Inmarsat Plc. Broadband Global Area Network.

The “Viz Lab” has been making Geographic Information System data available online for years, but the marriage of data sets specifically for firefighters formatted for satellite delivery is a new service. Because it is new, Southern California firefighters do not yet have the Inmarsat terminals needed to access it. It is a live production system, but also a demonstration project that could be duplicated by organizations elsewhere in the world.

The satellite imagery that underlies the system is global, but the Viz Lab data sets combine more detailed topographical data for Southern California area. The data is tuned using software from GeoFusion Inc. to deliver GIS data in a satellite-friendly format over the BGAN satellite link, which can deliver speeds of up to 500 Kbps to mobile terminals.

The Viz Lab gathers tens of terabytes of data from NASA’s Terra and Aqua Earth Observation Satellites. The satellites, which circle the Earth in polar orbits, use the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to gather data in 36 spectral bands from the entire globe every one or two days. They provide images of the United States twice a day. This imagery is combined with other topographical data to create GIS data. [via]

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Taiwan Wildlife Survey Database

With a unique natural geographic environment, there is rich flora and fauna in Taiwan and the abundant species and high density are renowned over the world. Influenced by long geographical isolation, the proportion of endemic species has increased. Whether for academic research, resource conservation and utilization or even international tourism, the abundant animal and plant resources as well as the high ratio of endemic species are all of very high value.

For a long time, there was an insufficient basic survey and research about the native creature, which might have caused a serious effect on studying flora and fauna distribution, group volume, living pressure, rehabilitation and native ecology education of Taiwan’s endemic and rare species. As a result, to systemically build up a survey database and an effective educational guidance, a project was drawn up by the Endemic Species Research Institute Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan.

The system is expected to effectively and accurately attain the local flora and fauna data and systematically create an Internet geographic database with surveyed samples and distribution data of wild flora and fauna through back-end data processing, so that it can satisfy the need of filing management and achieve the goal of integrating wild flora and fauna data. This system can make a solid foundation for the Endemic Species Research Institute’s data storage center and can benefit the institute’s future constructions, planning and managements.

System Function Development:
・ Query species：On the species query list, a query interface is added so that users can search the map for a specific town or country where the species is distributed.
・ Enhanced photography upload：When users upload photos, the system will record the photos’ information, such as photographer and the shooting time.
・ Statistics：A statistic table of the species distribution at a specific area can be displayed.
・ Presents species diversity analysis results of the surveyed data.

Data Integration:
・ Created a data integration mechanism for field survey units to upload data. This system is used as the entrance port for querying species query and integrating the survey data collected from units to extend the contents of this database.

WebGIS Enhancement:
・ Integrate related spatial data, such as satellite images and various kinds of vector maps.
・ Integrate aerial images：The system integrates the aerial images with the WebGIS query interface for users to have an overview about the species habitat.

Educational Training:
・ Course contents：Educational training and technology transfer are aimed at assisting users to manipulate the system easily. The user manual provided by this project allows the persons in charge to be familiar with the system quickly and can be used as a system guidance.

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USDA Cropland Data Layer now available

The U.S. Department of Agriculture - National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released new satellite images depicting agricultural land cover for the 2008 crop year. The images, referred to as the Cropland Data Layer (CDL), identify geospatial crop locations in three U.S. regions: the Mid-Atlantic, the Southwest and Southeast.

Agribusinesses and farmers, as well as government, researchers and academic institutions, use the CDLs to study pesticide risk, epidemiology, transportation, fertilizer usage and potential, market data analysis and carbon dioxide fluxes.
NASS produced the CDLs using satellite images observed at 56 meter (0.775 acre) resolution and collected from the Resourcesat-1 Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS), Landsat Thematic Mapper and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS).

The entire inventory of CDL products, including metadata and accuracy assessments, is available online at the USDA National Resource Conservation Service's Geospatial Data.

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UK’s most detailed road map

Isle of Wight Council is creating the UK’s most detailed road network map as part of a GBP 850 million (US$1400 million) investment in the Island’s highways, as reported. The digital map is being created using special mapping software from Mayrise Systems called MapNow that is linked to an asset database. The map not only provides comprehensive information of every highway asset such as manholes, footpaths, road signs and bollards, but also describes their type, condition and value.

Isle of Wight has been selected by the government to pioneer a new round of Highway Maintenance Private Finance Initiatives (PFI). The MAYRISE highways map forms a key part of a Transport Asset Management Plan and provides new levels of certainty and accuracy for a highways asset inventory. It will assist PFI bidders and then provide an important resource for subsequent works and maintenance over the planned twenty five year PFI programme.

All councils are creating highways asset databases to meet government directives but the Isle of Wight realised previously used specifications were simply not comprehensive enough. “For PFI bidders there is a lot of additional information that is quite crucial to assessing asset value and liabilities. With more accurate asset information including details to assess materials, condition and values, costs can be predicted with much greater accuracy reducing the financial risk,” says Malcolm Smith, Isle of Wight Council Highways PFI Technical Manager.

Isle of Wight council has set up a five strong team to quality check and enhance some 140,000 asset records. The MAYRISE system integrates data captured in the field with Ordnance Survey MasterMap mapping, the National Street Gazetteer (NSG) and the Council’s Local Land and Property Gazetteer (LLPG). These geo-referenced records of highways assets form the basis of the highways map created using the fully integrated MapNow mapping software.

“With its integrated MapNow mapping, MAYRISE software is proving invaluable for managing our highways information. It is easy to use and allows us to store, retrieve, query and view highways asset data for both day-to-day highways management, customer service enquiries and the PFI bid,” says Smith. “The information will be compatible with other systems and will form part of a virtual ‘Data Room’ that will include a new online mapping facility.”

The additional detail collected by the Isle of Wight includes a three level asset condition (good, fair, poor), type of material for assets such as bollards, with additional assets such as manholes identified by type. The Island has 822 kilometres of road and unusually the PFI Project will also cover an extensive network of footpaths and bridleways, which run over a similar length.

The primary objective of the highways map is to create much more accurate financial information such as distinguishing between a £20 plastic bollard and a £150 iron bollard. Condition, meanwhile, provides an indicator of likely replacement costs; further improving the financial modelling. “Knowing the value and predicting future costs is the key,” says Smith.

Contact: Mark Clarke, Mayrise Systems: Tel. +44 (0)1453 827 400, www.mayrise.co.uk

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Download high resolution images of UK from Bluesky

Bluesky's aerial survey aircraft made the most of the blue skies over the UK to capture 12,000 sqkm of high resolution imagery of Britain's cities and countryside. Bluesky’s ambitious flying programme includes a five-year update programme for the GeoPerspectives national archive as well as ultra high resolution surveys of cities across the country.

Urban areas captured during May and June include Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Burnley, Blackburn and Milton Keynes together with county coverage of Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, most of Surrey and the remaining areas of South and West and Yorkshire.

Bluesky use the latest digital imaging technology to capture aerial photography at ultra high resolution. All the areas flown to date will be produced as 10cm or 12.5cm resolution, digital, map accurate datasets and will be used to update the GeoPerspectives (a joint venture between Bluesky and Infoterra) national archive of orthorectified aerial photography.

The aerial datasets will, in due course be available online at www.bluesky-world.com where visitors to the site can search, view and download digital image files. The Bluesky imagery will also be used to produce digital terrain and surface models (DTM/DSM) for 3D modelling and complemented with colour infrared imagery (CIR), simultaneously captured, for vegetation analysis.

Bluesky is a UK-based specialist in aerial imaging and remote sensing data collection and processing. An internationally recognized leader with projects extending around the globe, Bluesky is proud to work with prestigious organizations such as Google, the BBC and Government Agencies.

Bluesky has unrivaled expertise in the creation of seamless digital aerial photography, 3D landscape/cityscape visualizations and prints and also runs a national mapping center, providing digital mapping, satellite imagery and aerial photography including ultra-high resolution imagery of cities and towns.

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National HIV/AIDS Atlas: Mapping HIV cases

The National HIV/AIDS Atlas provides a powerful new tool to the public, health care professionals, policy makers and elected officials to access and map local, state and national data in order to see how HIV/AIDS is impacting their community.

What is the National HIV/AIDS Atlas?
For the first time, the Atlas presents county-level prevalence rates (based on the reported number of people living with HIV (non-AIDS) and AIDS in 2006) in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, depicting the intensity of the disease, rather than the magnitude.

Why was the Atlas created?
Mapping HIV/AIDS is an important step in stemming the tide of the disease. The Atlas was developed to increase awareness of, and public access to, HIV/AIDS data so that communities better understand the reality of HIV/AIDS in the United States today.

What does the Atlas show?
The Atlas allows users to focus on HIV/AIDS statistics by age, gender, and race/ethnicity, where available. It also allows users to see their congressional and state legislative districts overlaid on top of the county-level data.

You can visit the site here.

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Landmark Nederland: Environmental risks dataset

The country’s supplier of land and property search information, Landmark Nederland, has taken a significant step forward in helping to make public sector information more accessible to both public and commercial users following a three year campaign. Landmark is the first organisation in The Netherlands to have brought together a national dataset of environmental risks such as contaminated land from a range of sources including Dutch council records. This data is used to create a portfolio of products including Milieuscan environmental reports for home buyers, which sell via estate agency brokers.

The Milieuscan reports were launched in 2006 with the co-operation of national and local authorities providing supporting data for environmental search purposes. However, the City of Amsterdam sought substantial compensation for supplying the data and also wanted to limit its reuse, arguing a substantial investment had been made in compiling the original dataset. However, after three years of legal hearings, the Dutch Raad van State, the highest Administrative Court in the Netherlands, ruled that the City of Amsterdam does not bear the risk of investment in the database as this has to be provided and funded anyway as part of the City's public task. Consequently, the City is not entitled to attach excessive financial conditions and limitations to the reuse of the data by Landmark.

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Enhanced Neighborhood Data from Urban Mapping

URBANWARE Neighborhoods Database Surpasses 84,000 Neighborhoods for over 2,700 municipalities in the United States, Canada and Europe.

Urban Mapping, Inc. (UMI), the leading provider of location-rich content for interactive applications, today unveiled enhancements to the company’s URBANWARE® Neighborhoods database. Already used by industry-leaders in the portal, map platform and Internet yellow page markets, such as Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, MapQuest and AT&T's YellowPages.com, the database’s market-leading coverage incorporates nearly 8,000 new neighborhoods in the U.S. and 500 new neighborhoods across Canada and Europe. In addition, Urban Mapping has raised the bar for quality of neighborhood data by adding the capability to dynamically incorporate user feedback in its offering. The company can now merge data from its thousands of existing sources with input from local residents that best understand the dynamics of their neighborhoods.

"Outsourcing expertise to local markets is a critical piece of what we’ve always done and adding user input to the equation was the next logical step to further increase product quality," stated Ian White, CEO of Urban Mapping. "There can be many wrong answers for neighborhoods and few correct ones. Urban Mapping is the neighborhood data provider of choice by the who’s who of the industry because we take the extra steps necessary to deliver quality data that truly reflects the way people think about their local communities."

Yahoo!, a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide, utilizes neighborhood data from Urban Mapping to provide detailed and accurate content to its user base. "In evaluating Urban Mapping and others, it is clear that not all neighborhood data is equal," stated Bob Upham, director of business development at Yahoo!. "Over our two years of working together, Urban Mapping has been instrumental in helping us power great consumer experiences."

Understanding the Challenge with Neighborhood Boundaries
Neighborhoods are informally defined spaces that have formed over time due to historical or cultural reasons. As they are rarely administratively or politically defined, there are no clear rules that dictate how neighborhoods are defined or named. Because of this informal nature, boundaries are often fuzzy. While it may seem like a good idea to draw hard boundaries between neighborhoods, exclusive boundaries do not accurately describe locations situated on or close to the boundary. "Saying one neighborhood ends where another begins is simply incorrect—it distorts reality," added White.

Urban Mapping's neighborhood data defines boundaries in a way that accounts for the informal nature of urban geography. By recognizing that a location can technically be in two or more neighborhoods, Urban Mapping eliminates binary boundaries and replaces them with conditional boundaries. Because conditional boundaries incorporate this inherent fuzziness, they are more in tune with the way people understand informal spaces, resulting in neighborhood boundaries that are more realistic and accurate. This underlying data representation formed the basis for Urban Mapping’s patent pending approach to defining informal space.

The neighborhood database also assigns a "prominence" factor to all locations situated within the conditional boundaries. This "prominence" factor determines and then assigns a dominant neighborhood to each location, allowing applications to produce binary boundaries while avoiding double counting.

About URBANWARE Neighborhoods
Urban Mapping's neighborhood boundary database is the most comprehensive product of its kind, enabling increased relevance for users and greater precision for advertisers. The boundary collection for the U.S. now totals nearly 70,000 neighborhoods for over 2,500 cities and towns. In addition, Urban Mapping's set of international boundary data now includes roughly 15,000 neighborhoods across Canada and Europe. By geographically encoding boundaries of thousands of neighborhoods, UMI provides precise latitude and longitude points for every neighborhood. The neighborhood data can be accessed through a simple and cost-effective API, and is also available in other formats including XML, WKT, ASCII and SHP.

About Urban Mapping, Inc.
Urban Mapping's location-rich URBANWARE products enhance the value of local content for interactive applications. The company's flagship product, URBANWARE Neighborhoods, is a database of informal space and is used by all major portals, map platforms and Internet yellow page publishers, including Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft's Virtual Earth, Idearc's SuperPages.com, MapQuest and AT&T's YellowPages.com. Urban Mapping also offers databases of mass transit systems and off-street parking lots, as well as a novel geotargeting solution focused on the needs of local search. For more information about Urban Mapping, visit http://www.urbanmapping.com or call 415.946.8170.

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Latin America Digital Maps released

Tele Atlas, a provider of digital maps and dynamic content for navigation and location based solutions, announced the availability of new digital maps and related content covering Chile and Uruguay and updated maps of Argentina and Brazil.

The announcement strengthens Tele Atlas' regional lead by building on the company’s Latin American database, which now includes coverage of five countries, more than 1.7 million kilometers and more than 750,000 points of interest (POIs). Tele Atlas customers such as Digibase, Google and TomTom have already launched solutions using Tele Atlas Latin American maps.

The new Latin America digital maps are immediately available with additional content such as points of interest (POIs) to all Tele Atlas personal navigation, wireless, Internet, automotive and enterprise customers worldwide.

Tele Atlas' map of Chile encompasses 155,000 kilometers of roadways, covering approximately 95 percent of the population and more than 110 cities with complete street network coverage, including Antofagasta, Puente Alto, Santiago de Chile, Valparaíso and Viña del Mar, as well as 77,000 POIs.

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Spain Digital Maps in NEXTMap database

Intermap Technologies announced that uniformly accurate 3D digital elevation models and high-resolution orthorectified radar images of the entire country of Spain are now commercially available. Digital maps of Spain, collected as part of the company’s NEXTMap Europe programme, join France, Germany, Great Britain, Luxembourg, and Italy as full country datasets in the NEXTMap data library. Portions of Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Portugal, Switzerland, and The Netherlands are also in the data library.

All of Intermap's NEXTMap datasets include uniform digital surface models that depict the earth’s surface (including cultural features such as vegetation, buildings, and roads). These datasets also include digital terrain models displaying the bare earth (with all cultural features digitally removed) and orthorectified radar images that accentuate the country’s topographic features.

The Company has also mapped the contiguous U.S. and Hawaii as part of its NEXTMap USA mapping programme.

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