2016

Land-use researchers need the ability to rapidly compare multiple land-use scenarios over a range of spatial and temporal scales, and to visualize spatial and nonspatial data; however, land-use datasets are often distributed in the form of large tabular files and spatial files. These formats are not ideal for the way land-use researchers interact with and share these datasets. The size of these la

The goal of this project was to develop a novel methodology to combine the USGS Gap Analysis Program (GAP) national land cover and species distribution data with disturbance data to describe and predict how disturbance affects biodiversity. Specifically, the project team presented a case study examining how energy development in the Williston Basin can affect grassland birds; however, the methods

Wetland soils are vital to the Nation because of their role in sustaining water resources, supporting critical ecosystems, and sequestering significant concentrations of biologically-produced carbon. The United States has the world’s most detailed continent-scale digital datasets for soils and wetlands, yet scientists and land managers have long struggled with the challenge of integrating these d

As research and management of natural resources shift from local to regional and national scales, the need for information about aquatic systems to be summarized to multiple scales is becoming more apparent. Recently, four federally funded national stream assessment efforts (USGS Aquatic GAP, USGS National Water-Quality Assessment Program, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] StreamCat, and

The purpose of the Data Management Training (DMT) Clearinghouse project was twofold. First, the project aimed to increase discoverability and accessibility of the wealth of learning resources that have been developed to inform and train scientists about data management in the Earth sciences. Secondly, the project team wanted to facilitate the use of these learning resources by providing descriptiv

USGS research in the Western Geographic Science Center has produced several geospatial datasets estimating the time required to evacuate on foot from a Cascadia subduction zone earthquake-generated tsunami in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. These data, created as a result of research performed under the Risk and Vulnerability to Natural Hazards project, are useful for emergency managers and community

Increasing attention is being paid to the importance of proper scientific data management and implementing processes that ensure that products being released are properly documented. USGS policies have been established to properly document not only publications, but also the related data and software. This relatively recent expansion of documentation requirements for data and software may presen

The purpose of this project was to document processes for USGS scientists to organize and share data using ScienceBase, and to provide an example interactive mapping application to display those data. Data and maps from Chase and others (2016a, b) were used for the example interactive maps. Principal Investigator : Katherine J Chase, Andy Bock, Thomas R Sando Accomplishments The accomplishment

Large amounts of data are being generated that require hours, days, or even weeks to analyze using traditional computing resources. Innovative solutions must be implemented to analyze the data in a reasonable timeframe. The program HTCondor (https://research.cs.wisc.edu/htcondor/) takes advantage of the processing capacity of individual desktop computers and dedicated computing resources as a sing

Web portals are one of the principal ways geospatial information can be communicated to the public. A few prominent USGS examples are the Geo Data Portal (http://cida.usgs.gov/gdp/ [URL is accessible with Google Chrome]), EarthExplorer (http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/), the former Derived Downscaled Climate Projection Portal, the Alaska Portal Map (http://alaska.usgs.gov/portal/), the Coastal Chang

Recent open data policies of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which were fully enforceable on October 1, 2016, require that federally funded information products (publications, etc.) be made freely available to the public, and that the underlying data on which the conclusions are based must be released. A key and relevant aspect of these

The goal of this project is to improve the USGS National Earthquake Information Center’s (NEIC) earthquake detection capabilities through direct integration of crowd-sourced earthquake detections with traditional, instrument-based seismic processing. During the past 6 years, the NEIC has run a crowd-sourced system, called Tweet Earthquake Dispatch (TED), which rapidly detects earthquakes worldwide