Geospatial Applications
The USGS is the Nation’s largest Earth science civilian mapping agency, mapping in the United States and abroad for more than 125 years and changing products and services offered and the means by which they are developed to meet changing expectations of users, new understandings of societal and mission needs, and new technologies. The NYWSC uses the latest available spatial datasets to provide geospatial expertise for scientific investigations; geographic information systems (GISs) are used to characterize the natural and manmade features that define the environmental settings of drainage basins and groundwater study areas. As the quality and resolution of remotely sensed geospatial data and imagery continues to improve, GISs can be used to visualize and explore these data. For example, light detection and ranging (lidar) elevation data can be displayed with hill-shade and color classifications that provide far greater detail than 1:24,000-scale topographic maps.