The USGS National Geospatial Program has developed a robust suite of geospatial products and services called The National Map (TNM). The publicly available TNM is a collaborative effort managed by the USGS in partnership with other Federal, State, and local geospatial agencies to improve and deliver topographic information for the Nation.

Understanding the complexity and richness of TNM tools and applications is now made easier with the public availability of a series of web-based lessons. The lessons were initially created to provide training for internal employees and affiliated partners. Now, the majority of the lessons are accessible to all users of geospatial data, with some served on YouTube. These lessons can provide the benefit of structured training to geospatial data users and scientists from Federal agencies, state and local governments, Native American Tribes, nonprofit organizations, academic institutions and private industry.

There are currently 28 product and service usage videos. Each narrated video is around 5-10 minutes long, depending on the content, and include slide notes. More popular titles include:

Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details

• The National Map Viewer
• Using The National Map Download Client
• Downloading Data with The National Map Download Client
• Downloading Maps with The National Map Download Client
• Using USGS US Topo and Historic Topographic Maps on your Mobile Device
• EarthExplorer Introduction
• Using The National Map Download Manager
• Digital Elevation Models, Hydro-Flattening and Hydro-Enforcement
• The USGS Emergency Operations Collection Management Tool
• US Interagency Elevation Inventory
• USGS Emergency Operations Collection Management Tool
• Introduction to the Topo TNM Style Template and Topo Map Vector Data Products
• Downloading the Topo TNM Style Template and Topo Map Vector Data Products
• How to Configure the Topo TNM Style Template

GIS users may be particularly interested in several recently released videos that provide information on the Topo TNM Style Template, which can be readily used with the Topo Combined Vector Product (recently renamed "Topo Map Vector Data products") and other data available for download from The National Map. The template and TNM data are intended to be used together to quickly provide the GIS user with a fully customizable map in the style of US Topo maps using the most current TNM data.

Lessons under development this year will reflect the NGP focus on the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP), the National Hydrography Dataset (NHD) and the Watershed Boundary Dataset (WBD).  Tentative lesson topics include: Stream Stats, NHDPlus, WBD, NHD Hydrography Event Management Tool, and Tools and Utilities to exploit 3DEP data.

TNM products are built upon the latest geospatial technologies and provide a broad array of digital products and services which provide value to USGS as well as the Nation. Many of the products have their origins in service to science and play a major role in supporting today’s hydrographic, geologic, and biologic sciences. TNM supports data download, digital and print versions of topographic maps, geospatial data services, and online viewing.

The list of lessons is updated as new material becomes available.

Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details

Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details