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The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Core Science Systems (CSS) Mission Area builds on the core strengths of the USGS in characterizing and understanding complex Earth and biological systems through research, modeling, mapping, and the production of high-quality data. CSS delivers natural science information to the Nation in support of smart decisionmaking.
National Geospatial Program
The National Geospatial Program is the Federal civilian mapping agency and provides the digital geospatial foundation for the Nation. It engages partners and communities of use to collaboratively produce consistent and accurate topographic map data.
Learn MoreCore Science Analytics, Synthesis, and Libraries
The USGS Science Data Catalog, supported by CSAS&L, provides seamless access to USGS research and monitoring data from across the nation. Users have the ability to search, browse, or use a map-based interface to discover data.
Learn MoreNews
North American National Mapping Meeting, May 9-10, 2018
Meet and better communicate with North American counterparts to improve mapping efforts across the continent
2018 Doug D. Nebert NSDI Champion of the Year Award
Calling for nominations to honor outstanding accomplishments to the spatial data infrastructure mission of the Department of Interior
The 3D Elevation Program Distributing Lidar Data in LAZ Format
In support of ongoing efforts to provide efficient, cloud ready, open data formats for the use of lidar data, the USGS National Geospatial Program and its associated 3D Elevation Program is transitioning all of its lidar data distribution files to LAZ format by September 30, 2018.
Publications
A comparison of synthetic flowpaths derived from light detection and ranging topobathymetric data and National Hydrography Dataset High Resolution Flowlines
Bathymetric and topobathymetric light detection and ranging (lidar) digital elevation models created for the Delaware River were provided to the National Geospatial Program and used to evaluate synthetic flowpath extraction from bathymetric/topobathymetric lidar survey data as a data source for improving the density, distribution, and connectivity...
Miller-Corbett, Cynthia
Modeling and simulation of emergent behavior in transportation infrastructure restoration
The objective of this chapter is to create a methodology to model the emergent behavior during a disruption in the transportation system and that calculates economic losses due to such a disruption, and to understand how an extreme event affects the road transportation network. The chapter discusses a system dynamics approach which is used to...
Ojha, Akhilesh; Corns, Steven; Shoberg, Thomas G.; Qin, Ruwen; Long, Suzanna K. An open source high-performance solution to extract surface water drainage networks from diverse terrain conditions
This paper describes a workflow for automating the extraction of elevation-derived stream lines using open source tools with parallel computing support and testing the effectiveness of procedures in various terrain conditions within the conterminous United States. Drainage networks are extracted from the US Geological Survey 1/3 arc-second 3D...
Stanislawski, Larry V.; Survila, Kornelijus; Wendel, Jeffrey; Liu, Yan; Buttenfield, Barbara P.