Posted on 03/29/2002 5:11:37 AM PST by callisto
Forgotten the dramatic details of the 2000 American presidential election? Download a map of the results, thanks to the US Geological Survey (USGS).
This latest product on the five-year-old National Atlas website shows how markedly voting preferences have changed over the years. For example, you can watch the traditionally Democratic stronghold of the southeastern United States slowly changing to a Republican block over the course of three decades.
The National Atlas website also offers a taster of the potential of online map making. Visitors can have fun creating customized comparison maps of the election results. They can see how electoral or popular votes are related to costly west-coast landslides or east-coast tropical cyclones, for instance, or indeed to butterfly distribution.
With over 400 data layers, the National Atlas of the United States offers instant access to information from over 20 different federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Bureau of Land Management. "It's a good example of how different agencies can share data across the web," says Barbara Ryan, chief geographer for USGS.
"Now, anybody can be a cartographer," jokes Brigitta Urban-Mathieux, lead cartographer for the project. Or, as Ryan puts it: "The user determines the content of the coverage rather than have it be predetermined by federal agencies." She adds that this is a good example of the work going on under the current Bush administration's e-government initiative.
Maps showing arsenic levels in groundwater, where cases of the West Nile virus occurred in 2001, and the results of the 2000 census will be added to the site soon.
Time for change
Unfortunately, the data sets held in the online National Atlas still represent only snapshots in time - on average, the 55,000 printed topographic maps of the USGS are 25 years old.
The USGS is planning to change all that with its National Map project. This will bring together real-time information from satellites such as LandSat V and LandSat VII, along with the most up-to-date information from state and local governments. The USGS already has a number of state-level pilot projects underway, which it hopes will provide the National Map with continuously updated geographic information.
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