Archive

Archive for the ‘Tools’ Category

Online Plant Identification Guide

USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service has an online plant identification key (use MS Explorer).  It has state specific keys for grasses and legumes, plus keys for gymnosperms and wetland monocots in the US.

Farm Program Acres Tool from USDA

USDA has a new tool where you can map online (and download the raw data) county level data for Farm Program acreage including: program acres (production flexibility contract acres under the 1996 Farm Act, by commodity; base acres designated under the 2002 Farm Act, by commodity; and base acres updated to 1998-2001 plantings under the 2002 Farm Act, by commodity) and planted acreage from USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).

Designing Corridors – GIS Toolkit

The folks at CorridorDesign.org say it best “Our goal is to transfer everything we’ve learned about designing wildlife corridors to the public to facilitate better conservation, science, and dialogue.”  The site includes examples, how-tos, white papers and – best-of-all – dozens of ArcGIS extensions.  All free.  Developed for Arizona, no doubt they could be adapted for anywhere.  See the scientific publication in Conservation Biology.  You could make an entire graduate seminar course out of this website!!