Crash Course in Georeferencing

1. Crash Course in Georeferencing Michelle Koo, Carol Spencer, Andrew Reagan, Lauren Scheinberg

2. Good and Bad Locality Descriptions Elements and Examples

3. Overview • Elements of a Locality • Verbatim Locality Description • Elevation • Coordinates • Datum • GPS Accuracy • Extent • Reference • Examples

4. Less Precise More Precise x Less Accurate More Accurate What A Locality Should Be • Specific • Succinct • Unambiguous • Complete • Accurate • Precise

5. Locality Tips • Avoid uncertainty due to imprecise headings • distance along a path • two orthogonal distances from a place • Use only one reference point • small in size (extent) • stable in position and size over time • easy to find on maps or in gazetteers • Avoid vague terms such as “near”, “vicinity of”, “about”, etc

6. Elevation • Provide an elevation value • Beware elevation from GPS - it is less accurate than a barometric altimeter (when calibrated) • Report the source of elevation (map, altimeter, seat of pants, etc.)

7. Coordinates • It is not enough to have coordinates alone, a locality description is essential. • Decimal degrees are recommended. If a different system is used, record your resources. • More decimal places are better. • Original coordinates from GPS should be preserved. • Know your GPS Make/Model and DATUM

8. Datum • Datum has a corresponding coordinate system • Default datum WGS84 • Coordinate your resources, especially if you’re using a different datum • Coordinates without datum are ambiguous • Be consistent

9. GPS Accuracy • GPS accuracy can be affected by many issues • number of satellites • interference • presence of reflective surfaces • Provide the GPS overall accuracy, or error, while reading the GPS coordinates • It will not be available later, and are not stored with the waypoints

10. Extent • Indicates the size of the area within which an event (collection, observation) occurred • Can be a city, park, intersection, transect, grid, river, road, etc.

11. References Document the sources and tools • Topographic map in field • Map title, publisher, scale, year, sheet number • Gazetteer or Road Atlas • Altimeter • GPS • Model • Datum • Accuracy

12. Examples of Good and Bad Localities • Vague localities • BAD: “Sacramento River Delta” - an extremely large geographic areaBETTER: “Locke, Sacramento River Delta, Sacramento Co., California” - names a town within the Delta • BAD: “3 mi W of San Jose/Cartago border” - without additional details, this would mean anywhere 3 mi W of the borderGOOD: “3 mi W of San Jose/Cartago border on Highway 2, San Jose Province, Costa Rica”

13. Examples of Good and Bad Localities • Names of Roads without additional reference • BAD: “Highway 9, Alajuela Province, Costa Rica” GOOD: “Intersection of Hwy 9 and Rio Cariblanco, Cariblanco (town), Alajuela Province, Costa Rica” • BAD: “S Berkeley, Alameda County, California”GOOD: “Oakland,1 mi S of intersection of 66th St and Telegraph Ave on Telegraph Ave., Alameda Co., California”

14. Examples of Good and Bad Localities • Localities that are difficult to Georeference • BAD: “Battle Mountain, Lander Co., Nevada”BETTER: “Battle Mountain (city), Lander Co., Nevada” • BAD: “Km 58 Pan American Highway”GOOD:“Km 58 Pan American Highway, 6 km S of Cartago on Pan American Highway, Cartago Province, Costa Rica”

15. REAL LOCALITIES FROM MaNIS Vague Biologically unlikely Non-sensical Requires specific knowledge

16. Online Resources

17. Locality Guidelines http://mvz.berkeley.edu/Policies.html http://mvz.berkeley.edu/Locality_Documentation.html

18. Online resources for georeferencing http://herpnet.org/Gazetteer/GeorefResources.htm

19. Online resources for georeferencing http://canadensys.net/digitization/georeferencing

20. Google Maps • http://maps.google.com • Search & directions • Free text search, zoom -dependent • Directions for travelling by car, bike, public transport and foot • Data compiled from different sources • Maps • Datum: WGS84 • Views: map, satellite (= aerial photography), terrain, Google Street View + various layers of information • Data compiled from different sources (indicated at the bottom of each map) • Third Party Plug-ins extend functionality

21. Google Maps - Searching Search now with suggestions

22. Google Maps - Viewing Satellite Maps Terrain (under ‘More’) Earth (plug-in required)

23. Google Maps – Street View Street View

24. Google Maps – Street View I collected here

25. Google Maps – Getting coordinates • Requires additional widgets or plug-ins • Activate LatLng Marker in Google Maps Labs • Install a mapplet like GPS Location or Position Finder in ‘My Maps > Browse the directory’. Now deprecated! • Use Canadensys LatLong Crosshairs bookmarklet: http://www.canadensys.net/georeferencing • Use Distance Measurement Tool to measure extent • Use My Maps to save markers, create maps, share with others (including kml import)

26. Google Maps – Getting coordinates Google Maps Labs LatLng Marker Right-click and‘Drop LatLng Marker’ (activate in ‘Labs’ first)

27. Google Maps – Getting coordinates Canadensys bookmarklet Click to toggle Crosshairs Pan map to change position Click to get coordinates

28. Google Maps – Measuring extent Distance Measurement Tool (activate in ‘Labs’ first)

29. Google Earth • http://earth.google.com • 3D globe desktop application • Same data as Google Maps • Datum: WGS84 • No Map or Terrain view • Similar functionalities as Google Maps • Search more limited than Google Maps (no suggestions) • Right-click and choose ‘Get Info’ for coordinates • Use ruler to measure extent • Several coordinate formats • Numerous information layers (format: kml)

30. AcmeMapper • http://mapper.acme.com/ • Google Maps interface • Datum: WGS84 (& NAD27) • Map, satellite, hybrid and terrain • Topo, DOQ, NEXRAD and Mapnik • Free text search not Zoom level-dependent • Markers cannot be moved, but new markers can be placed at crosshairs (click ‘Mark’) • Several coordinate formats for each marker + heading and distance from crosshairs • Saves all markers automatically

31. GEOnet Names Server (GNS) • http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/ • Worldwide data from NGA andUS BGN • NIMA = National Imagery andMapping Agency • Datum: WGS84 • Degrees minutes seconds,precision to nearest minute • Feature type • Used as a source for many gazetteers • For US data, use Geographic Names Information System (GNIS): http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/

32. Geographical Name Search Service (GNSS) • http://gnss.nrcan.gc.ca/gnss-srt/searchName.jsp • Canadian data by the CanadianGeographical Names Service(CGNS) • Datum: NAD83 • Degrees minutes seconds anddecimal degrees • Feature type • Full Canadian Geographical Names datasets can be downloaded from GeoBase: http://www.geobase.ca/

33. Falling Rain • http://www.fallingrain.com • Worldwide gazetteer for citiesand towns • Great for hard to find localities,especially outside US • Datum: WGS84 • Degrees minutes (seconds), based on NIMA • Browse to find locality (no search) • Provides hierarchy, alternative names, topo maps, altitude, weather information and location of nearby towns in nautical miles (nm). Tip: Use Google/Chromey to translate nm into km. • Example: Qaryeh-ye Gol`alam, Velayat-e Lowgar, AF • You can also check against Statoids: http://www.statoids.com/

34. Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN) • http://www.getty.edu/research/conducting_research/vocabularies/tgn/ • Worldwide gazetteer byThe Getty • Useful for finding alternativeand old names • Feature types • Geographical hierarchy • Coordinates only to minutes (or not at all)! Use recent name and search in Google Maps • Example: Big Apple, inhabited place, United States

35. FuzzyG – JRC Fuzzy Gazetteer • http://dma.jrc.it/services/fuzzyg/ • Worldwide gazetteer designed for bad spelling! • Useful for finding alternative, doubtful spelling,old names • Feature types • By continent • Coordinates only to minutes (or not at all)! Use recent name and search in Google Maps • Example: Narobi, Africa

36. Other Resources • GPS Visualizer: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ • Use to translate a file with coordinates into kml or a picture • Similar: http://www.simplemappr.net/ for publications • GeoLocate: http://www.museum.tulane.edu/geolocate/ • Georeferencing desktop and web application • Useful for roads and rivers (US only) • Statoids: http://www.statoids.com/ • Information about administrative divisions (provinces, counties) and their history, area, population, codes, etc. • No coordinates! • Similar: CIA World Factbook http://bit.ly/dDtT1i • See http://herpnet.org for more…

37. BioGeomancer: • Semi-automated • Georeferencing Engine • http://bg.berkeley.edu/latest/ • Currently works on Firefox, Explorer, • not Chrome, Safari. • Developed by: John Wieczorek, Aaron Steele, Dave Neufeld, P. Bryan Heidorn, Robert Guralnick, Reed Beaman, Chris Frazier, • Paul Flemons, Nelson Rios, Greg Hill, Youjun Guo

38. 37 Locality Types F – feature P – path FO – offset from a feature, sans heading FOH – offset from feature at a heading FO+ – orthogonal offsets from a feature FPOH – offset at a heading from a feature along a path 31 other locality types known so far

39. Five Most Common Locality Types* 51.0% - feature 21.4% - locality not recorded 17.6% - offset from feature at a heading 8.6% - path 5.8% - undefined types of localities BG recognizes *based on 500 records randomly selected from the 296k records georeferenced manually in the MaNIS Project.

40. Types of Data BG Uses and Georeferences BG has >11 million entries in the gazetteer http://www.biogeomancer.org/metadata.html User created places = 112,000 1.5 million localities were georeferenced, for 6.2 million georeferences (so on average 4 georeferences per locality) Over 500 login users, 6,000 projects done ORNIS did 189k localities in BG batch processing

41. How BG works:

42. Additional BG Commands: • Add: lets you add another georeference to the current view • Hg: searches on higher geography only • Create: lets you create a new locality (this only works if you are not logged in) • Also you can display lat and longs by typing coordinates into the georeference box, with a space between them (no comma) • http://bg.berkeley.edu/latest/

43. Batch Processing: https://sites.google.com/site/biogeomancerworkbench/support/batch-formatting

44. Georeferencing tool originally designed for aquatic natural history data • Calculates Uncertainty in same standards • Several Versions: standalone desktop, web app, java client app (in development), web services

47. Online Exercises • Download exercise and all handouts here: http://mvzgis.wordpress.com/tutorials/shortgeorefws/