Technical Resources

GIS - What's New

11/09/2007

GIS Skill Builder Updates

Displays the bearing and distance between digitized point features, along a line feature, or around a polygon feature. Bearing and distance are expressed as degrees-minutes-seconds and linear feet. (Example: N37-45-12W, 1234.56 ft.)

Soil Layers Tool
Creates interpretive soil map layers based on an existing ArcMap soil layer. Users can create client-specific HEL soil layers and calculate the percentage of HEL in each field when making preliminary HEL determinations. Also useful for creating hydric soil layers for use in digitizing wetland determinations. A third option displays the soil legend by map unit name instead of map unit symbol.

Geodata Updates

2005 NAIP Data Relocation

Due to requirements of the National Geospatial Data Naming Standard, as well as recent changes in FSA's CLU certification process, the 2005 NAIP imagery data must be renamed and relocated to the "F:\geodata\ortho_imagery" folder on every server. Please refer to the document Michigan Service Center Geodata Structure for a detailed file location description.

NOTE: This data relocation will render the 2005 NAIP layers unusable in every saved NRCS ArcMap project in Michigan unless the latest version of NRCS-MI ArcMap Tools has been installed. Please see the Software Updates section below for more information.

SSURGO Soil Data Availability

Soil data now exists for the majority of every county in Michigan. Please see this notice from State Soil Scientist Will Bowman.

Field Imagery Updates

Georeferencing of the FSA Legacy Master Photos has been completed for 31 counties, with another 12 counties currently in production. It is expected that the entire state will be completed some time in FY08. This is the scanned FSA master photography from C2003, roughly georeferenced to overlay existing GIS data. This imagery can be used as a historical reference for HEL and wetland determinations.

The 35mm Slides scanning effort has yielded 7 counties completed to date, with an additional 7 counties underway. This imagery consists of all of the available FSA 35mm compliance slides for each county, often dating back to the late 1970's. These slides are critical to the NRCS wetland determination process and are being digitally captured to prevent further deterioration due to time. Those interested in acquiring scanned 35mm slide data should contact Lynn Sampson, NRCS State Biologist.

Field Imagery Status Map

Common Land Unit Certification

FSA-MI continues to certify the common land unit (CLU) boundaries.

CLU Certification Status Map

Software Updates Critical Information

NRCS-MI ArcMap Tools

A new version of the NRCS-Michigan ArcMap Tools has been distributed to NRCS field offices. This version includes the new Bearing and Distance and Soil Layers. User guides are available in the ArcGIS 8.3 Skill Builders section of the NRCS-Michigan GIS web page.

Broken NAIP Data Paths - As mentioned in the above Geodata Updates, the latest version of NRCS-MI Tools checks each ArcMap project as it is opened and repairs the 2005 NAIP layer automatically. This will greatly reduce the end-user effort required to reset every broken NAIP data path.

It is essential that users load the latest version of the NRCS ArcMap Tools.

Update instructions were emailed to all Michigan NRCS and Toolkit GIS users on 11/02/07. Please contact Brent Stinson, State GIS Specialist for more information on acquiring the latest version of the tools.