Technical Resources

GIS - What's New

02/12/2008

GIS Skill Builder Updates

Uses an HEL soils layer and a county CLU layer as input to calculate the acres and percent of HEL soils within each selected land unit, generating an output report. Additional options include creating a pre-populated CPA-026E form and saving a new HEL soil layer, clipped to the selected land units. HEL soil ratings, (where available), are based on the 1990 frozen HEL lists provided by NRCS field offices.

Geodata Updates

Field Imagery Updates

Georeferencing of the FSA Legacy Master Photos has been completed for 46 counties, with another 8 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. While this imagery should not be used as a base for heads-up digitizing, it can be useful as a historical reference when performing HEL and wetland determinations.

The 35mm Slides scanning effort has yielded 11 counties completed to date, with an additional 8 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 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. It is anticipated that the entire state will be certified by October 1, 2008.

CLU Certification Status Map

Software Updates

NRCS-MI ArcMap Tools

The latest version of NRCS-Michigan ArcMap Tools has been distributed to NRCS field offices. In addition to the new HEL Soil Report tool, the update includes minor revisions for various other NRCS-MI tools. User guides are available in the ArcGIS 8.3 Skill Builders section of the NRCS-Michigan GIS web page.

New Electronic CPA-026E Forms - The 026 forms generated by the NRCS-MI Wetland Determination and HEL Soil Report tools are now based on customized MS Word templates developed at the Michigan State Office. The new templates split the traditional 026E into two separate forms - one for HEL and one for wetlands. NOTE: The new templates are for use only with the NRCS-MI ArcMap tools. Users may continue to utilize the traditional CPA-026E form, if preferred.

Broken NAIP Data Paths - As mentioned in the 11/09/2007 NRCS-MI GIS News, the NRCS-MI ArcMap Toolbar checks each ArcMap project as it is opened and automatically repairs 2005 NAIP layer paths which were broken due to the recent data relocation. Users are reminded to activate the NRCS-MI Toolbar in ArcMap by clicking "View, Toolbars, NRCS Michigan Tools".

Customer Service Toolkit/Soil Data Viewer

The latest versions of Customer Service Toolkit and Soil Data Viewer are scheduled for release within the next 2-3 months. NRCS-MI will also upgrade to ArcGIS 9.2 as part of the Toolkit deployment.

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