Technical Resources

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NRCS Geodata

The NRCS Geodata are county-specific sets of GIS data (including soils, digital orthophotos, hydrography, etc.) for use with ArcView GIS. The initial distribution to each NRCS Field Office in Iowa was completed in February 2001.

Files with ZIP are compressed archives, use WinZip to extract; some files require Acrobat Reader to view.

Geodata FAQs

Files

Geodata folder structure (ZIP, 13 KB) This WinZip archive contains the geodata subfolders following the current directory naming standard (June 2002). You can extract the archive to the F:\geodata directory to add all of the necessary subfolders. After opening the file in WinZip select "Extract", point to the appropriate \geodata directory and select "Use Folder Names", then "extract". (Note: this contains the folders only, no ArcView files are included). This will be used primarily by Area Computer Specialists, it is not intended for Field Office staff use.

Documents

Geodata Frequently Asked Questions (PDF, 21 KB/Revised 01/22/03)
Geodata files available in Service Centers (PDF, 13 KB/Revised 08/01/02)
Manual for Managing Geospatial Datasets in Service Centers (PDF, 424 KB/Final Rev. 06/2002)
Iowa Geodata Distribution Status Map (PDF, 124 KB/Revised 02/27/01)
USDA Standard for Geospatial Dataset File Naming (PDF, 102 KB /Revised 01/25/2001)

Programs/Utilities

Geodata Conversion Utility This utility is provided by NRCS-ITC. The utility has a function to read current Geodata folders and files on the user's C:\drive and copies them to the server's F:\drive. During this process additional new folders will be added under F:\geodata. After selecting the Geodata Conversion Utility link above, select save to download the file to your PC, then double-click to install the program. Other installation instructions and step by step user instructions are available in appendix E of the Manual for Managing Geospatial Datasets in Service Centers, also available on the same webpage as the Geodata Conversion Utility.

Copy APR File to Customer Folders This Excel macro allows the user to copy a specified ArcView Project file into the "ArcView Projects" folder under the Toolkit Customer Files. This is useful if you need to quickly populate numerous customer folders with an updated default ArcView project. Please use with caution as it will overwrite ArcView projects of the same name as the target file. This macro was modified by Iowa NRCS from a macro originally written by Missouri NRCS.