FedData: Geospatial Data from US Federal Sources

Nine distinct US federal geospatial datasets are accessible through this package, including elevation, hydrography, soil, climate, and land cover data. The collection is maintained by author R. Kyle Bocinsky and aggregates sources from agencies like USGS, NOAA, and USDA. Specific datasets include the National Elevation Dataset, National Hydrography Dataset, SSURGO soil database, and the Cropland Data Layer.

Use Cases

• Terrain modeling based on National Elevation Dataset digital elevation models.
• Watershed analysis based on the National Hydrography Dataset.
• Agricultural planning based on soil properties from the SSURGO database and crop classifications from the Cropland Data Layer.
• Climate trend analysis based on daily weather parameters from the Daymet dataset and the Global Historical Climatology Network.
• Land use and conservation planning based on the National Land Cover Database and the PAD-US protected areas dataset.

Strengths

• Integrates data from nine authoritative US federal sources, including USGS, NOAA, and USDA.
• Covers multiple complementary geospatial domains: elevation, hydrography, soil, climate, land cover, and protected areas.
• Provides a unified method for downloading data from disparate federated sources.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality, resolution, and completeness require manual inspection after download.
• Row count, file formats, and specific spatial/temporal coverage for each sub-dataset are unknown from the input.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Multiple US federal agencies (e.g., USGS, NOAA, USDA NRCS, ORNL DAAC).

Collection Method

Aggregated and made accessible via the FedData R package.

Geography

Primarily the United States, with some datasets (e.g., GHCN, Daymet, International Tree Ring Data Bank) having global or North American coverage.