Forest Inventory and Analysis - Southern Research Station

Spatial Data Services

 

Charter

 

Background

The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program of the USDA Forest Service has collected forested data across the entire United States. For details on the goals of FIA, data collected, and selected publications, please refer to http://fia.fs.fed.us/ and http://fia.fs.fed.us/library.htm  (program fact sheets). In addition to the biological data collected on each FIA plot, geographic location is collected using a global positioning system (GPS) along with ownership information. 

In the FY2000 Consolidated Appropriations Bill (PL 106-113), Congress included language that modified the Food Security Act of 1985 (7 U.S.C. 2276(d)) to add FIA data collection to a list of items requiring confidential treatment. (For a link to the Privacy Law, click here.) Among other things, the law prevents FIA from disclosing plot locations and ownership information, and it provides for criminal penalties for violations.

We feel strongly about our privacy policy because we need to protect landowners’ privacy, and we must avoid attracting activities that might intentionally or unintentionally affect the composition of the plot and alter the results of our inventory. 

Our privacy policy has the effect of restricting access to an invaluable database consisting of millions of georeferenced measurements of trees and ecological conditions collected from across the entire country. We have therefore established Southern Research Station, FIA, Spatial Data Services (SDS) to facilitate outside use of our data while protecting the confidentiality of the sample locations.

Mission Statement

The Southern Research Station Southern Research Station, FIA, Spatial Data Services function is to connect information submitted by interested parties with FIA database and return information to the customer that both meets their research and analysis needs and follows the confidentiality laws set out by the Congress of the United States. We believe that the FIA data should be widely accessible, and we seek to facilitate the distribution of the information to academia, government agencies and the public at large in a secure, timely and accurate manner.

Facilities for Site Visitation

The Southern Research Station, FIA, SDS is located at the Southern FIA Unit office at, 4700 Old Kingston Pike, Knoxville, Tennessee, and is staffed by experienced GIS analysts who are familiar with FIA data. The staff have access to both a UNIX workstation and Windows 95/2000 PC’s with ArcView, Arc/INFO and associated modules, ArcGIS (including Spatial Analyst, Network Analyst, 3-D Analyst and others), Erdas Imagine and various spatial analytical software packages. Additional software, supplied by the requester, may be loaded as needed provided the requester has obtained appropriate licensing.  

 

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