Data Resources

North Carolina Geographic Data Clearinghouse (NCGDC)

The North Carolina Geographic Data Clearinghouse (NCGDC), is an expanding index of source agencies/groups/organizations in North Carolina who support geographic data. These "cooperators" use the clearinghouse as a forum to publicize the metadata, data and/or graphics that they have available.

National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse

The National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse is a distributed, electronically connected network of spatial data producers, managers, and users. The Clearinghouse is not a central repository where data sets are stored, but rather a comprehensive listing of data being produced by government agencies, universities, utilities, and many other organizations around the country. The data listing is augmented by a structured summary of information about the data or metadata.

National Spatial Data Infrastructure

The NSDI is a cooperative effort involving federal, state, and local government, the private sector, and academia. It consists of an umbrella of policies, standards, and procedures under which organizations and technologies interact to foster more efficient use, management, and production of geographic, or spatial, data.

Service Resources

CGIA is a state government agency in the Office of State Planning and is responsible for:

• providing timely, cost effective geographic information and GIS services statewide;
• building and maintaining the NC Corporate Geographic Database; and
• serving as lead agency for geographic information system coordination in North Carolina and as staff to the Geographic Information Coordinating Council.

CGIA provides a full range of GIS services to diverse clients involved in making and assessing public decisions. Operating on a cost recovery basis, CGIA has developed an internal discipline and a customer focus that achieves high service quality. Services include:

• Spatial Analysis
• Custom Map and Report Production
• GIS Application Development
• Technical Assistance
• Data Development
• Data Distribution
• System Planning

Resource Data, Inc. (RDI) is a geographic-information services company that has been in business since 1991. We have extensive experience with local, regional and federal datasets. We are the only information service in the Western North Carolina region that integrates private, local, state and federal data into a comprehensive GIS (geographic information system).

RDI enables corporate planners and strategists, government administrators, natural-resource managers, engineers, advertising executives, attorneys, developers, mortgage lenders and other interested individuals to visualize and understand local, regional and national geographic patterns, resource distributions and demographic characteristics. RDI works with state-of-the-art GIS (geographic information system) software and on-line research services to collect, develop and analyze geo-based information.

We have a digital library of local, state and federal digital-map resources and coverages, including public-school locations, HAZ-MAT locations, FEMA floodway maps, etc. Our capabilities to find, develop and use new data coverages are extensive.

Current projects include GIS applications for wetland banking, airport siting, college campus facilities management, mining reclaimation, affordable housing, medical planning, retail market inventory and water and sewer map conversion.

Blue Star Consulting is an innovative association of professional ecologists and botanists, formed to meet the assessment and land management needs of Federal, state, local, and corporate organizations, private landholders, and the conservation community. We are an independent, woman-owned company, with over twenty years of collective experience in the fields of environmental assessment, land-use planning, and biological inventory. Using recent advances in automated data compilation and analysis systems (GIS), we offer a full spectrum of environmental assessment and mapping functions. We have the added advantage of being flexible and responsive enough to accommodate a wide range of clients with diverse needs.

Software Resources

Links to software vendors will soon be available here.