Useful Links for GIS, conservation biology and other tools - stuff that is as free as possible
(please report broken links, and make suggestions for added resources to [email protected])
GIS and other spatial software (open-source)
Diva-GIS - great for layering grids and points together - has useful climate modeling modules
GRASS GIS - Geographic Resources Analysis Support System - free Geographic Information System (GIS) software used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization.
Maptools for R - a great package for doing spatial manipulations and data simulations in R - reads/writes ESRI product files
QGIS - Quantum GIS (QGIS) is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) licensed under the GNU General Public License. QGIS is an official project of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). It runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows and supports numerous vector, raster, and database formats and functionalities.
EpiInfo - contains EpiMap - the CDC's toolbox for doing statistics, large-scale calculations and GIS-based mapping for work on diseases.
Animal Movement/Spatial Use Tools
LoCoH - Local Convex Hull analyses for examining space use, range and habitat selection - available as a web based processor, an ArcView 3.x script, an R tool (within Animov), and an ArcGIS toolbox which calls R
Hawth's Tools and GME Geospatial Modeling Environment - Hawth's tools is an add-on to ArcGIS 9.x, and bundles many tools (homerange analysis, spatial randomization, editing tables) that are useful to animal spatial use analyses. This has been superceded by an entirely free GME, which operates with R, connected to ArcGIS. Hosted at Spatial Ecology - Facilitating innovative geospatial analysis to provide rigorous answers to environmental, ecological, and conservation problems.
Niche Modeling Links
DesktopGarp is a software package for biodiversity and ecologic research that allows the user to predict and analyze wild species distributions.
OpenModeler - open-source sofware with a single platform to run multiple algorithms (GARP, MaxEnt, BIOCLIM, etc)
PVA tools
Ecotools - Mathematica-based tools (Gareth will re-up the website when he gets back to the USA, right now it's down - August 2010)
PopTools - An Excel add-in for analysis of matrix population models, simulation of stochastic processes and calculation of bootstrap and other statistics
Climate Data and Climate Data Models
WorldClim is a set of global climate layers (climate grids) with a spatial resolution of a square kilometer.
PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) an analytical tool that uses point data, a digital elevation model, and other spatial data sets to generate gridded estimates of monthly, yearly, and event-based climatic parameters, such as precipitation, temperature, and dew point.
Data Sources
Demographic data (Human)
Gridded Population Data http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw/global.jsp
US Census Bureau - domestic data and international data
United Nations Population Data
US geographic information
Remotely sensed data (raw and processed)
Alex Leroux's table of all satellite-borne sensors lots of publicly available satellite data
ITC's database of Satellites and Sensors ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) is an imaging instrument flying on Terra, a satellite launched in December 1999 as part of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS).
SPOT (Satelite Pour Observation de la Terre) data, processed as NDVI from the Belgian Vegetation Programme
FRAP Data
The GIS data depot - The GISDataDepot is THE place on the web to download free data for use with your GIS or CAD software. You'll also have access to GIS Data focussed news, feature articles, and tools. Okay, so some of the data isn't at all free, and they will try to get you to order a CD-ROM of it for money.
Download Kenya GIS Data | World Resources Institute
USGS Global Visualization Viewer -
GLCF - Global Land Cover Facility - University of Maryland. Over 27,000 free Landsat images, SRTM DEM data, MODIS data and data products
LP-DAAC - Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center, including MODIS and ASTER Data of the United States
Goddard DAAC FTP site
Landsat Pathfinder Program
Tropical Rainforest Information Center NASA data and information, particularly deforestation data.
Remote Sensing Tutorials
CCRS Remote Sensing Tutorial
CCRS Remote Sensing Glossary Database
The Pixel Page: Ken Castleman's Digital Image Processing (DIP) Page RSCC VOLUME 3 - Introductory Digital Image Processing
Other People's Pages
Forrest Stevens' free tools online page (GIS, Stats, Office-type, etc.)
File Management
Ken Rename - a useful piece of freeware that lets you batch edit attributes of files; particularly useful if you're going between GIS filetypes, or if you just downloaded an entire camera's memory (link is to the creator's blog, so that the sourcefile location can be found with updates)
(please report broken links, and make suggestions for added resources to [email protected])
GIS and other spatial software (open-source)
Diva-GIS - great for layering grids and points together - has useful climate modeling modules
GRASS GIS - Geographic Resources Analysis Support System - free Geographic Information System (GIS) software used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization.
Maptools for R - a great package for doing spatial manipulations and data simulations in R - reads/writes ESRI product files
QGIS - Quantum GIS (QGIS) is a user friendly Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) licensed under the GNU General Public License. QGIS is an official project of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo). It runs on Linux, Unix, Mac OSX, and Windows and supports numerous vector, raster, and database formats and functionalities.
EpiInfo - contains EpiMap - the CDC's toolbox for doing statistics, large-scale calculations and GIS-based mapping for work on diseases.
Animal Movement/Spatial Use Tools
LoCoH - Local Convex Hull analyses for examining space use, range and habitat selection - available as a web based processor, an ArcView 3.x script, an R tool (within Animov), and an ArcGIS toolbox which calls R
Hawth's Tools and GME Geospatial Modeling Environment - Hawth's tools is an add-on to ArcGIS 9.x, and bundles many tools (homerange analysis, spatial randomization, editing tables) that are useful to animal spatial use analyses. This has been superceded by an entirely free GME, which operates with R, connected to ArcGIS. Hosted at Spatial Ecology - Facilitating innovative geospatial analysis to provide rigorous answers to environmental, ecological, and conservation problems.
Niche Modeling Links
DesktopGarp is a software package for biodiversity and ecologic research that allows the user to predict and analyze wild species distributions.
OpenModeler - open-source sofware with a single platform to run multiple algorithms (GARP, MaxEnt, BIOCLIM, etc)
PVA tools
Ecotools - Mathematica-based tools (Gareth will re-up the website when he gets back to the USA, right now it's down - August 2010)
PopTools - An Excel add-in for analysis of matrix population models, simulation of stochastic processes and calculation of bootstrap and other statistics
Climate Data and Climate Data Models
WorldClim is a set of global climate layers (climate grids) with a spatial resolution of a square kilometer.
PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) an analytical tool that uses point data, a digital elevation model, and other spatial data sets to generate gridded estimates of monthly, yearly, and event-based climatic parameters, such as precipitation, temperature, and dew point.
Data Sources
Demographic data (Human)
Gridded Population Data http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw/global.jsp
US Census Bureau - domestic data and international data
United Nations Population Data
US geographic information
Remotely sensed data (raw and processed)
Alex Leroux's table of all satellite-borne sensors lots of publicly available satellite data
ITC's database of Satellites and Sensors ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) is an imaging instrument flying on Terra, a satellite launched in December 1999 as part of NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS).
SPOT (Satelite Pour Observation de la Terre) data, processed as NDVI from the Belgian Vegetation Programme
FRAP Data
The GIS data depot - The GISDataDepot is THE place on the web to download free data for use with your GIS or CAD software. You'll also have access to GIS Data focussed news, feature articles, and tools. Okay, so some of the data isn't at all free, and they will try to get you to order a CD-ROM of it for money.
Download Kenya GIS Data | World Resources Institute
USGS Global Visualization Viewer -
GLCF - Global Land Cover Facility - University of Maryland. Over 27,000 free Landsat images, SRTM DEM data, MODIS data and data products
LP-DAAC - Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center, including MODIS and ASTER Data of the United States
Goddard DAAC FTP site
Landsat Pathfinder Program
Tropical Rainforest Information Center NASA data and information, particularly deforestation data.
Remote Sensing Tutorials
CCRS Remote Sensing Tutorial
CCRS Remote Sensing Glossary Database
The Pixel Page: Ken Castleman's Digital Image Processing (DIP) Page RSCC VOLUME 3 - Introductory Digital Image Processing
Other People's Pages
Forrest Stevens' free tools online page (GIS, Stats, Office-type, etc.)
File Management
Ken Rename - a useful piece of freeware that lets you batch edit attributes of files; particularly useful if you're going between GIS filetypes, or if you just downloaded an entire camera's memory (link is to the creator's blog, so that the sourcefile location can be found with updates)