GIS and Digital Spatial Data Research Guide

(Data.CA.gov) - Data and geo data from the state of California.

(State of California) - Find and use geospatial data from the state of California.

(Coordinated Legal Technologies) - Directory of county GIS sites.

The CNDD inventories the status and locations of rare plants and animals in California.

(California Energy Commission) - Includes GIS data sets and research on climate change risks in specific geographic areas throughout California.

(California GAP Analysis Project) - Contains GIS data sets developed for the California GAP Analysis Project. Data is available in statewide datasets or in subsets by ecological region and is available in ARC/INFO export file format. Datasets include landcover, land stewardship and ownership, Jepson ecological region boundaries, predicted distribution of 455 terrestrial vertebrate species, and other basic reference datasets. The same data is available on the GAP Analysis of Mainland California: An Interactive Atlas of Terrestrial Biodiversity and Land Management (Atlas QH 76.5 C2 C34 1995).

(California Department of Fish and Game)

(California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Fire and Resource Assessment Program) - Contains approximately 50 datasets in ARC/INFO or shapefile export format that relate mainly to California forestry, fire, land use, and vegetation.

(UC Berkeley) - MapUp interface allows users to discover geospatial data holdings, preview geospatial data, create custom maps using a web browser, and download geospatial data in a variety of formats. Currently contains over 9,000 geospatial data layers from UC Berkeley, Harvard University, and MIT that are sourced from national, state, county, and local government sources of freely available data, purchased by the library, or contributed by users of GeoData@UC Berkeley. All government-provided data is free for anyone to use. Some data purchased by the library and contributed data are restricted for use by UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff.

(California Department of Transportation Office of GIS)

(US Forest Service. Pacific Southwest Region) - Includes geospatial data for national forests in California, along with regionwide, provincewide, and statewide datasets. Includes existing vegetation on national forests and other lands in California through a cooperative mapping program with California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

(USGS National Water Information System) - Includes data and statistics on water in California.

(Association of Bay Area Governments) - Includes Census, earthquake and other hazard geospatial data for the Bay Area.

Encompasses the central coast of California.

U.S. Geological Survey Western Geographic Science Center) - Includes general information, digital data, online maps and images of Lake Tahoe.

The Data Explorer and the Data Index can be used to identify and access natural resource geospatial data for the entire Mojave Desert eco-region.

(Sierra Planning Organization and Sierra Economic Development District)

Includes reference maps, downloadable gis data and an interactive mapper for the counties of El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba.

(San Diego Association of Governments) - Includes several interactive mappers and downloadable geospatial data.

(City and County of San Diego) - Geographic data warehouse that includes a map gallery, an interactive mapper and downloadable geospatial data.

(U.S. Geological Survey Western Geographic Science Center) - Includes the Bay Area Digital Map Library.

(Information Center for the Environment, UC Davis) - Maps and data available.

(Southern California Association of Governments) - Search metadata information and download data.

(UC Berkeley Water Center)

(US EPA) Dataset produced for the Western EMAP Northern California Pilot Study Area (NCPSA). The dataset study area includes the Pacific Ocean coastline from Tomales Bay in California to the mouth of the Rogue River in Oregon on the west, the Oregon-California state line to near Goose Lake on the north, and the western edge of California’s Central Valley to near the community of Petaluma on the east and south. The purpose of the dataset is to help resource managers "understand and access the status and trends in the condition of the area's ecological resources and the stressors affecting these systems." The dataset includes layers for hydrograhy, land cover, roads, vegetation, soils, land ownership, mines, regulated facilities, and demography. Also included is the Analytical Tools Interface for Landscape Assessments (ATtILA) ArcView extension that allows users to calculate common landscape metrics, including landscape, riparian, and physical characteristics, and human stresses.

(North Coast Integrated Regional Water Management Plan) - Data and research on watersheds of California's North Coast. Includes watershed maps and a library of research documents.