Products are
produced for both internal and external (general public) use. In 1998,
map-type products were produced for internal Agency
distribution based on geo-referenced Monthly Agricultural Yield Survey
data at the county level, and Weekly Crop Progress and Condition Survey
data. These maps are kept internal due to
the administratively confidential nature of the individual survey
responses
and to protect any pre-release of aggregated survey information. An
example
of county and weekly growing degree information can be seen here ,this information
was based upon data received from the Midwestern Climate Center for
major corn states.
For 1999, the map
products based on survey data will continue to be generated for
internal Agency use. The 1999 growing season will be updated on a
weekly basis to allow for a
visual year-to-year comparison. Feedback on the 1998 version will be
sought
from crop statisticians in Washington, D. C., and in the field
offices.
As a result of
reviewing the internally used version, a public version for 2000 that
protects the
confidentiality of individual farmer reported data and pre-release of
survey
data will likely be developed and be mapped at the Agricultural
Statistical
District (about 10 counties) level.
For external
distribution, county estimate maps
were produced for the 1998 crop season and were placed on the Internet
for public access. These include planted acreage, harvested acreage,
yield and production for major US crops. County estimate maps for the
1999 crop season will be placed on the Internet for public access as
they are available in early 2000.
Special
requests for spatial products based on or related to NASS data will be
managed as
they appear; these include reaction to natural disasters, improved
spatial
graphics in publications, and spatial organization of survey data. New
data
base layers will be continually explored including such data as soil
characteristics
and watershed boundaries which can be used to enhance currently
available
agency data. New spatial products will be developed and
distributed.
Based on an expressed
Agency interest in an address based geocoding software engine, an
initial search for an appropriate engine has begun for a test pilot of
one state. Attempting to apply geocoding software and related data
files to the list sampling frame of one pilot state would give NASS
some insight into the
worth of geocoding the list frame. Geographic coordinates can be
obtained
by various methods which include direct management with GPS devices,
matching
to external sources of data files containing geographic coordinates,
and
geocoding or assigning location coordinates based on information
contained
in each record. Each method is associated with a different level of
accuracy
and cost, and the relevance of the levels must be determined.
