DEVELOPING AN INTERNET GEODATABASE FOR A NATURE CONSERVANCY USING ARCIMS

An Internet geodatabase has been established by the authors for the Radford University Nature Conservancy in Montgomery County, Virginia using ArcIMS. The geodatabase serves as an information and educational tool for students, faculty, and local residents. It contains various maps, photographs, and projects related to the Nature Conservancy. It allows Internet users to view spatial information such as geologic and soils maps, local hydrography, Landsat and SPOT satellite imagery, aerial photography, Land Use-Land Cover (LULC), and digital elevation model (DEM) data.

The geodatabase is organized into commonly used spatial information. This information contains metadata that allows it to be linked together within the geodatabase. Internet users can browse the geodatabase, query it for specific information and perform a limited amount of data analyzation. The Internet geodatabase serves as the beginning step towards an open archive specifically dedicated to the Nature Conservancy. It is logically designed to give Internet users easy access to the spatial information. Expansion of the Internet geodatabase will be made possible as more spatial information becomes available through future student and faculty research projects at the Nature Conservancy.