Overview

 One of the key goals of the USGS 

Geography Discipline is to assess the 

Nation’s land resources at a range of 

spatial and temporal scales to understand 

the rates, causes, and consequences of 

landscape change over time. Quick and 

easy access to a common set of data and 

tools will significantly improve scientists’ 

ability to address these types of key 

questions about global, national, and 

regional land cover usage and its potential 

impacts. The USGS Rocky Mountain 

Geographic Science Center has developed 

the Global Data Toolset (GDT) to support 

these needs. The core objective of the 

GDT is to provide a web-enabled ecoregional spatial framework by providing 

access to a wide range of data from the 

global to regional scale, as well as the 

tools needed to answer complex questions 

about the effects of humans on the 

environment.

GDT Functionality

All of the web-enabled tools required 

to load and manage a rich geospatial 

database and perform advanced editing 

and delivery of data is contained in the 

GDT. This includes access to a publicly 

available application that contains basic 

data viewing and access functionality. 

This viewer also allows users to switch 

between a North American or Global 

view of the underlying database, allowing 

quick and easy access for both global and 

regional activities. This public application 

also includes map navigation (zoom 

and pan), attribute identification, map 

printing, metadata access, and help. 

Global Data Toolset (GDT)

Rocky Mountain Geographic Science Center

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

 Fact Sheet 2007-3104

 December 2007

According to the United Nations Environment 

Programme World Conservation Monitoring 

Centre (UNEP-WCMC) approximately 60 

percent of the data contained in the World 

Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) has 

missing or incomplete boundary information. 

As a result, global analyses based on the 

WDPA can be inaccurate, and professionals 

responsible for natural resource planning 

and priority setting must rely on incomplete 

geospatial data sets.

To begin to address this problem the World 

Data Center for Biodiversity and Ecology, in 

cooperation with the U. S. Geological Survey 

(USGS) Rocky Mountain Geographic Science 

Center (RMGSC), the National Biological 

Information Infrastructure (NBII), the Global 

Earth Observation System, and the InterAmerican Biodiversity Information Network 

(IABIN) sponsored a Protected Area (PA) 

workshop in Asuncion, Paraguay, in November 2007. The primary goal of this workshop was to train representatives from eight 

South American countries on the use of the Global Data Toolset (GDT) for reviewing and editing PA data. Use of the GDT will 

allow PA experts to compare their national data to other data sets, including non-governmental organization (NGO) and WCMC 

data, in order to highlight inaccuracies or gaps in the data, and then to apply any needed edits, especially in the delineation of the 

PA boundaries. In addition, familiarizing the participants with the web-enabled GDT will allow them to maintain and improve 

their data after the workshop. Once data edits have been completed the GDT will also allow the country authorities to perform 

any required review and validation processing. Once validated, the data can be used to update the global WDPA and IABIN 

databases, which will enhance analysis on global and regional levels.

Examples of Protected Area data available from various sources. 
The GDT password protected application 

contains more advanced functionality 

and access to additional scientific data. 

It also allows access to web-enabled 

data management tools that allow data 

owners to perform data update, review, 

and validation tasks against their specific 

data layers. Pilots are currently underway 

with the World Conservation Monitoring 

Centre (Protected Areas) to exploit 

these more advanced data management 

capabilities. The additional functionality 

provided by these tools allows an editor 

to add feature polygons by digitizing an 

area on the screen, uploading a polygon 

shapefile, or copying a polygon from 

another layer (WCMC, NGO, or PAD). 

Editors can also delete or update spatial 

data and update the attributes associated 

with a particular feature. Advanced 

feature query and display capabilities are 

also included to allow for the easy review 

and acceptance (that is, validation) of 

edited data. 

This powerful password protected 

application is controlled by a multilayered access system that supports 

different types of user accounts including: 

guests (data viewing), editors (data 

editing), and masters (data validation 

and access control). The easy to use 

account management system allows 

for the web-based addition, deletion, 

and editing of system accounts. The 

first step in the account process is the 

establishment of master accounts for 

each identified category of users/data (for 

example, Birdlife International). Once 

master accounts have been established, 

the users of these accounts are allowed 

complete access to both the account 

management system and the associated 

data layers. For instance, master account 

owners can easily add/delete/update 

other user accounts, and they are the only 

users allowed to “validate” associated 

data (that is, accept previously applied 

feature edits). Users with editor access 

are allowed to edit the data features 

associated with a particular category 

of users. Finally, users granted guest 

accounts are allowed access to only the 

simple data display and query tools. 

This capability for multi-layered data 

access allows GDT to seamlessly support 

the full-range of users from the general 

public, who need to perform simple data 

viewing and querying tasks, to specific 

organizations tasked with data editing, 

update, and validation requirements.

GDT Data

A wide variety of geospatial data is 

contained in the GDT including global 

data for protected areas, ecoregions, 

amphibian habitats, biodiversity hotspots, 

high biodiversity wilderness areas, 

hydrography, landcover, elevation, and 

population. This data was collected 

from various organizations including 

the IUCN-World Conservation Union, 

Conservation International, the 

World Wildlife Fund, and the World 

Conservation Monitoring Centre, as 

well as from several non-governmental 

agencies including the Atlas de Costa 

Rica, Guyra Paraguay, the National 

Marine Protected Areas Center, The 

Nature Conservancy, U.N. World Heritage 

Sites (UNESCO), and World Resources 

Institute. 

Scientific data included in the password 

protected application includes the 

amphibian habitats from the Global 

Amphibian Assessment (GAA) program, 

coordinated by the IUCN-World 

Conservation Union, Conservation 

International, and NatureServe. This data 

contains a comprehensive assessment 

of the conservation status of the world’s 

5,743 known species of frogs, toads, 

salamanders, and caecilians. Additional 

amphibian data includes point data from 

the Global Biodiversity Information 

Facility (GBIF). 

Summary

The GDT combines access to geospatial 

databases and analytical tools into a single 

web-accessible system. This combination 

of quick and easy access to a common 

set of data and sophisticated tools can 

significantly improve scientists’ ability to 

both address and answer key questions 

about global, national, and regional land 

cover usage and its potential impacts. In 

addition, the advanced editing capability 

will allow users responsible for natural 

resource planning to easily update their 

geospatial datasets. Regional studies 

can be easily added allowing for a fast 

dissemination of data to those in the 

scientific community responsible for 

analysis of the data.

Contacts

Jill Cress, Computer Scientist 

United States Geological Survey 

Rocky Mountain Geographic Science 

Center

Denver Federal Center 

Lakewood, CO 80225 

e-mail: jjcress@usgs.gov

Jodi Riegle, Computer Scientist

United States Geological Survey 

Rocky Mountain Geographic Science 

Center

Denver Federal Center 

Lakewood, CO 80225 

e-mail: jlriegle@usgs.gov

URL: http://rmgsc.cr.usgs.gov/gitan

Example of a Regional Study Application