U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

Fact Sheet 2004–3139

December, 2004

Historic Aerial Photography of the Greater Everglades - 

Archive and Geodatabase Development

Printed on recycled paper

A digital archive of historical aerial photographs for the 

Greater Everglades is an essential tool for building a scientific 

understanding of the evolution of the south Florida landscape. 

It provides the framework needed to develop a geodatabase - a 

relational database that can store geographic data. The geodatabase has the advantages of a database management system 

in that all the data, regardless of format (e.g. tabular, vector, 

raster, etc.), can be stored in the same database. These data can 

function together as one integrated system governed by a set of 

topological rules and logical relationships that can be accessed 

by scientists and managers working in the Greater Everglades 

Ecosystem.

A project to develop an Everglades Historic Aerial Photography (EHAP) Archive was initiated by the USGS Florida 

Integrated Science Center in 2001, when the Center began 

compiling some of the 25,000 known historical aerial photographs of the Greater Everglades into a comprehensive archive 

of rectified, high-resolution, digital aerial photography. Aerial 

photography from the archives of several federal and state agencies were scanned at high resolution (800dpi) and stored as .tiff 

format images. Extensive metadata about the photography and 

the digital imagery was also collected and stored in a relational 

database structure. After scanning the photographs, unreferenced mosaics of flight lines were constructed to indicate the 

general locations of the photography. Each mosaic was then 

georeferenced, and approximate flight lines and center points of 

each photograph were digitized. The entire set of imagery from 

1940 has now been rectified. Small samples of the sets from 

1953, 1964, 1987 and 1992 have also been rectified (fig. 1). In 

addition, U. S. Coast & Geodetic Survey topographic sheets 

(T-sheets) based on 1927 aerial photography of the coastal area 

have been georeferenced.

The EHAP Archives database stores information about the 

historic photography at several levels. At its most basic, it functions as a catalog of individual photographs, recording where 

each is stored and details about the flight, the camera, and 

quality of the photography. More comprehensively, the database 

functions as a storehouse of metadata for the digital imagery; 

images of the photographs are cataloged and information about 

the scanning process and resultant imagery is recorded. Any 

further processing of the imagery is also detailed, along with 

by-product spatial information from the process. For example, 

if a digital image is rectified, metadata about the projection 

parameters, resolution, spatial coordinates and rectification error 

are recorded. By including geographically referenced information, the database functions as a rudimentary geodatabase in the 

context of a geographical information system. As of November 

2005, the EHAP Archives database listed 119 sets of photography, 8,502 photographic records, and 6,695 scanned image 

records, approximately 1,800 of which have been rectified.

The EHAP Archives are now being used in a pilot project 

to develop and test a geodatabase in South Florida. One subset 

region of the Greater Everglades, the Southern Inland and 

Coastal System (SICS), was selected for the pilot project. Data 

sets were chosen to span the scope of the EHAP Archives, 

including image layers from 1927, 1940, 1953, 1964, 1987 

and 1995. The SICS geodatabase is a scientific data resource 

intended to contribute to ongoing and future scientific studies 

in the region, including studies related to climate and vegetation change over time. The geodatabase provides a graphic, 

geographically-referenced interface by which the raster imagery 

can be linked to relevant metadata tables of the EHAP Archives, 

for query and analysis.

For more information about the geodatabase concept, go to 

http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/about/geodatabase.html .

Archived photography collected during this study can be 

found on the South Florida Information Access (SOFIA) web 

page at http://sofia.er.usgs.gov . 

Early map. 1940 image. 1995 image.
SICS AREA

CONVERSA CONVERSATION AREA TION AREA

CENTER POINT OF

AVAILABLE IMA AILABLE IMAGES

1940 Photography

1964 Photography

1987 Photography

0 50 KILOMETERS

0 50 MILES

82° 81° 80°

25°

26°

27°

EXPLANATION

Three products of this study include:

Foster, A.M., A.W. Coffin, K.M. Capobianco, and T.J. 

Smith III. 2004. Creation of a Geospatially Rectified Digital 

Archive of the 1940 Aerial Photography Photoset: South 

Florida and the Everglades. Report to the U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineers, October 2004. DVD.

Smith, T.J. III, A.M. Foster, P.R. Briere, J.W. Jones & 

C. Van Arsdall. 2002. Conversion of historical topographic 

sheets (T-sheets) to digital form: Florida Everglades and 

vicinity. USGS, Open-File Report 02-204. CD-ROM, and

Smith, T.J., III, A.M. Foster, P.R. Briere, A.W. Coffin, 

J.W. Jones & C. Van Arsdall. 2003. Historical aerial photography for the Greater Everglades of south Florida: The 1940, 

1:40,000 photoset. USGS, Open-File Report 02-327. DVD.

Figure 1. Map showing approximate locations of selected EHAP Archives photography and the SICS study area.

Contact Information 

Ann Foster

U.S. Geological Survey 

412 NE 16th Avenue, Room 250

Gainesville, Florida 32601-3071

352-372-2571 (phone) 352-374-8080 (fax)

ann_foster@usgs.gov