Forest Inventory: Documenting a geodatabase

Introduction

Forest inventories invariably contain abbreviated field names and coded data. Short field names and coded data save significant storage space, especially for inventories covering large geographic areas involving tens of thousands of forest features, and are more compact for computer screen display. For someone unfamiliar with the inventory, however, short field names and coded values are impossible to interpret without reference to a data dictionary. Often, the dictionary is maintained offline in a hard-copy document and not readily accessible.

One advantage of storing your data in a geodatabase is that you can define descriptive aliases for attribute fields, just as you can for entire feature classes, and further, you can add descriptions for the often-bewildering array of field data codes.

How does a geodatabase accomplish this?

Location

A small 1400 ha woodlot in the Acadian-New England forest region of North America.

Time to complete the lab

Approximately 3 hours

Prerequisites

A basic working knowledge of GIS and ArcGIS software in particular. Experience with the geodatabase will be helpful too. Familiarity with the Woodlot geodatabase inventory is essential.

Data used in this lab

A personal geodatabase of several feature classes and rasters for a small (1,400 ha) woodlot in the Acadian-New England forest region of North America (All data is NAD83 datum with New Brunswick Double Stereographic projection, unless otherwise stated.).