| The vision presented by Garden State Greenways wouldn’t
be possible without the use of computerized mapping
technologies collectively known as geographic information
systems (GIS). GIS allow for the integration and analysis
of many different types and sources of geographic information,
such as soil types, land uses and aquifer recharge zones.
The data layers available for download on this page
are intended for people with access to GIS software
that can view ESRI shapefiles. If you don’t have
access to any GIS software you have three choices: you
can view the data on our interactive
map server, you can download
our prepared county maps, or you can download ArcReader,
a free GIS data viewer from ESRI,
and then download the GSG data.
Anyone wishing to make use of the data should familiarize
themselves with the process used to create the hubs
and corridors that are central to the Garden State Greenways
concept. A brief summary of
the process is available, as is a complete and technical
description of the methodology
(PDF, 2.2 MB).
Limitations:
As with any GIS product, the Garden State Greenways
GIS data is subject to temporal, positional and attribute
accuracy limitations. Many data layers have been used
to create the GSG data, and each of these has their
own limitations. For example, developed areas in the
land use data used is current to the year 2000, while
endangered species scores for hubs is current as of
2002. For more information on the data layers involved
in the creation of the GSG data, please review the metadata
documents. The New Jersey Conservation Foundation, the
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and
all other providers of the data used in the Garden State
Greenways process make no guarantees about the accuracy
of the data and provide all data “as is”.
Data:
The following GSG GIS data is available for download
in ESRI shapefile format, zipped. The data is projected
to NJ State Plane, NAD 83 Feet. Four different hub data
sets are available, each based on a slightly different
land cover classification as explained below. Each hub
has number of attributes
associated with it.
- All
land cover classes (zip file, 14.6 MB)- The most
detailed, classifying hubs as upland forest, forested
wetlands, emergent wetlands and agriculture/grassland.
- Combined
forests (zip file, 7.8 MB) - This data sets combines
upland forests and forested wetlands into a single
forest land cover class.
- Combined
wetlands (zip file, 13.0 MB)- This data set combines
forested wetlands and emergent wetlands into a single
wetlands land cover class.
- Natural/agricultural
(zip file, 5.7 MB) - This data set combines upland
forest, forested wetlands and emergent wetlands into
a single natural lands land cover class.
- Connectors
(zip file, 9.8 MB) - This data set contains connectors
between important hubs. These connectors are orginally
generated as lines by least cost path and shortest
distance analysis, then buffered so they are 1/4 mile
wide.
An ArcView 3.x based planning tool that allow users
to quickly rank and idenitfy priorty hubs is available
here. |
