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BLM launches new Web-based tools for
accessing land use records
October 13, 2004
Washington, D.C., October 7, 2004 - The Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) has announced two new web-based data tools with its GeoCommunicator
http://www.geocommunicator.gov/ website:
“Land and Mineral Use Records” and “Federal Land Stewardship.”
GeoCommunicator is a website for the distribution of spatial data from the BLM’s Land and Minerals Records System and the joint BLM-U.S. Forest Service U.S. National Integrated Land System (NILS).
The Land and Mineral Use Records tool http://www.geocommunicator.gov/GeoComm/landmin/home/index.html allows
users to search, locate, access, and display records of the use
authorizations that the BLM issues to the public for commodities and
uses such as oil and gas, coal, sand, gravel, grazing, communication
sites, and right-of-ways.
This is the first time the land and mineral use
record and mining claim data has been available, spatially, from the
BLM.
Currently, the new application contains mining
claims and oil and gas parcels only. More data will be made available
each quarter.
The Federal Land Stewardship tool http://www.geocommunicator.gov/GeoComm/fedland/home/index.html,
a part of the NILS solution allows users to search, locate, and
display the federal land management boundaries for federal lands in
the United States.
The browser-based viewer can be used to graphically
or textually locate the federal land of interest.
Users can select by township and range, latitude
and longitude, federal land name, or by drawing a box on a map.
The results of the search will display the selected
area with symbolized boundaries that indicate the federal surface
management agencies responsible for the federal lands.
Users are able to view or “stream” live data
directly to their desktop for use in GIS applications.
The data represents the "best available"
seamless source of the federal surface management agency boundaries.
Much of the BLM data has been snapped to the Public
Land Survey System, making it more accurate than previous versions of
the data layers.
"We are very excited about these tools,”
said Tom Lonnie, the BLM’s Assistant Director for Minerals, Realty
and Resource Protection. “The creation of a national seamless
dataset will allow information to be more accurate and more readily
accessed and will ultimately save the public a lot of time and effort.
By giving the public greater access to data they can use, these tools
help make government more responsive and cost-effective, which is the
goal of the President’s E-Government initiative.”
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