National Park Service - Park Atlas

Denver Service Center Planning Division; Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

A Park Atlas is a GIS product that is published as a hard copy paper atlas and as electronic geospatial data in a web-mapping environment. The purpose of the park atlas is to act as a reference for park projects and daily operations as well as to facilitate planning decisions as a GIS-based planning support tool. The park atlas is currently being developed as part of the park Foundation Document process, although it can also be created as an independent product. The park atlas is composed of 3 main processes: 1. Gathering of existing data and subsequent data management 2. Creation of a paper-based map atlas and development of a web-mapping site 3. QA/QC and product distribution Data gathering usually involves the mining of existing geospatial data from a variety of sources including park, region, I&M, and WASO GIS programs, the NPS Data Store (Integrated Resource Management Application - IRMA), and other federal and local agencies. Topics (which include multiple data layers) to be shown in the atlas depend on the needs of the project and/or park. The typical topic categories are: • Existing conditions, • Visitor use, • Facilities and concessions, • Natural resources, • Cultural resources, and • Property ownership The paper atlas is a large format "book" of maps with each page showing a specific topic or related topics. The page size of the atlas can be set to be appropriate for the scale of the data being presented and its intended use, with the standard template size being 24"x36." All maps will be creating using the same map template, which includes standard map items (scale, title, author, north arrow, legend, date). The park will be provided with a paper and digital copy of the atlas upon completion of the project. Web maps are developed based on the data and topic categories identified for the paper atlas and use similar symbols and color schemes as the paper maps. Web maps can be utilized in planning workshops and meetings as a tool to help visualize park resources, develop alternatives, and provide QA/QC for data accuracy. Web maps also enable non-GIS users from parks and national or regional programs to interactively view, analyze, and map geographic data. Web maps can be publicly available or for internal use only. They can also be password protected and secured against unauthorized viewers. Internal web mapping sites for the Park Atlas program can be accessed here: http://insideparkatlas.nps.gov/

National Park Service - Park Atlas

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