NetMap is a one of a kind landscape analysis computational platform. It is unique in several respects including: 1) the design and functionality of its digital landscapes, 2) large geographic coverage of the digital landscapes, eliminating the need for a user to build their own geospatial data structure, 3) the coupled set of 80 user friendly decision support tools, 4) online technical help consisting of approximately 600 pages of hyperlinked materials describing the use, origin and example applications of the tools, attributes and analyses, and 5) support and maintenance that ensures that your technology will have continuity into the future.

 

NetMap has three defining characteristics: (1) A consistent digital (virtual) landscape where landforms and physical and biological processes are placed in context with spatial patterns of human activities and infrastructure. This allows users in different locations and with different concerns to quickly access a common technical infrastructure (digital landscape) integrated with similar types of data in a consistent numerical format. (2) Multi-application decision support tools that integrate with the digital landscape, designed with input from stakeholders, to address a wide range of issues pertinent to the relationships between aquatic and terrestrial habitats and single to multiple overlapping stressors. Thus, stakeholders can analyze dissimilar landscapes in similar ways to promote common methods, vocabularies and problem solving techniques, serving to increase communication and collaboration within and across agencies and stakeholders in LCCs. (3) System sustainability in which all stakeholders contribute to the long term support, maintenance and scientific and software evolution of the platform.

 

The only currently available partial facsimile of a digital landscape is the National Hydrographic Dataset (NHD+) which is coupled to the 10 m NED (hydro DEM).  The NHD+, however, contains a series of shortcomings that make it largely unsuitable for analytic applications, because its design reflects its major purpose: a spatial cataloguing of the US rivers and streams. The NHD contains significant spatial variations in stream density across landscapes, and even within single watersheds, because of the diverse origins of the cartographic depictions of channel networks; thus the NHD lacks consistency, particularly in the headwater component of landscapes. The NHD is inexactly coupled to the digital terrain model (NED) because channels are “burned in”,  yielding mismatches between topography and streams, a consequence of the NHD not being derived directly from the DEM via flow accumulation. Lengthy channel segments (typically multi kilometers) do not allow for fine scale delineation of channel-hillslope connections. The NHD lacks physical attributes (gradient, width, depth, and sinuosity) necessary to characterize channel types and aquatic habitats. Despite these limitations, the NHD is a valuable resource and is used in the digital landscape to delineate channel locations in areas of low relief and gradient, and for basin boundaries and lake features. The proposed cross talk tool will enable data transfer between the digital landscape and the NHD, providing value added to both.