Presentation
Thanks to the resources of the European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT; see http://www.e-taxonomy.eu/) our team has been able to compile a huge amount of digital cartography come from freely but dispersed available sources, placing them in a free web page (/GISdownloads.html) translating they to a unified and standard format. This database contain topographic, climatic, land use, vegetation, human population raster maps as well as vectorial maps on countries, provinces or UTM squares being in constant enhancement. This information is a valuable source of data for basic and applied biogeographical studies, which are difficult to access due to their location in many web pages and the frequent differences in the standards and resolutions used in the original sources:
- Surface units:
- Geoplatform MNCN (Spanish Museum of Natural Sciences)
- European Environmental Agency (EEA)
- Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG)
- Environmental data:
- WorldClim
- WorldClim - Future climate
- Köppen-Geiger climate classification
- Global Landcover Facility
- Land Cover Map for Europe in the Year 2000 (European Commision)
- Gridded Population of the World
- Weather Underground
- Clark Labs
- Biological data:
- Digital Distribution Maps of the World's Amphibians
Any suggestion, comment, or information about new sources of geographic information will be very welcome. Please contact with us at:
Jorge Miguel Lobo (the top guy): mcnj117@mncn.csic.es
Teresa Cuartero: cuartero@mncn.csic.es
