{"id":1974,"date":"2018-03-29T15:00:59","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T02:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.lincoln.ac.nz\/gis\/?p=1974"},"modified":"2018-03-29T15:00:59","modified_gmt":"2018-03-29T02:00:59","slug":"where-this-is-no-elevation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lincoln.ac.nz\/gis\/where-this-is-no-elevation\/","title":{"rendered":"Where This Is No Elevation"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post covers how elevations for dragonfly observation points data for Vanuatu were sourced from a space shuttle mission in 2000.<\/em><\/p>\n

For creatures that weigh way less than a gram<\/a>, dragonflies have certainly kept me busy over the years.\u00a0 We’ve already seen how my colleague, Milen, used some offline maps<\/a> on his phone to collect observations in Vanuatu, as well as some mapping complications in Taveuni<\/a>.\u00a0 And there’s more to come as we work on mapping species diversity across the Pacific.<\/p>\n

But now another installment in the continuing dragonfly <\/a>story.\u00a0 After Milen collected his observations in Vanuatu, he came back with a simple request: could he please have the elevations of all the observations?\u00a0 My first reaction was, ummmm, sure, easy, but I haven’t got any elevation data for Vanuatu!\u00a0 I haven’t even got any contours.\u00a0 So what’s a spatial analyst to do?<\/p>\n

Like most, my first stop was Google, but to no avail.\u00a0 Unlike New Zealand, such data aren’t easily available.\u00a0 I found a few sites, but no actual data I could use.\u00a0 Koordinates.com<\/a> has tons of data and lots for Oceania, but none for Vanuatu.\u00a0 These sites had maps and some very nice pictures, but no actual data:<\/p>\n