Archiving and Distributing Three Long-Term Interconnected Geospatial Data Sets

Repeat remote sensing field campaigns at experimental sites result in a valuable set of remote sensing data resources, geographic information system data sets, digitized maps, and tabular data that are tied to specific locations. Archiving and distributing these geospatial data generally become the responsibility of local universities and federal research centers with few resources dedicated to the task. The developments in archiving and distributing geospatial data are presented through the description and discussion of three interconnected case studies of data preservation at government and academic units in southeastern Arizona. The main challenges were associated with data archiving, developing online data distribution systems, interconnecting the data distribution systems, and sustaining the archiving and distribution systems. The case studies present multiple approaches to meeting these challenges within the constraints of government and academic units. Results should guide other local efforts to archive and preserve long-term geospatial data and distribute them online.