Science in Practice Portal

This technical note is designed to assist Bureau of Land Management (BLM) resource specialists and managers in selecting the most economical and beneficial system for collecting field data and mapping geographic coordinates of both resource and cultural data. Five categories of systems are included: terrestrial positioning systems; cartographic reference systems; aerial photography, orthophotography, and photogrammetric based systems; satellite remote sensing systems; and satellite positioning systems. Systems within each of these categories are described, and their main uses and resource mapping potential are discussed.