Location Table for Points

< Back to Glossary | Edit with Form

Location_Table_for_Points Description: [[TermDesc::This table describes the Station Point Data location dimension. It contains at least loc_code, lat and lon columns and optional more detailed information. The data tables can then be normalized, they only need the loc_code to identify from which location the data came from. Feature Processor for Points returns this location table. Location Configuration for Points publishes this table to the framework.]]

Glossary Domain: WCS

Related Links

Links to this page
[[Links::Location Configuration for Points SQL Database for Points Location Configuration for Points]]

Contributors

No Contributors

History

No History Available

Term Details

The fields that datafed uses are:

• Mandatory fields:

• • loc_code: A unique text field, used to identify a location.
  • lat: Latitude of the location in degrees_north
  • Lon: Elevation of the location in degrees_east

• Optional datafed fields:

• • loc_name: Reasonably short text describing location.
  • elev: elevation in meters.

• data specific fields:
  • Any field with any name

Good loc_codes are short abbreviations like ACAD and YOSE for Acadia and Yosemite National Parks. Completely numeric loc codes are possible, but more difficult to recognize and since leading zeros are significant, tools like excel may think they're numbers and cut them off.

If the loc_codes are long, like 9 characters, it's useful to generate a numeric 16-bit primary key for the location table and use it for joining the data tables with the location table. This may help in indexing and speed things up quite a bit.

Part of the CIRA/VIEWS location CSV:

   loc_code, loc_name, lat, lon, elev
   WHRI1, White River NF, 39.1536, -106.8209, 3413.5
   WICA1, Wind Cave, 43.5576, -103.4838, 1296
   WIMO1, Wichita Mountains, 34.7323, -98.713, 509
   YELL2, Yellowstone NP 2, 44.5653, -110.4002, 2425

CIRA/VIEWS location table