This is land use/ land cover digital data for Yellowstone National Park (YELL) in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho collected by USGS and converted to ARC/INFO by the EPA. These data are useful for environmental assessment of land use patterns with respect to water quality analysis, growth management, and other types of environmental impact assessment. Use may be limited due to currency. Land use and land cover data (LU/LC) collected by the USGS NMD is useful for environmental assessment of land use patterns with respect to water quality analysis, growth management, and other types of environmental impact assessment. Data are meant to be used by quadrangle, or among adjacent quadrangles where temporally contiguous. Can be used in any geographic application where intermediate scale land use data are appropriate and the dates are representative. Each quadrangle of land use data has a different representative date. Date ranges from mid 1970s to early 1980s are common. When joined togethr these quadrangles will not likely match along edges due to differences in interpretation and time coverage. Edges of each map file were manually digitized and may not join neighboring maps. If GIRASNEAT program hasbeen applied (see LOG at end) then edges have been mathematically recalculated to join without overlap or gaps in coverage with adjacent maps. The GIRAS series can include several themes of spatial data. The most common, described here, is the land use and land cover data. Land use was mapped and coded using the Anderson classification system (Anderson others,1976) which is a hierarchical system of general (level 1) to more specific (level 2) characterization. Some agencies have taken this to a level 3 classification -- but this has not been done in the GIRAS series. The salient attribute managed for this polygon data set in the polygon attribute table (PAT) is the column named LUCODE containing the Anderson level 2 classification. The first digit represents the level one value and the second digit (ones place) represents the subdivision of the level 1 or level 2 value. The Anderson land use codes are: 1 Urban or built-up land 11 Residental 12 Commercial and services 13 Industrial 14 Transportation, communication, utilities 15 Industrial and commercial complexes 16 Mixed urban or built-up land 17 Other urban or built-up land 2 Agricultural land 21 Cropland and pasture 22 Orchards, groves, vineyards, nurseries, and ornamental horticultural 23 Confined feeeding operations 24 Other agricultural land 3 Rangeland 31 Herbaceous rangeland 32 Shrub and brush rangeland 33 Mixed rangeland 4 Forest land 41 Deciduous forest land 42 Evergreen forest land 43 Mixed forest land 5 Water 51 Streams and canals 52 Lakes 53 Reservoirs 54 Bays and estuaries 6 Wetland 61 Forested wetland 62 Nonforested wetland 7 Barren land 71 Dry salt flats 72 Beaches 73 Sandy areas not beaches 74 Bare exposed rock 75 Strip mines, quarries, gravel pits 76 Transitional areas 8 Tundra 81 Shrub and brush tundra 82 Herbaceous tundra 83 Bare ground 84 Wet tundra 85 Mixed tundra 9 Perennial snow or ice 91 Perennial snowfields 92 Glaciers GIRAS files are received by the USGS in 9-track ASCII format, one file per quadrangle. Files are loaded onto the hard disk of the computer from tape. Data are then processed with the GIRASARC2 program written in Arc Macro Language, part of the ARC/INFO geographic information system. This program was written by the USGS Water Resources Division to process the data into a consistent ARC/INFO format with a minimum of intervention. This GIRASARC2 AML program does the following: -- Converts the GIRAS data to ARC/INFO -- Reconstructs topology, creating line and polygon features -- Transforms the coverage into UTM and then, optionally into Albers Equal Area, using the registration points listed in the GIRAS file -- Notes transformation error, writing it to the bottom of the narrative file. -- Generates a synthetic neatline based on the mathematically-determined corners of the map -- Loads available documentation into a series of companion documentation files with each data set. -- Data may then be clipped against or extended to the synthetic neatline for ease in merging adjacent maps at a later date A GIRASNEAT AML program does the following: --standardize processing of coverages after use of girasarc2 AML, --clips in-cover with neatline cover, --dissolves polygon boundaries between polygon with the same item attribute --snaps exterior arcs to the arcs of the neatline cover with a tolerance of 40 meters Original conversion from GIRAS to ARC (see LOG for date and user ID) Data are reviewed visually by the user responsible for executing the GIRASARC2 program. The GIRASARC2 and GIRASNEAT programs were executed in Arc Macro Language to create this data set. The DOCUMENT AML (version 1.0) was used to manage the documentation and create this metadata file.