Whether helping determine water quality in an area
or assisting city managers with zoning laws, newly
updated software recently released by the Center for
Applied Geographic and Spatial Research (CAGSR)
at Baylor University can get the job done. "We put the
software on our server (Monday) at noon and have
already seen record numbers of downloads and hits to
our web page," said Steve Clamons, research scientist
with CAGSR.

This major update of the GRASS Geographic
Information System (GIS) software package is the first
update of its kind in nearly a decade. GRASS, which
stands for Geographic Resource Analysis and Support
System, is a public domain GIS used for data
management, image processing, graphics production,
spatial modeling and visualization of any type of
spatial data. Originally written by the U.S. Army
Construction Engineering Research Laboratories
(USA-CERL), GRASS is currently used by an
estimated 30,000 people in academic and commercial
settings around the world, as well as many
governmental agencies, like NASA and the National
Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The
web site currently receives more than 3,000 hits daily;
that number is expected to double.

One major undertaking of CAGSR is using GRASS
to assist in water resources research projects. Clamons
said this research can help develop policies for better
water management. Other CAGSR staff involved with
the GIS at Baylor include Bruce Byars, research
scientist, and Dr. G.W. Willis, director of the center. In
addition to CAGSR's staff, cooperators at the
University of Hannover in Germany, University of
illinois and USA-CERL also contributed to the
software release. By a cooperative agreement with
USA-CERL, the headquarters for GRASS support,
research and development was transferred to Baylor in
1997. In addition to upkeep of the GRASS GIS,
CAGSR also performs research projects and is
responsible for GIS education across the Baylor
campus.

For more information, call CAGSR at (254)
710-6814 or visit the GRASS GIS web site at
http://www.baylor.edu/~grass/.

The latest *stable* GRASS 4.2.1 you find at
http://www.geog.uni-hannover.de/grass/
GRASS 5.0 is a beta release, stable version(s) shall follow later
this year.
If you want to start with GRASS, we recommend GRASS 4.2.1.
On line GRASS documentation at
http://www.geog.uni-hannover.de/grass/main_docu.html
 

The following base map layers are included on Volume 1 of the US
Data CD: (click for sample image)
Raster Maps
     STATSGO Soils
     Low Resolution Digital Elevation Model (1000m)
     High Resolution Digital Elevation Model (100m)
     Land Use/Land Cover
     Major Land Resource Regions
     State Boundaries
     County Boundaries
     2, 4, and 8 digit Hydrologic Unit Areas
     AVHRR Forestry Cover

Vector Maps
     State Boundaries
     County Boundaries
     Major Land Resource Areas
     Hydrologic Unit Areas
     Runoff

Site Maps
     Reservoir locations

Coming Soon:
  Volume 1 Base data CDs in ARCView shapefile format!
  Volume 1 Base data CDs divided by 2-digit Hydrologic Unit Areas,
  instead of by state boundaries!
  Volume 2 Climatalogical data and more GIS for the entire country.