Designing Geodatabases - Case Studies in GIS Data Modeling

ESRI has been working with our GIS user community during the last several years to develop a set of "best practices" geodatabase designs for various application domains. These database designs are intended to help GIS users rapidly become productive with the geodatabase and to share "what really works" among our user and developer communities.

This book has two primary goals:

• Providing a series of domain data models that represent commonly used GIS data sets by applying best practices for GIS data modeling and collection. These data models are intended to provide a series of templates for implementing geodatabases for specific solutions.
• Communicating a practical GIS database design process. As a GIS professional, you will need to learn and apply practical GIS database design methods. Gaining GIS design skills will be important to your success in your job.

A series of designs derived from specific case studies are presented throughout the book, including:

• Streams and river networks
• Census units and boundaries
• Addresses and locations
• Parcels and the cadastre
• Federal lands survey
• Raster data use
• Cartography and the basemap

Building accurate geodatabases is the foundation for meaningful and reliable GIS. By documenting actual case studies of successful ArcGIS implementations, Designing Geodatabases makes it easier to envision your own database plan.