The National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) county photographs are available on the North Dakota GIS web site. The photographs are 1-meter resolution color aerial images acquired during the growing season by the USDA starting in 2003. Only the 2003 images for North Dakota are available free for downloading. The 2003 downloads are courtesy of the Natural Resources Conservation Service and North Dakota Geological Survey. Images from 2004 and 2005 can be purchased from the USDA’s Aerial Photography Field Office in Salt Lake City.
The NAIP images are geo-referenced to a map-coordinate system and zone used by the USDA for all of its digital GIS data. This means that users can display the imagery in a GIS program on their computer and add other GIS layers, such as their digital field boundaries, GPS points and harvest yield data. These additional GIS layers will be displayed in the correct space on the images. The primary purpose of the 1-meter NAIP imagery is to support USDA field service centers located in counties throughout the U.S.
The NAIP image provides sufficient detail to recognize variations in soil type, crop development, range quality and drainage problems. The imagery also could be useful for a variety of activities from recreation to rural business. The imagery provides a detailed background view to identify and quantify features on the ground.
