Explore the ArcGIS Living Atlas website
ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World contains thousands of layers contributed by GIS users around the world. These layers allow you to quickly find, integrate, and analyze information from a wide variety of disciplines. In this scenario, you are a researcher preparing to study the potential impact of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is being built on the Nile River in eastern Africa. Before you can begin, you need to learn about current water levels in the region. You'll start by exploring the content available in ArcGIS Living Atlas.
Browse and search for content
The easiest way to explore the content available in ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World is through its website.
- Browse to https://livingatlas.arcgis.com.
- At the top of the page, sign in to your ArcGIS Online account.
On the Home tab, you can search for content and read blogs and articles about new content and GIS methods. On the Browse tab, you can view the full catalog of ArcGIS Living Atlas content, including layers, web maps, applications, files, and more.
- Click the Browse tab.
Here you can browse by category or search for a phrase. To begin your research, you're hoping to find some global data collected by satellites.
- In the search bar, type water and press Enter.
More than a thousand results are returned. Below the search bar are categories for Trending, Basemaps, Imagery, Boundaries, People, Infrastructure, and Environment. These can help you narrow your search.
- Click the Environment button.
You now have a smaller subset of results about a wide range of topics such as weather, fires, and land cover.
- For All content types, click the drop-down menu and choose Layers.
There's still a lot of content available. You can filter it further.
- Click the drop-down menu for All regions and choose World.
- Scroll through the filtered list of layers and find the item named GLDAS Soil Moisture 2000 – Present. Click the thumbnail image.
The item page for the Soil Moisture layer appears. This information tells you that the layer shows monthly soil moisture content from 2000 to the present and is provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
ArcGIS Living Atlas content is contributed by many different people and groups, not only large organizations like NASA. But it is all curated and must meet certain requirements—including metadata—before it is included in the catalog. In ArcGIS Living Atlas, you'll always get a fully documented description of the data and its sources.
- Click Open in Map Viewer to see how this layer looks on a map. If prompted to sign in, do so.
Note:
Depending on your organizational settings, you may need to click the drop-down arrow and choose Open in Map Viewer.
This tutorial uses Map Viewer.
The map opens in Map Viewer, displaying the global soil moisture layer.
- On the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Legend.
The Legend pane appears.
The legend explains that the colors represent millimeters (mm) of soil moisture. Yellow areas have less moisture, and blue areas have more.
- Zoom to northeast Africa and click the map in the area of the Nile Delta, north of Cairo, Egypt.
A pop-up appears that provides more information about the soil moisture of that area.
Soil moisture in this area is very low, which makes sense, because it is part of the Sahara Desert region. But this land also supports a lot of agriculture, thanks to irrigation from the Nile River. You need to compare more layers to better understand this story.
- Close the pop-up and the browser tab that contains the map.
ArcGIS Living Atlas layers provide more than raw data. They often contain default symbology and pop-ups that provide a starting point for your maps and analysis. You may be used to accessing GIS data as tables and experimenting with visualization until you've discovered its patterns and trends. ArcGIS Living Atlas content provides information already visualized in an understandable way.
Explore global water balance in a Living Atlas application
ArcGIS Living Atlas is a great place to find authoritative data. But you can also access applications that have been built from this data, which turn layers into useful tools. Next, you'll explore an app to gain more context into water levels in both Ethiopia and Egypt.
- On the ArcGIS Living Atlas website, click the Apps tab.
This page offers a curated set of apps. These apps do more than just show a dataset. They present information in a guided format that helps you better understand the data as you explore it.
- Scroll down and click the Water Balance App thumbnail.
Click View application.
This app uses the same soil moisture layer you explored in the previous steps, but it offers a more detailed interpretation.
- In the search bar, copy and paste 11°12′55″N 35°05′35″E and press Enter.
This is the location of the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam.
A pink dot appears on the map in northwestern Ethiopia, and a chart appears at the bottom of the app, showing change in soil moisture over time.
- Point to the different areas of the chart to see how the data values change.
Soil moisture in this region shows a clear seasonal pattern. Moisture peaks for a few months of the year and then decreases. The variation in soil moisture between the rainy and dry seasons each year is usually around 200 mm.
As you move the pointer along the middle chart, the chart on the far right displays the values of all analyzed years for each month. This makes it easier to see, for example, how July of the current year compares to July in previous years.
The highlands of Ethiopia form the headwaters for the Nile River. This area receives a fair amount of rain, so there is always moisture in the soil. Even its lowest value of 409 is relatively high compared to the Nile Delta region, which you'll explore next.
- In the search bar, type Nile Delta and press Enter.
The highest soil moisture value in this dataset is still lower than 409. Additionally, the middle chart is relatively flat, indicating that this region has little variance in soil moisture. Instead of fluctuating with seasonal rains, as it does in Ethiopia, soil moisture here remains consistently low.
To the left is a list of values that also updates as you move the pointer over the middle chart. When precipitation is higher than runoff and evapotranspiration rates, soil moisture is in a state of recharge. Sometimes there may be a lot of precipitation, as there was in February 2012, but this is still exceeded by runoff and evapotranspiration. Even though there was a lot of rain that month, soil moisture was depleted.
Soil Moisture is one of several layers that you can explore using the Water Balance App.
- At the top of the app, click the drop-down menu, which is currently set to Soil Moisture. In the menu, choose Precipitation.
The map and charts update with information about precipitation but remain focused on Cairo.
- Zoom out until you can see most of Africa.
On this map, you can see that Egypt receives far less rain than Ethiopia. Yet Egypt still has enough water to support agriculture and large cities. This water flows from Ethiopia, via the Nile River. If a new dam caused a reduction in water availability downstream, it could create problems for both Egypt and Sudan.
- Close the app and return to the ArcGIS Living Atlas website.
- Close the Water Balance App screen and scroll to the top of the page.
- Click the Contribute tab.
ArcGIS Living Atlas content is always growing. On this page, you can learn about how to add your own data for others to find and use in their maps and analyses.
- Click the Nominate Your Content button and click the My Contributions tab.
The maps, layers, and other content from your ArcGIS Online account are listed here. Before you can nominate one of your items to ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, it must have a fully documented item detail page. Once it is nominated, a curator at Esri will review the item and communicate with you about its eligibility. To learn more about sharing your content with ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, see the Share Your Content to ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World ArcGIS StoryMaps tutorial.
- Close the ArcGIS Living Atlas website.
ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World allows you to find content for your GIS workflows or contribute your own content for others to use. ArcGIS Living Atlas doesn’t just provide raw data; it offers preconfigured layers, maps, and apps that provide greater context and understanding, making it faster and easier for you to find the trends and patterns you'll explore next.
You've learned how to browse and explore some of this content. Next, you'll add ArcGIS Living Atlas content to a map in ArcGIS Online and make some small changes that will allow you to choose which story to tell with the data.
Use ArcGIS Living Atlas in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise
In almost any mapping project, you need to configure, query, filter, and adapt data layers to answer the questions specific to your research and to communicate the messages important to your map. ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World provides more than preconfigured maps; it also provides fully customizable and interactive data you can use to build your own maps, analyses, and web applications.
Next, you'll explore urbanization patterns in the United States over time and space. Along the way you'll learn how to access ArcGIS Living Atlas layers in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise and how to customize these layers to suit the intent of your map.
Add Living Atlas layers to an ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise map
ArcGIS Living Atlas content can be accessed and reviewed directly in ArcGIS Online. You don't need to leave your map or scene to find the data you need to build it. However, if your using ArcGIS Enterprise you would need to leave your map.
- Sign in to your ArcGIS organizational account or into ArcGIS Enterprise using a named user account.
Note:
If you don't have an organizational account, see options for software access.
- At the top of the page, click the Map tab.
This section of the tutorial uses Map Viewer Classic.
- If necessary, on the ribbon, click Open in Map Viewer.
The map viewer opens. This is where you can create or edit maps.
- Zoom in on the map using the mouse wheel or the zoom control buttons at the bottom of the map. Zoom to contiguous 48 states of the United States.
Before you add data to this map, you will change the basemap to a more neutral appearance.
- On the Contents (dark) toolbar, click Basemap. In the Basemap pane, choose Light Gray Canvas.
Note:
This basemap and the others in the basemap gallery are part of ArcGIS Living Atlas. You can browse ArcGIS Living Atlas for more basemaps that aren't shown in the default list.
Next, you'll search for data to add to your map.
- On the Contents toolbar, click Layers. In the Layers pane, click the Add button.
A list of layers appears in the pane, allowing you to browse layers in your ArcGIS account. You can also search for ArcGIS Living Atlas content directly in ArcGIS Online. You can also filter this content and refine your search in much the same way you did on the ArcGIS Living Atlas website.
- In the Add layer pane, click My Content and choose Living Atlas.
- Below the search bar, click the Filter button.
The Filters pane appears, showing what you can filter by.
- Click Categories to expand it. In the Categories list, , click Environment.
You can also narrow your search to your geographic area of interest.
- At the top of the pane, turn on Only show content within map area.
For this map, you want to map developed land, so a layer showing land cover in the United States is useful.
- Close the Filters pane. On the Add layer pane, in the search bar, type land cover.
- In the search results, find the item named USA NLCD Land Cover.
There are three badges below the thumbnail for this item.
The Authoritative badge indicates that the organization that owns the item has been verified as an authoritative source. The Living Atlas badge indicates this item is included in ArcGIS Living Atlas. The Subscriber badge indicates that you must be signed in to an ArcGIS account to access this layer. When searching for data, it can be difficult to know which layers to use. These badges help you quickly find the highest quality and most trustworthy data.
Note:
If you are using your Enterprise account and the land cover layer does not add to the map, you must configure your portal to allow subscriber content and sign in using your ArcGIS Online account. You can do this in your portal from the Organization > Settings > Living Atlas tab.
- On the item card, click the layer name.
A new pane appears, showing item detail information for the layer.
This is the same information that you saw on the item details pages when you were browsing the ArcGIS Living Atlas website, including a summary, description, credits, tags, and the terms of use.
Tip:
If you want to see this information on its own page, click the View full item details button next to the layer title.
The description tells you that the data comes from the National Land Cover Database and groups land cover into classes that include development density.
- At the bottom of the item details pane, click Add to Map.
The layer appears on the map.
- Close the item details pane.
- At the top of the Add layer pane, click the back button.
- On the vertical toolbar next to the Settings (light) toolbar, click the Search button.
- In the search bar that appears at the top of the map, type Las Vegas, NV and press Enter.
The map zooms into the city of Las Vegas in Nevada and a search results pop-up appears over the center of the city.
- Close the pop-up and zoom out until you can see the entire city.
This layer includes several years of data, so you can use a time slider to explore the data.
- If necessary, on the Settings toolbar, click Time.
The time slider appears at the bottom of the map.
- On the time slider, click the Next button until you see the dates December 31, 2005 – December 31, 2006 at the bottom.
If you were also watching the map, you may have noticed the landscape change as you moved through time.
- Click the Previous and Next buttons to compare land cover between 2005 and 2006.
The red areas—representing developed land—grew dramatically during this year, when Las Vegas experienced a building boom.
- Zoom out until you see the lower 48 states of the U.S. again.
- On the Contents toolbar, click Legend.
This layer classifies land into 20 categories. The red and pink categories that you saw in Las Vegas represent developed land, which is the focus of your map. The other colors are not important for studying urbanization patterns and may distract from your map's purpose.
Next, you'll customize the land-cover map to show only developed land.
Configure an imagery layer from Living Atlas
You added a layer from ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World to a map in ArcGIS Online and spent some time exploring it. Next, you'll configure this layer to map urbanization patterns in the United States.
- On the Contents toolbar, click Layers and confirm that the USA NLCD Land Cover layer is selected.
A layer is selected when the blue bar is visible on the side of the layer.
- On the Settings toolbar, click Processing templates.
The Processing templates pane appears and provides display options for the land-cover layer.
- In the Processing templates pane, choose Developed Renderer.
Many raster layers in ArcGIS Living Atlas provide not only raw data but also a series of processing templates—or renderers—that allow you to easily change how the data is displayed. The Developed Renderer displays only developed land.
- Click Done.
The map updates to show only pink and red areas. At this scale, you can see major cities.
Next, you'll zoom to the East Coast.
- Use what you have learned to zoom into Maryland and close the pop-up.
You can now see the cities of Washington D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia.
The four red colors may be difficult for some map readers to distinguish. But you don't have to use the default colors.
- On the Settings toolbar, click Styles. In the Style pane, under Select Style, for Unique values, click Style options.
- In the Style options pane, click the symbol under Color scheme to edit it.
- In the Color scheme window that appears, click the color ramp and choose the Cyan to Purple color ramp.
Tip:
To view the name of color ramps, point to a color ramp.
The map now shows urban areas in four distinct classes of density, making it easier to distinguish between downtown cores and suburban areas. You want to make the bright pink color to indicate areas of higher density, so you will flip the ramp color.
- Click Flip ramp colors.
- In the Ramp window, click Done. In the Style options pane, click Done twice.
The map now shows urban areas in four distinct classes of density, making it easier to distinguish between downtown cores and suburban areas.
Note:
If the city areas display in cyan, then you must flip the color ramp in the Style options pane.
The pattern of developed land here is quite different from Nevada. On the East Coast, sparse dots cover the rural areas between large cities. If you zoom in farther, the resolution updates to show a dense network of roads and small towns. This contrasts with the desert city of Las Vegas, which showed little surrounding development, despite rapid growth.
Configure a feature layer from Living Atlas
With this map, you can see where people live. Much of the administration in the United States is managed at the county level, however, and you are curious about comparing those borders with actual settlement patterns. Next, you'll add a layer representing county boundaries to your map.
- In the Layers pane, click Add. In the Add layer pane, click the My content drop-down menu and choose Living Atlas.
- In the search bar, type usa counties.
- Find the layer named USA Counties Generalized Boundaries and click the Add button.
- Click the back button to return to the Layers pane.
The USA Counties Generalized Boundaries layer now covers the land-cover layer. Don't be discouraged, like many layers in ArcGIS Living Atlas, you can easily change its symbology to suit your needs and show county outlines.
- Ensure the USA Counties (Generalized) layer is selected in the Layers pane, and on the Settings toolbar, click Styles.
- In the Styles pane, under Pick a style, for Location (single symbol) card, click Style options.
- Click the symbol under Symbol styles.
The Symbol style window appears.
- For Fill color, click No color.
- Click the Outline color and in the Select color window that appears, for Hex, type 999999 and press Enter.
Note:
If you are using an ArcGIS Enterprise account, expand Outline and expand Custom color. For Hex, type 999999.
- Click Done.
The outlines are still distracting from the settlement patterns, so you will make them transparent.
- In the Settings toolbar, click Properties.
- In the Properties pane, under Appearance adjust or verify that the Transparency slider is set to 50%.
Now the county boundaries are still visible as a reference layer, but they no longer distract from the main focus of the map.
- In the Change Style pane, click OK, and click Done.
You have now configured two layers from ArcGIS Living Atlas: a raster layer showing land cover and a feature layer showing boundaries.
From this map you can see that settlement in this region does not conform to administrative boundaries. While development does tend to follow major roads, it flows freely over county lines. You may have seen maps of the United States that depict the population of each county. This map shows you instead how the population in each county is unevenly distributed.
- On the Contents toolbar, click Save and open and choose Save as.
- In the Save map window, enter the following:
- For Title, type Urban Land in the United States.
- For Tags, type Living Atlas, landcover, counties, urbanization.
- For Summary, type This map shows urbanization patterns along the eastern coast of the United States.
- Click Save.
You can find this map later on the My Content tab in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise and use it in ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS StoryMaps, apps, and more.
Note:
For information about sharing subscriber content publicly, see Using Living Atlas subscriber content in public maps and apps. To learn how to further customize and use ArcGIS Living Atlas layers in ArcGIS Online, check out the Make Living Atlas Content Your Own ArcGIS StoryMaps tutorial.
You've now created a web map exploring the urban landscape in the United States using ArcGIS Living Atlas content in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise. ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World allows you to make custom web maps with high-quality data, without doing any data processing or hosting on your own.
Next, you'll learn how to use ArcGIS Living Atlas content for analysis in ArcGIS Pro.
Use ArcGIS Living Atlas in ArcGIS Pro
In ArcGIS Pro, you can incorporate authoritative data from ArcGIS Living Atlas into your desktop workflows and take advantage of greater cartographic and analytic capabilities. In the next activity you'll learn how to access ArcGIS Living Atlas content in ArcGIS Pro and use it for analysis alongside other data.
Find Living Atlas layers in ArcGIS Pro
In this scenario, disaster response agencies need to plan for allocating resources during a hurricane disaster drill. To plan for future disasters, you'll use the historic path of Hurricane Irma as an example. The hurricane forecast cone shows the potential for landfall in Florida, and disaster planners want to know how many nursing homes may be affected.
First, you'll open an existing hurricane planning map.
- Download the Hurricane Irma Advisory 29 map package.
- Double-click the downloaded file to open it in ArcGIS Pro.
A map of the projected path of Hurricane Irma appears.
This data is provided by the National Hurricane Center and represents a snapshot in time from September 6, 2017. The forecast cone shows the probable path of the hurricane based on knowledge the National Hurricane Center had at that time.
You want to use ArcGIS Living Atlas to find nursing home locations that fall within the forecast cone. First, you'll make sure you are signed in to your ArcGIS Online account so you can access ArcGIS Living Atlas content.
- If necessary, at the top of the window, sign in to your ArcGIS organization account.
One way to access ArcGIS Living Atlas content in ArcGIS Pro is through the Catalog pane. Your Catalog pane may be closed or hidden behind other panes.
Note:
If you are using an ArcGIS Enterprise account, to add the Nursing Homes layer, on the ribbon, click the Map tab. In the Layer group, click the bottom portion of the Add Data button, and choose From Path. In the window that appears, paste the URL https://services2.arcgis.com/FiaPA4ga0iQKduv3/arcgis/rest/services/NH_ProviderInfo_shp_1/FeatureServer and click Add. Skip the following steps and resume the tutorial on step 10.
- On the ribbon, click the View tab. In the Windows group, click Reset Panes and choose Reset Panes for Mapping (Default).
The Catalog pane appears.
- In the Catalog pane, click the Portal tab and click Living Atlas.
This takes you to the same set of curated layers you saw in ArcGIS Online and on the ArcGIS Living Atlas website. You can also filter using categories.
- Click Filter, expand Categories, and click People.
The filtered list includes many layers that could contain relevant information to overlay with an incoming hurricane, including national shelters and public schools. For now, you are interested in the impact the storm may have on nursing homes.
- In the search bar, type nursing homes and press Enter.
- In the list of results, point to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services - Nursing Homes layer.
A window appears with basic metadata for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services - Nursing Homes item, including the owner and URL.
Note:
The Path link for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services - Nursing Homes layer will open the item page for the layer, where you can locate the service URL for the layer: https://services2.arcgis.com/FiaPA4ga0iQKduv3/arcgis/rest/services/NH_ProviderInfo_shp_1/FeatureServer.
- Right-click the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services - Nursing Homes item owned by Federal User Community and choose Add To Current Map.
The layer adds to the map and the Contents pane.
Tip:
You can also add ArcGIS Living Atlas layers to ArcGIS Pro by clicking the Map tab on the ribbon, and in the Layer group, click Add Data. Learn more about Data or Data From Path options.
Next, you'll find the layer's metadata to ensure that it is the correct data for your workflow.
- In the Contents pane, right-click CMS_NursingHomes_A and choose Properties.
The Layer Properties window appears.
- Click the Metadata tab.
The summary, description, credits, and use limitations for the ArcGIS Living Atlas layer are listed.
The Description states that the purpose of the layer is to provide accurate locations for high concentrations of people who require constant nursing care and have significant deficiencies with activities of daily living.
- Close the Layer Properties window, click Cancel.
Use Living Atlas content in analysis
You want to know how many nursing homes are at risk from the hurricane. But the symbols are too cluttered on the map to tell. You can change the symbology to make it less cluttered, but there will still be too many features to easily count. Instead, you'll use the Summarize Within geoprocessing tool.
- On the ribbon, click the Analysis tab. In the Geoprocessing group, click the Tools button.
The Geoprocessing pane appears.
- In the Geoprocessing pane, search for summarize within. Click Summarize Within (Analysis Tools).
You can use this tool to overlay the polygon of the hurricane's forecast cone with the nursing home layer points and calculate attribute field statistics for those points that fall within the cone.
- In the Geoprocessing pane, for Input Polygons, choose Forecast Cone. For Input Summary Features, choose CMS_NursingHomes_A.
By default, the tool counts the number of features within the input polygon. Therefore, no summary fields need to be defined.
- At the bottom of the Geoprocessing pane, click Run.
A new polygon feature named ForecastCone_SummarizeWithin appears on the map.
- Click the polygon on the map to open its pop-up.
The pop-up displays all the attributes for the forecast cone feature, as well as a Count of Points attribute. This indicates that there are 569 nursing homes that may be at risk from this hurricane. Your number may differ if the nursing home layer has been updated.
- Close the pop-up.
- Close ArcGIS Pro without saving.
You used ArcGIS Living Atlas content to perform analysis in ArcGIS Pro. In life-threatening situations such as a hurricane, the faster you can find answers, the better chance you have of saving lives. With ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, you can find authoritative data and incorporate it into your analysis workflows immediately, helping you plan for disasters faster.
In this tutorial, you learned how to find and use ArcGIS Living Atlas content via the ArcGIS Living Atlas website, ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Enterprise, and ArcGIS Pro. You used this authoritative data in an app, a web map, and an analysis.
You can find more tutorials in the tutorial gallery.
