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FedData

ANALYTICS
Velocity0.0

Functions to Automate Downloading Geospatial Data Available from Several Federated Data Sources

github.com/ropensci/FedData ↗

FedData has spent two major versions migrating US federal geodata off R's retiring spatial stack.

ropenscigeospatialr-packageopen-dataterrabreaking-changes
◆Current state
FedData downloads and standardises US federal geospatial datasets — NLCD, NHD, NED, SSURGO, Daymet, GHCN, PAD-US, NASS — into consistent R objects. Two breaking majors define the current package: 3.0.0 moved returns to sf and raster and pulled data from cloud-optimised GeoTIFFs, and 4.0.0 finished the job by dropping sp and raster entirely for terra and sf. Recent releases are dataset refreshes, most recently PAD-US 4.0.
◆Where it's heading
The package tracks two moving targets at once: the R spatial stack, which it has now fully migrated onto terra and sf, and the federal agencies whose URLs, file naming and hosting keep shifting. With the dependency migration finished, releases have shrunk to single-dataset updates such as annual NLCD and PAD-US 4.0, which suggests the structural work is done and the ongoing cost is data-source maintenance.
◆Prediction
Expect continued small releases pinned to new vintages of the underlying federal datasets, plus fixes when an agency moves or reformats a source; no further dependency-level upheaval is visible in these entries.

◆Recent moves

  1. 1y ago

    get_padus() updated to PAD-US 4.0

    The protected-areas accessor moves to the PAD-US 4.0 vintage. A single-line release, and typical of the post-migration cadence where each release refreshes one federal dataset.

    View source ↗
  2. 1y ago

    Annual NLCD access added; get_nass() retired

    A new get_nlcd_annual() opens up the annual National Land Cover Database product, while get_nass(), soft-deprecated since 3.0.0, now errors outright. ggplot2 and ncdf4 also drop to Suggests, trimming what a plain install pulls in.

    View source ↗
  3. 2y ago

    sp and raster dropped; everything returns terra or sf

    ⚡ SPARK

    Version 4 retires the sp and raster dependencies completely, so every function returns terra or sf objects. It completes the migration 3.0.0 started and puts the package on the spatial stack R is actually moving to.

    View source ↗
  4. 3y ago

    GHCN moves to https; NHD handles empty and odd geometries

    get_ghcn_daily() abandons the legacy FTP server for https, and get_nhd() stops failing when an area of interest contains no data or contains unusual geometries. Both are the kind of fix that only surfaces once real users point the package at awkward regions.

    View source ↗
  5. 3y ago

    All raster writing moves to terra

    get_daymet() and the rest switch to terra for writing raster data, and get_nhd() correctly reuses an existing extraction directory. An early instalment of the dependency migration that 4.0.0 later completed.

    View source ↗
  6. 3y ago

    Version 3 rebuilds on sf and cloud-optimised GeoTIFFs

    ⚡ SPARK

    All accessors start returning sf or raster objects, NED and NLCD move to cloud-optimised GeoTIFFs requiring GDAL 3, and get_nass_cdl() adds the Cropland Data Layer. This is the release that reset both the package's return types and how it fetches data.

    View source ↗