NM Resource Geographic Information System (RGIS) is New Mexico’s geospatial data clearinghouse, hosted and managed by the Earth Data Analysis Center at University of New Mexico for over 23 years. The RGIS Program was created by the New Mexico Legislature in 1988 and was designated as the state digital geospatial data clearinghouse in 2013. The RGIS Program was designed and developed specifically by the Earth Data Analysis Center (EDAC) and the Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) at the University of New Mexico.

The RGIS Program mission is to develop and expand geographic information and use of GIS technology, creating a comprehensive GIS resource for state and local governments, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and private businesses; to promote geospatial information and GIS technology as primary analytical tools for decision makers and researchers; and to provide a central Clearinghouse to avoid duplication and improve information transfer efficiency.

As a repository for digital geospatial data acquired from local and national public agencies and data created expressly for RGIS, the clearinghouse serves as a major hub in New Mexico’s network for interagency and intergovernmental coordination, data sharing, information transfer, and electronic communication. Data sets available for download include political and administrative boundaries, place names and locations, census data (current and historical), 28 years of digital orthophotography, 80 years of historic aerial photography, satellite imagery, elevation data, transportation data, wildfire boundaries and natural resource data.

The data are publicly available on http://rgis.unm.edu. Data sets that are too large to be downloaded from our site are available for purchase. To place a custom order, contact clearinghouse via telephone (505) 277-3622 or via email clearinghouse@edac.unm.edu.

RGIS provides three web-based services that allow users to directly access statewide geospatial data and imagery without having to download and extract individual data files.

1. Web Coverage Services (WCS): Provides raster-based geospatial data in GeoTIFF or other image formats for rendering, data extraction, and analysis.
2. Web Feature Services (WFS): Provides for the querying and retrieval of vector-based geospatial feature data, including points, lines, and polygons.
3. Web Map Services (WMS): Provides georeferenced map images for rendering and viewing within client applications.

Users can quickly and easily access these services through a number of desktop GIS software clients, including ArcGIS, QGIS, uDig, and others. Normally, all that is required for viewing these data in a software client is the URL to the web service. These URLs can be found as a Service link within the RGIS data repository if web-based services are available for the chosen dataset.

For more information on adding WCS, WFS, or WMS links to your client software, refer to:

1. ArcMap: 9.3, 10.0+
2. QGIS: 2.2
3. uDig: 1.4

Detailed information and technical documents regarding these services can be found at Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Standards and Supporting Documents.