Statewide Land Ownership & Resource Data Systems Development
Episteme Geospatial (aka Episteme Data, LLC) provided ongoing contractual geospatial and data systems support to Headwaters Economics across multiple research initiatives focused on land ownership change, federal mineral leasing, and trail use research. Work included the design and execution of complete spatial data product lifecycles — from source identification through publication-ready deliverables. Services involved: - Identification and acquisition of authoritative data sources (federal, state, and county datasets). - ETL processes for spatial and non-spatial datasets using SQL, Python, and ESRI geoprocessing tools. - Data cleaning, schema normalization, and quality control validation. - Production of data dictionaries, formal metadata, and analytical documentation. Notable deliverables included: - Creation of a national federal coal lease dataset representing over 1,900 leases. - Construction of polygon shapefiles derived from Public Land Survey System (PLSS) legal descriptions using BLM LR2000 reporting data. - Data collection, scrubbing, and management of County Payments datasets derived from federal legislation affecting local governments. Visualization services were delivered using QGIS, Tableau, Excel, R, and Python-based workflows. Outputs included maps, charts, graphics, and interactive web applications to communicate policy-relevant insights to stakeholders. This multi-year engagement demonstrates capacity in supporting data operations, land records analysis, and policy-driven spatial analytics — directly aligned with…