State Geological Survey Publications: Reaching Beyond State Boundaries

PDF versionPDF version

Date updated: 2016-12-20
Data Brief 2016-008
Written and compiled by Leila Gonzales for AGI, December 2016

Download Print Version

AGI's Critical Issues Program aims to increase the use of geoscience information in the decision-making process, particularly at the state and local levels. The program specifically increases the discoverability of state geological survey content by featuring that content in the Research Database and Maps & Visualizations sections of the website.

Analysis of website traffic over the past year, indicates that 82% of visits to the Critical Issues website originated from those using search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo to find information.

State geological survey publications comprise 71% of the Research Database’s 4,001 publications, and 44% of the 135 maps & visualizations on the website. Over the past year, clicks on links from 79% of Research Database publications and 43% of Maps & Visualizations took visitors to state geological survey websites. Furthermore, 18% of all clicks on links from the entire Critical Issues website took visitors to state geological survey websites.

State geological survey content is frequently viewed by users from outside the survey’s own state. Within the U.S., 47% of state geological survey publications and 49% of state geological survey maps on the Critical Issues website were viewed by out-of-state visitors. Furthermore, views of state geological survey content by visitors from outside the U.S. comprised 10% of survey publication views and 6% of survey map views.

The Critical Issues Research Database, which provides full-text searching, covers a small fraction of the over 55,000 state geological survey publications indexed by AGI’s GeoRef database. As the Critical Issues website expands its coverage, it will continue to increase the discoverability of state geological survey content nationally and globally.

Related Geoscience Currents

cover of DB-2022-007

Geoscience Median Salaries Decline in 2021

June 27, 2022
Overall, geoscience median salaries declined by 2% between 2020 and 2021, lagging other science occupa­tions which increased by 4%, but not other engineering occupations which declined by 4%. The greatest increases in median salaries within the geosciences were geoscience civil engineers (+8%),...
Cover image of DB-2022-005

COVID-19 Impacts Study: Employment Status of Recent Graduates

May 23, 2022
Of all participants in the Geoscience COVID-19 Impacts study, recent geoscience graduates have been the most vulnerable to employment disruptions during the pandemic. However, the study results indicate that the most recent geoscience graduates have either remained employed or gained employment...
Cover of DB-2022-003

COVID-19 Impacts on Geoscience Business Staffing Through 2021

February 14, 2022
Staffing While the rate at which companies expected to increase per­manent staffing grew during the first half of 2021, companies became more cautious from August through October 2021 over concerns of impacts from the Delta variant. Growth expectations returned starting in November and December...
cover of DB-2022-002

COVID-19 Impacts on Geoscience Business Operations Through 2021

January 17, 2022
Financial Performance In 2021, geoscientist-employing organizations’ financial per­formance expectations shifted positively relative to 2020. In January 2021, nearly two-thirds of employers expected their financial performance for the year would be similar or higher than 2020, and by December 2021...
cover of DB-2022-01

Geoscience Employment Growth Continues Through 2021

January 7, 2022
This data brief examines the monthly employment trends for geoscience occupations and industry-level employment trends for the sectors in which geoscientists work. Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey provides monthly occupational employment data, while data from the U.S....
cover of DB-2021-031

Changes in COVID-related restrictions and concerns on work and research between January and August 2021

October 25, 2021
Facility restrictions Overall, restrictions to facility access declined for both academic (students and faculty) and non-academic geosci­entists since early 2021, with more than half of academic respondents reporting no facility restrictions in August 2021, and 38% of non-academic geoscientists...