In another article I discussed how Google Maps can help environmental consultants undertake desk studies.? It allows lots of geographic information to be stored in one place and conveniently shared with others.
Desk studies
Some desk study research requires knowing the coordinates of locations of interest. For example, if a local wildlife trust were to perform a data search on your behalf, they may require the coordinates of the locations in question in order to search their database.
Getting the latitude and longitude of your markers
It can be easy to locate your site or sites using Google Maps, particularly aerial photos, but it is not always easy to quickly determine the coordinates for those particular locations. You can get these manually by activating the LatLng Tool Tip, but there is an easy way of getting the coordinates for all your markers in one go. This will not only save a good deal of time, it will also mean that you can be more confident of the accuracy of the coordinates and there will be less chance of makings mistakes such as transcription errors.
National grid references and other coordinate systems
Unfortunately, Google Maps doesn't understand national grid references, but it does understand latitude and longitude. The instructions below will allow you to generate an Excel file that contains the name of your Google Map markers and their latitude and longitude. Whilst this may not be the format you want to end up with, it is relatively easy to convert between coordinate systems once you have the data to hand in a convenient form.
Using kml and RSS to get Google Map marker coordinates
- In your map, click on the "RSS" button. This will give you the data for your map in something similar to "kml" format - s standard mapping format.
- Save as a .xml file (note x, not k) using File > Save As
- Use Excel to open your .xml file
- Select the "As an XML Table" option then OK; you might get another message window open - "OK" this one too
- You should then have an Excel file with several columns in, with the marker name in the "title2" column and the coordinates in the "ns1:point" column.
- You can now save this as an Excel file and edit it how you please.
If you need UK national grid references, you can use the following website: http://www.nearby.org.uk/conversions.cgi
This allows you to copy your latitude/longitude coordinates and convert them to national grid references.
