Space Imaging announced June 27 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) awarded the company a contract to provide Ikonos satellite imagery of Alaska for the USDA’s Natural Resource Inventory program. This program serves as the federal government’s principal source of information on the status, conditions and trends of soil, water and related resources in the United States.

“In the past, we mainly have relied on aerial photos and people in the field for our inventory,” Ted Cox, state GIS coordinator for the USDA, said in a statement. “However, the high-resolution quality of the Ikonos images provides us with a more accurate mapping product which saves us time and resources.”