This OSGeo sample dataset for research, development and education was prepared thanks to agencies providing public access to geospatial data. We are especially grateful to the North Carolina (NC) Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, Wake County GIS, NC State Climate Office, NC Department of Transportation, USGS and NASA for making their data available. Advice and assistance with the data set by Julia Harrell, Silvia Terziotti, Robert Austin, Adeola Dokun, Jeff Essic, and Doug Newcomb, and computer system assistance by Micah Colon are greatly appreciated. Martin Spott is acknowedged for processing of geonames.org data for NC. The processing of MODIS time series (separate MAPSET) was kindly supported by telascience.org, we are grateful to John Graham for granting access to these computational resources. August 2007 Helena Mitasova Markus Neteler http://www.grassbook.org