Create one or more unique locationIDs — location

A unique locationID is created for each incoming longitude and latitude.

See MazamaCoreUtils::createLocationID for details.

At precision = 10, this results in a maximum error of 0.6 meters which is more than precise enough for environmental monitoring studies making use of this package.

An excellent way to become familiar with geohash is through the GeoHash Explorer.

location_createID(
  longitude = NULL,
  latitude = NULL,
  algorithm = c("geohash", "digest"),
  precision = 10
)

Arguments

longitude: Vector of longitudes in decimal degrees E.
latitude: Vector of latitudes in decimal degrees N.
algorithm: Algorithm to use -- either "geohash" or "digest".
precision: precision argument used when encoding with "geohash".

Value

Vector of character locationIDs.

Note

The "digest" algorithm is deprecated but provided for backwards compatibility with databases that were built using locationIDs generated with this algorithm.

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_degrees

https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2017/01/10/probability-of-secure-hash-collisions/

Examples

library(MazamaLocationUtils)

# Wenatchee
lon <- -120.325278
lat <- 47.423333
locationID <- location_createID(lon, lat)
print(locationID)
#> [1] "c26mvcjucy"

location_createID(lon, lat, algorithm = "geohash")
#> [1] "c26mvcjucy"
location_createID(lon, lat, algorithm = "geohash", precision = 7)
#> [1] "c26mvcj"