HCID: Global Grid Cell Identification System at Multiple Spatial Resolutions

HCID is a global grid identification system offering users to refer the location and boundary of a grid cell, available at multiple spatial resolutions, using a single integer number. Instead of using the coordinates (latitude and longitude) of two corners of the grid cell bounding box (i.e., upper-left and lower-right), we assign each grid cell with a sequential integer number, or a grid cell ID, unique to each spatial resolution. This system was developed by HarvestChoice (http://harvestchoice.org) and is being widely used to facilitate analysis of spatial data layers, including the visualization, domain analysis, spatial aggregation/dis-aggregation, and general exchange of spatially-explicit data across disciplines - without needing to use a GIS software and spatial analysis skills. For the five arc-minute resolution of grids, we call the ID system as "CELL5M", whereas ones for 30 arc-second, 30-minute and 1 degree are called CELL30S, CELL30M and CELL1D, respectively. Assigning 0 starting at the upper-left corner (longitude: -180.0, latitude: 90.0) with a geographic projection, for example, CELL5M ranges up to 9,331,199 at the lower-right corner (longitude: 180.0, latitude: -90.0). The grid cell ID at a specific location can be easily computed mathematically, and this can be also easily converted to different resolutions.