# Filter by elevation **URL:** \ **Category:** Feature Requests\ **Created:** [August 5, 2019, 10:24pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/filter-by-elevation/5606 "2019-08-05T22:24:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![johngarrett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9bd4f/32.png) [@johngarrett](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/johngarrett)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2019, 10:24pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/filter-by-elevation/5606/1 "2019-08-05T22:24:37Z")
I’d like to be able to search for certain taxa within particular elevation ranges, e.g., “Pinaceae in California above 6000ft” or “Tangara in Peru 500-1000m.” Is there already an easy way to do this? And if not, would it be easy to implement? ---
**Author:** ![tiwane](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/tiwane/32/54612_2.png) [@tiwane](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/tiwane)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2019, 10:27pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/filter-by-elevation/5606/2 "2019-08-05T22:27:14Z")
Adding elevation data to observations has been discussed in the past, and it’s unlikely we’ll be implementing it. [https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/altitude-on-observations/1476](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/altitude-on-observations/1476) I would probably download a CSV of data (eg Pinaceae in California) and use a separate program to see which ones are above a certain elevation, going by coordinates and topographical maps. Even then, you’d have to take into account the accuracy of each location, which could throw things off quite a bit. ---
**Author:** ![astra\_the\_dragon](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/astra_the_dragon/32/37251_2.png) [@astra\_the\_dragon](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/astra_the_dragon)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2019, 5:26am UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/filter-by-elevation/5606/3 "2019-08-06T05:26:01Z")
At my previous job, I worked quite a lot with maps – and I can tell you that the accuracy of altitude measurements can vary wildly, even on maps generated by professional government surveyors. Most phones and cameras would, I imagine, pull altitude info from the altitude corresponding to the GPS coordinates of a published map. If you’re only looking for a very general altitude, this might not be an issue. If there is a specific, smallish number of species you want to look at where altitude really matters, it may be worth considering getting a number of interested people to add “Altitude” tags to the relevant Observations. ---
**Author:** ![charlie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@charlie](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/charlie)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2019, 3:08pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/filter-by-elevation/5606/4 "2019-08-06T15:08:18Z")
yep. the only really accurate elevation data is high resolution LIDAR Digital Elevation Model data which we are lucky to have where I live but most places do not, and it’s a huge dataset and would be extremely intensive on the server to store and calculate, i think. And that’s just for the few areas it is available. ---
**Author:** ![tiwane](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/tiwane/32/54612_2.png) [@tiwane](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/tiwane)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2019, 6:38pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/filter-by-elevation/5606/5 "2019-08-06T18:38:07Z")
I’m going to close this request, as it’s not something we’ll be implementing. Feel free to start a convo in General if you want to talk elevation data. ---
**Author:** ![tiwane](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/tiwane/32/54612_2.png) [@tiwane](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/tiwane)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2019, 6:38pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/filter-by-elevation/5606/6 "2019-08-06T18:38:09Z")