[Imports] National Park Boundaries in Hawaii

[Tyler]

>
> I did a quick web search and found that the US National Park Service
> maintains a website with a large collection of GIS data, including park
> boundaries and campgrounds:
>
>  http://www.nps.gov/gis/data_info/park_gisdata/hi.htm
>
>  How do people go about evaluating the quality of data that is being
> considered for import?  I'm not sure there is a better source for US
> National Park boundaries than the NPS itself.  It's not like it's possible
> to survey the boundaries by observations on the ground.  The only way I was
> able to even determine that the previous import was problematic is that
> places I knew to be just inside the park boundaries appeared just outside
> the imported park boundaries.
>
> this data isn't much better either. It may be good for some parks. if you
> can verify the data is good then import.
>

Sometimes the USFS has better NPS boundaries than the NPS (I don't even try
to figure it out). Also, a cursory look on the wiki page for potential data
sources would have brought up both the NPS and USFS data sources
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources#US_Forest_Service

I've only kind of looked at the HI state data, but there may be some stuff
in there (the large landowners and reserve maps both look pretty coarse,
though)


> I don't mean to belabor the point, but how do people typically evaluate the
> quality of data that is essentially nothing more than imaginary lines on a
> map?
>

Sometimes it's easy if you know the area. "Hey, I know the park doesn't
actually include all of those houses, because they're not inholdings"
Sometimes the boundaries are "to the thalweg of Big River" and when you see
that for Big River they have what looks like a "Z" rather than an intricate
meandering river, you know they're not great (same goes for roads,
shorelines and such). The best data for any particular boundary tends to be
from the county (in WA state) or property taxing authority because they
greatly care who owns what, and where so they know how much to charge in the
way of taxes. Since the state and federal government don't pay property
taxes the inter-state/federal boundaries aren't necessarily great, but the
federal/state to private landowner boundaries are fantastic. If you really
have a question, hunting down a parcel map may be the way to go.
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