[Talk-ca] [nzopengis] Re: Northland Regional Council geodata under Creative Commons

[Sam Vekemans]

Thats great to hear. :-)
I hope more municipalities follow!
I'm happy to help you all out if i can!

Cheers,
Sam


On 9/10/09, Sam (Chief Zenbu Bloke) <samuelgiffney at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Congratulations to Northland Regional Council and Ms Slako in
> particular.
> It's wonderful to see government taking an open approach. Let's hope
> that other councils follow.
>
> On Sep 11, 9:49 am, Robert Coup <robert.c... at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hey folks,
>> Northland Regional Council has released a bunch of geodata including
>> Aerial
>> Photography under Creative Commons licensing via Koordinates. Press
>> release
>> guff is below.
>>
>> *www.koordinates.com/maps/northland*<http://www.koordinates.com/maps/northland>
>>
>> As always, feedback is most welcome.
>>
>> Rob :)
>>
>> *NRC TO GIVE AWAY SPATIAL DATA*
>>
>> Northlanders are to be granted access to hundreds of thousands of dollars
>> worth of aerial photography and other local authority geographic
>> information
>> system (GIS) data.
>>
>> In what is believed to be a first for a Regional Council in New Zealand,
>> the
>> Northland Regional Council has decided to grant access to roughly 90
>> percent
>> of the data currently on its GIS databases.  (The remaining data is either
>> owned by other organisations, is subject to privacy issues or the Council
>> cannot contractually release it.)
>>
>> Regional Council GIS Systems Analyst Marie Slako says as people have
>> become
>> more familiar with GIS applications in recent years, the Council has been
>> receiving ever-increasing number of requests from people keen to secure
>> its
>> GIS information.
>>
>> “Developments like Google Maps, Google Earth and others have also
>> increased
>> public awareness around the potential of maps and mapping software.”
>>
>> Ms Slako says the Council – which has been investigating the possibility
>> of
>> releasing the information since late last year - expects its offer is
>> likely
>> to appeal to a raft of would-be users.
>>
>> “These include businesspeople, private individuals, farmers (who
>> increasingly use farm mapping GIS software to manage their farms)
>> planners,
>> consultants, engineers, GIS professionals, ratepayers and others.”
>>
>> Ms Slako says both local and central government agencies had traditionally
>> believed GIS information should be sold to meet or help offset what had
>> often been the quite considerable costs of collecting it.
>>
>> “However, trends are changing…globally there’s a move to make data more
>> available and affordable, which in turn encourages sharing, collaboration
>> and empowers others to add value to the data.”
>>
>> Similarly, Northland aerial photography data – collected at a cost of
>> several hundred thousand dollars between 1999 and 2006 – is now being
>> superseded with much cheaper satellite imagery available from the
>> Government’s KiwImage project.
>>
>> The NRC is now accessing that data from defence officials for just a few
>> thousand dollars annually.
>>
>> Ms Slako says making GIS data more accessible to ratepayers – who can then
>> source information themselves - will also free up considerable amounts of
>> Regional Council staff time currently spent meeting requests for this
>> data.
>>
>> A New Zealand-based company specialising in hosting map data has offered
>> to
>> host the NRC’s information via its website: *www.koordinates.com/maps/
>> northland* <http://www.koordinates.com/maps/northland>
>>
>> “There will be two types of data available.  The first is NRC-produced
>> vector data (which will be provided for free) and includes things like
>> Regional Water and Soil Plan layers, Regional Coastal Plan layers, flood
>> susceptible areas etc.”
>>
>> The second lot of information is the aerial photography which will be
>> available for a small fee to cover Koordinates’ hosting charges.
>>
>> “It will probably cost someone about $2.50 to download aerial photos of a
>> 200 hectare farm.”
>>
>> The Regional Council itself won’t make any money from the distribution of
>> its data.
>>
>> *Further information:*
>>
>>    - Marie Slako, GIS Systems Analyst, Northland Regional Council
>>    Ph: (09) 438 4639
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