[Talk-GB] Natural England release data under Open Government License

[Jason Cunningham]

On 22 April 2012 10:49, <rob.j.nickerson at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Q1. Is any of this data useful for OSM?
>
A definite yes, much of the data is of a type we're trying to map, or
should be mapped. Some of data is important but would be very difficult to
map on the ground, an example being Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.



> Q2. Is the data in good form?

I've not looked at all of it but I do have some concerns about some parts
of it. I've previously looked at the National Trails data a few years ago.
The part I was interested was the SouthWest Coast Path and it was clear
that much of the route provided was wrong. It appeared as if it was a very
old route for the path. The SouthWest Coast Path organisation had also made
available gpx files for the route that confirmed NE's info for that route
was commonly incorrect (plus I checked some of it through surveys).  I also
spotted that in southeast London they've mapped the wrong wood when showing
the location of a 'Local Nature Reserve', though in this case I wonder if
this means they have affectively designated the wrong wood as the Nature
Reserve. Therefore it think NE are not putting much effort into updating or
checking for errors.

For areas such as 'Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty' the data provided
is, I believe, the definitive one and can't be bettered by mapping on the
ground.


> Q3. If yes to 1 & 2, how best should we go about adding it to OSM (auto
> import or providing a tool to visualise the data)?
>
Because of my answer to Q2 I think an auto import would be a bad idea, but
tools to assist in comparing data would be useful. It's not a massive task
to compare the data with our own, then import with care.


> Q4. What pages may need updating on the wiki?
> A4.
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Potential_Datasources#Natural_England
>
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/WikiProject_United_Kingdom_Long_Distance_Paths
>
> http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Areas_of_Outstanding_Natural_Beauty_%28UK%29
>

All of them!

Jason
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