I appreciate your enthusiasm for getting environmental data into OSM. I think that it can have value, but only if it is done carefully and with maintenance in mind.
The spatial accuracy of the EPA data that you uploaded is not very good. I have to say that even in mixed-case, it really subtracts value from the map in my area. Most of this data is collected and edited at the state level and pushed to EPA. The locations are based on everything from survey quality GPS to county centroid. Both the states and EPA maintain a code for the horizontal accuracy. I am quite familiar with this data from my state and I can tell you that the EPA data is not as recent as the data that can be obtained from the state. These locations are continually being edited and in my state, a new copy is pubilshed every day. There is no government conspiracy, it is in the mission of these agencies to make this data available to as many people as possible. I think that if data like this is included in OSM, it needs to be done in a way that it can be updated is a systematic way when better locations or attributes are available. There should be a standard way to mark these features up (at the feature level) with a standard namespace for the source and tags for the date the data was obtained. An attribute for horizontal accuracy would be of value too (or just no uploads for data below a specified accuracy). If the goal is for this to be used for property valuation, the data currently does more harm than good. I think that there is a need for some tagging standards for environmental info too. The tag man_made:environmental_hazard is not appropriate for many of these features. Some of them have been investigated and found to not be contaminated. Some of the data tracked are organizations that have hazardous waste permits. This could be a warehouse with thousands of barrels of methyl-ethyl-death, or they could be your dentist or hardware store. In some ways, the environmental info may just be another attribute of an existing POI. I know that several states are working on publishing data through OSM, so some of this may be worked out already. We recently had an OSGEO meeting in my area where we talked about the possibilities and implications of govenment agencies publishing more data through OSM. This information is important, so let's do it in a careful and coordinated manner. David. Apologies for crossposting, but I think that it makes sense to finish out this thread this way. On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Ian Dees <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 9:29 AM, [email protected] > <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 4:22 PM, [email protected] >> <[email protected]> wrote: >> > On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 4:17 PM, Ian Dees <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> The current NHD either includes these updates or is higher quality than >> >> this >> >> historical stuff that the USGS has. I would recommend working on >> >> importing >> >> the NHD rather than other datasets. >> > >> > Any links? I have not seen that yet. This is pretty detailed, the data >> > that I found. >> >> I found something, will process it next. >> http://www.horizon-systems.com/nhdplus/extensions.php?filter=11 > > Please don't use this! Just go to nhd.usgs.gov and grab the official data > set and use the existing process to upload NHD in your area: > > http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/NHD > >> >> I wonder if the older data has more types of data in it.... > > I looked at the data you previously pointed to and it looks to be old and of > low resolution. Also, it is comprised of landuse polygons which tend to be > lower resolution and a general approximation of what's on the ground rather > than a specific data set like NHD. > > _______________________________________________ > Talk-us mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us > > _______________________________________________ Talk-us mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
