Australian Natural Resources Information 2002
National Land and Water Resources Audit, 2002
ISBN: 0 642 37131 8
Finding data for use in Natural Resource Assesments
Access to information starts with the knowledge that the information exists.
Australian Spatial Data Directory
The Australian Spatial Data Directory is the national directory of Australia's investment in map data. By making summary documentation about data (metadata) available through the directory, groups ensure that the existence and use of their data is widely promoted and that duplication of effort by users is minimised.
For each set of data, information available in the directory includes:
- a description of the data;
- the location of the data;
- details of data quality, including accuracy and currency;
- how the data were developed (lineage);
- who to contact to obtain access to the data; and
- conditions of access.
By May 2001, nearly 30 000 sets of data were documented in the directory.
Audit findings
For programs such as the Audit, the Australian Spatial Data Directory is an essential tool to ensure we obtain access to the most up-to-date data and do not duplicate the effort of other agencies. However, the Audit found:
- Much of the natural resource data held by Commonwealth and State government agencies was not documented in the Australian Spatial Data Directory. In 1999, the Audit funded agencies to fill some gaps in their documentation of natural resource data and make the documentation available through the directory.
- Important sets of natural resources data funded by the Commonwealth are not documented in the Australian Spatial Data Directory. This includes much data for which the Commonwealth is custodian and that were collated under the Regional Forest Assessment program, the National Forest Inventory, the Agricultural Land Cover Change program, and the Resource Assessment Commission inquiries. Most of the significant terrestrial natural resource data collections of CSIRO divisions are not listed in the Australian Spatial Data Directory. Agencies are currently addressing these gaps.
- Reliability of documentation in the Australian Spatial Data Directory is variable. Many records are out of date, misleading or provide little information to help users determine whether data are suitable for a proposed purpose. A survey (Table 1) undertaken by the Audit of the documentation available for mandatory fields in the Australian Spatial Data Directory, found that for a random sample of 200 Australian Spatial Data Directory entries describing water or vegetation data:
-
- 15% of records did not provide information about whether the data were available for use;
- more than 20% of the records had no information about when the data were created;
- a third of the records had no information, or very poor information, about how the data were compiled;
- less than 50% of the records had sufficient information about the quality of the data to allow users to determine whether the data may be useful—for one of the mandatory fields in the directory, 56% of records had no information or were recorded as 'not documented'; and
- many contact details were out-of-date or misleading.
The survey methodology is outlined in a recent audit of the Australian Spatial Data Directory published by ANZLIC - the Spatial Information Council (ANZLIC 2001).
Table 1.Quality of natural resource documentation in the sample from the Australian Spatial Data Directory.
| Quality of documentation | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| (%) | |||
| Element | Good | Poor | No data |
| Custodian | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| Abstract | 98 | 0 | 2 |
| Format | 87 | 6 | 7 |
| Access constraint | 85 | 2 | 13 |
| Ending date | 79 | 0 | 21 |
| Beginning date | 75 | 0 | 25 |
| Update frequency | 74 | 1 | 25 |
| Lineage | 66 | 14 | 20 |
| Attribute accuracy | 50 | 12 | 38 |
| Completeness | 50 | 17 | 33 |
| Positional accuracy | 46 | 25 | 29 |
| Logical consistency | 34 | 10 | 56 |
The Australian Spatial Data Directory provides a public interface to promote and advertise the spatial data holdings of governments and some commercial groups.
The poor quality of much of the information that is publicly promoted suggests that much of the data not documented on the Australian Spatial Data Directory have documentation of even poorer quality.
Effective documentation of data in the Australian Spatial Data Directory is an important and cost-effective way to improve the accessibility and usefulness of natural resources data.
The quality of summary documentation across jurisdictions based on the 200 random water and vegetation records that were reviewed was variable (Figures 3, 4, 5).
The quality and quantity of documentation from Queensland, South Australia, and Western Australia was usually impressive.
Victoria, the Commonwealth and New South Wales need to ensure that better quality documentation is available to promote and advertise their spatial data holdings.
The quality of data summaries in the Australian Spatial Data Directory remains a national issue for effective management of our investment in map data.
ANZLIC - the Spatial Information Council is actively addressing these issues and is developing a strategy and work program to increase the quality and currency of documentation and awareness about the Australian Spatial Data Directory.
Finding and using data from Audit projects
Much of the summary documentation initially received by the Audit did not meet standards for inclusion in the Australian Spatial Data Directory. Many individuals and agencies contracted to produce products for the Audit had never before been asked to prepare easy-to-understand summary documentation or metadata (data about the data).
The Audit and its data management consultants worked with data suppliers to edit the summary documentation to ensure that the published summaries provided enough information for users to quickly find data of interest. Support was also provided by distributing documentation guidelines and the Information Management Manual (NLWRA 1999) for use in all Audit projects.
Documentation and data are available through the Australian Natural Resources Data Library a node of the Australian Spatial Data Directory (for further information see p. 46).
Where data were not found that could support Australia-wide, natural resource assessments, the Audit worked with government, research and private sector partners to develop new Australia-wide databases.
Three case studies are presented in the next chapter describing some of the issues when building Australia-wide databases.