GEOG 583
Geospatial System Analysis and Design

Open Data Sources

Open Data Sources

Three different types of Open Data will be described here: Data contributed by volunteers, data published by public administrators, and open scientific geospatial data (Coetzee, 2020).

Volunteered Data

  1. User Generated Content: material that is contributed by the public to a website
  2. Crowdsourcing: enlisting a large number of people, either paid or unpaid, to collect information
  3. Citizen science” data about the natural world is collected by the general public for analysis by professional scientists
  4. Community science: communities participate in the design and planning of data collection

Several different Open Data Sources are popular and well implemented in different geospatial designs, including:

  1. Google Maps
  2. Wikimapia
  3. OpenStreetMap – OpenStreetMap is a particularly well-known open data source, with a community of 5.5 million users and 4000-5000+ active daily users.

Authoritative Open Geospatial Data

Authoritative open data are generally provided by federal and local governments to share administrative boundaries, place names, building footprints, street centerlines. Several authoritative data sources include:

  1. European Union Copernicus Earth Observation Open Access Hub
  2. United States Geologic Survey (USGS) Earth Explorer
  3. United States Geologic Survey (USGS) National Map Viewer
  4. United States Geologic Survey (USGS) open water data

Open Scientific Geospatial Data

Open Scientific Data was first implemented over 50 years ago, when the International Council for Science (ICS) recognized the need for universal and equitable access to scientific data. However, finding Open Scientific Data is a little more nuanced, since it is journal-specific.


References:

Coetzee, S., Ivánová, I., Mitasova, H., & Brovelli, M. A. (2020). Open geospatial software and data: A review of the current state and a perspective into the future. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 9(2), 90.