To the Australian OSM community, The Australian Bureau of Statistics has recent published the first part of a new statistical geography, the Australia Statistical Geography Standard or ASGS for short. The boundaries are based on a new basic spatial unit called a mesh block which have been aggregated to create efficient spatial units for the dissemination and analysis of statistical data. They have been released in advanced of the 2011 Australian census and are fixed for the next 5 years. The attached links and PDF file provide additional information.
The ABS Geography section is presently investigating the possibility of loaded the new Australian Statistical Geography Standard into the OSM database. As a starting point, I'd like to start a discussion about how this could be achieved, if it is possible at all. >From the ABS point of view the principle reason for doing this is that an the OSM database would hold a copy of the official version of the boundaries and that this point of truth would be available for all OSM users and downstream distributors. It would therefore become one of the channels by which the ABS distributes the ASGS boundaries and associated coding structures There are three main issues I can see need addressing (and probably a large number of other issues I'm not yet aware of ) 1. Is the OSM database a suitable location for the ASGS The ABS would like to facilitate the use of the new ASGS as much as possible and the OSM database looks to be an efficient mechanism for the distribution of the spatial boundaries and codes. But what does the community think??... 2. Licensing Even though ABS data (including all spatial data) is released under a CC license it does require attribution (Attribution 2.5 Australia CC BY 2.5). How is this license model handled under OSM. Is there a means to associated attribution with particular "layers" within the OSM database? 3. The practicality's of loading load. I note previous posts on loading the ABS Postal Areas and the technical problems involved. What is the most efficient and best way of load a categorising these data within the database? Our preference would be to bulk upload through an FME process. Perhaps this is a question for the imports list? Any Questions for the ABS? Lastly if there are any questions people have on the new ASGS (and the old ASGC) or anything on the definition or application of statistical boundaries I am happy to answer specific queries and contribute to discussions. cheers, Marcus. Marcus Blake marcus.bl...@abs.gov.au Assistant Director Geography Section Australian Bureau of Statistics ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Additional Information 2911.0.55.003 - Census of Population and Housing: Outcomes from the 2011 Census Output Geography Discussion Paper, 2011 This publication a good diagram of the ASGS http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/ProductsbyReleaseDate/DB85CD1D52DE042DCA25783E000E0AF8?OpenDocument ABS License details: CC Attribution 2.5 Australia http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au/deed.en The first volume of the ASGS. This includes all the electronic boundaries in MID/MIF and Shape formats Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS): Volume 1 - Main Structure and Greater Capital City Statistical Areas, July 2011 (cat no. 1270.0.55.001) The ABS Geography website http://www.abs.gov.au/Geography Geography Frequently Asked Questions http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/D3310114.nsf/home/Frequently+Asked+Questions ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Free publications and statistics available on www.abs.gov.au
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