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Hello,

Is it ok to map military exercises that take place offshore? The data is from NAVAREA that gives notices to seafarers and mariners to avoid certain areas during exercise. It is on the web, published weekly in open access.

Similarly, is it ok to map seismic surveys that are done by oil companies offshore? The data is also from NAVAREA.

Thank you.

asked 15 Oct '13, 19:19

SNM's gravatar image

SNM
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accept rate: 0%


If something's happening for a short period of time (which I would imagine would apply to military exercises) then I personally wouldn't bother adding it to OSM, as it'll be irrelevant soon. However, some people do map short-term stuff (and take care to remove it once the short-term event has passed).

If you were to add anything you'd need to check the licence. You say "The data is from NAVAREA", but unfortately that doesn't translate into a set of licence terms that can be checked for compatibility with OSM. Do you have a link?

permanent link

answered 15 Oct '13, 19:49

SomeoneElse's gravatar image

SomeoneElse ♦
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accept rate: 16%

Yes, you are right it is temporarily. Perhaps I need to explain what we are trying to do (or thinking of doing). We are trying to map and track marine mammal strandings and anthropogenic noise activities (military, oil companies) worldwide. All these events are temporarily, like a dolphin stranded on this beach, and the oil survey that happened 100 km away from this beach. But we need to preserve these temporarily events for documentation and future analysis. Are there perhaps any similar projects that map temporarily stuff but keep it too?

We get location of live strandings from press articles, tweets, FB posts, etc as there is no systematic way to get data now. We get Navarea data from here: http://msi.nga.mil/NGAPortal/MSI.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=msi_portal_page_63

it is published weekly and can be downloaded in kmz file.

From the website:

"This Website is provided as a public service by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Office of Corporate Communications.

Information presented on this Website is considered public information and may be distributed or copied unless otherwise specified. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested. " So it means it can be used in OSM?

Maybe OpenStreetMap is a wrong choice? But we need something for free and in open access. Thank you.

(15 Oct '13, 19:57) SNM
2

It sounds like you could certainly use OpenStreetMap data (and maps made from OSM data), and could probably use a lot of the tools that people use to work with OSM data, but I think you'll need your own database to store the events that you're interested in.

Another project that sits alongside OSM but stores time-dependant information is Open Historical Map. You won't be able to use their database (your interested in very different timescales!) but it might be worth reaching out to them via their mailing list.

However, it may be that (because there aren't that many miltary exercises or dolphin strandings) you just want a generic "slippy map showing data displayed over the top of an OSM map", in which case one of the Leaflet** examples here and here may help.

** Leaflet isn't part of the OSM project as such, but it is used by many people who wish to overlay data on top of OSM maps.

(15 Oct '13, 20:19) SomeoneElse ♦
1

... and on the second point a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. federal government as part of that person's official duties is as I understand it not covered by copyright in the US.

(15 Oct '13, 20:24) SomeoneElse ♦

Thank you! Leaflet sounds like a good solution. And thanks for the info on copyright, good to know.

(15 Oct '13, 20:34) SNM
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question asked: 15 Oct '13, 19:19

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last updated: 15 Oct '13, 20:34

NOTICE: help.openstreetmap.org is no longer in use from 1st March 2024. Please use the OpenStreetMap Community Forum