Google, Open Street Map and Wetlands
From Gizmodo, OpenStreetMap, (OSM) the Wikipedia of world maps, has been vandalized, with someone deliberately screwing up its data. Worse, the offending IP addresses seem to be coming from a set belonging to Google India.
More info here:
http://gizmodo.com/5876789/is-a-google-contractor-trying-to-destroy-openstreetmap and the blog entry at OSM.
Out of curiosity, in the past as well as today, I tried viewing and downloading some OSM maps to verify wetlands data. It seemed to be lacking, at least around New York City, the area I downloaded. Large swaths of marshes were coded as coastline or island. Essentially its up the the user to tag and identify wetland areas. Other areas I viewed in the UK were identified as wetlands, but not specified as to type. In OSM's defense, this should be taken with a grain of salt since the projects main objective is the accuracy of street maps and not natural areas.
The OSM Wiki does allow the following tags to differientiate between wetland types:
wetland=marsh - Replacement for the natural=marsh tag. Waterlogged ground and patches of open water, not normally wooded, and more open than a swamp. Different types of low, mostly grass-like herbaceous vegetation (sedges, grasses, rushes).
wetland=swamp - An area of waterlogged forest, with dense vegetation.
wetland=tidalflat - Tidally inundated areas of bare mud, sand or similar sediments.
wetland=wet_meadow - A semi-wetland meadow which is saturated with water throughout much of the year. Can be caused by poor drainage or the receipt of large amounts of rainwater or melted snow or in riparian zones.
wetland=bog - A waterlogged area fed by precipitation or ground water, accumulating peat.
wetland=reedbed - Reed-bed, an inundated area dominated by certain tall non-woody plants (reeds, bulrushes).
wetland=saltmarsh - Coastal marshes, exposed tidal inundation with sea water, therefore characterized by herbaceous plants with special adaptations tsaline environments.
wetland=mangrove - Mangroves, tidal forests of salt-tolerant mangrove trees, forming along tropical coastlines.
wetland=saltern - Set of pools for natural evaporation of sea-water.
* tidal=yes/nIndicates if the wetland is subject temporary inundation based on the tide.
* managed=* indicates if the wetland is managed in any form.
* seasonal=* indicates if the wetland is seasonal.
* ramsar=yes indicates if it is a Ramsar site.
It would be great if they could somehow import all of the USFWS Wetland Mapper data!
Setting up a PostGIS server
Setting up a postgres and PostGIS server is not always easy, especially on an headless server, but I found the following instructions helpful, even though the instructions were designed to install Mapnik. I just followed the Ubuntu instructions, and it worked flawlessly.
http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Mapnik/PostGIS
The PostGIS 2.0 shp2pgsql Command Line Cheatsheet was also helpful with importing shapefiles.
http://www.bostongis.com/pgsql2shp_shp2pgsql_quickguide_20.bqg
Sackett v. EPA and Wetland Map
In this weeks Supreme Court case, Sackett, et al., v. EPA , the Sackett's, landowners backed by a "veritable who's who in American mining, oil, utilities, manufacturing and real estate development, as well as groups opposed to government regulation." argued that the EPA has overstepped its authority by forcing property owners into an administrative nightmare with no recourse or chance of appealing an EPA administrative order despite knowingly filling wetlands.
According to the Natural Resources Defense council, documents obtained from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under the Freedom of Information Act, show that the landowners disregarded the opinion of a wetlands expert they hired to evaluate their property in 2007 as well as ignoring overtures by the Army Corps of Engineers to file for a permit relatively easily and inexpensively.
Out of curiosity, I wondered if the property in question does contain wetlands as claimed by the EPA. An April 2011 NY Times article identifies a neighboring plot, so it was just a matter of plugging the address in the Wetland Mapper and freehanding the property boundaries in red. As seen below, the property is almost entirely comprised of Freshwater Forested wetlands (The code Code PSS1C is partially obscured by the box), and is also surrounded on three sides by wetlands.
While that the case also revolves around other issues than filling wetlands, it's apparent that the claim that wetlands weren't present is scarcely convincing at best.
Suggested reading:
Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (Excellent General Summary)
When Property Rights, Environmental Laws Collide
Mike Sackett, Idaho Man, Fights EPA Compliance Order
Idaho couple's permit fight drags wetlands back to high court
Idaho couple puts wetlands rules to the test in U.S. Supreme Court
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Wetlands in the News
- 3000 students to mark World Wetlands Day on Feb 2 - Pakistan Observer
- The Mississippi Delta Must Be Restored - New York Times
- Prairie Wetlands Learning Center expanding - WDAY
- MechWarrior's Weisman fights to save the wetlands with new game - Gamasutra
- Restored wetlands may never recover - Futurity: Research News