Channel Islands National Park

Part of United States mapping project.

Overview

Channel Islands National Park is in the process of starting updates to trails, roads, streams, points of interest, and topography on OSM. These data are considered "Core Base Data" and are being thoroughly vetted to present "Authoritative Data" to the public. This update/import project will involve migrating that data into OSM. We plan on only editing small geographic regions of the park at one time (one island per edit session), which limits node updates to 1 or 2 roads and a dozen trails at one time, as to avoid issues associated with massive, bulk imports.

Updates will reflect the most accurate location of visitor services through current Channel Islands GIS data and staff knowledge. The goal is to provide the best data available for the enjoyment and safety of the public.

ONLY data which is made available to the public via the [NPS Data Store] will be included in this update. Under no circumstance can the National Park Service "make exclusively available" data to a third-party, such as a mapping web page. Data that will not be made available to the public includes data that is protected by federal law.

This import is listed in Import/Catalogue and WikiProject_US_National_Parks.

Schedule

Starting March 2014 the Channel Islands National Park (CHIS) GIS office will start updating location and tagging of trails and other pertinent public data for Santa Cruz Island, one of the most visited islands. The progression of updates will posted on this wiki page.

Dedicated Import Account

User:Channel_Islands_NPS

License

Data is considered "Public Domain". Only data that is made publically available on the NPS.GOV web site will be edited/imported into OSM.

Accuracy

All data entered by the NPS into the public domain meets National Map Accuracy Standards.

Software

The workplan involves moving the core base GIS data from an enterprise GIS database to shapefile format, and using JOSM to perform tagging and uploading.

Boundary

CHIS has a variety of jurisdictions that intersect around the NPS-managed islands. Please stay tuned to this section, it is in development to find the best way to accurately mark these overlapping jurisdictions.

An important boundary to show around the islands are the Marine Protected Areas. Display guidelines can be found here and we are currently in the process of finding a way to display using this style.

Transportation

Since no roads are accessible by the general public, there is no need to enforce network topology for proper automobile GPS navigation.

Conflation

Following Manual Conflation guidelines, we will modify existing roads and trails data for the islands with NPS data where appropriate.

Addressing

Since the islands are separated from the mainland, no addressing is needed.

Trails

CHIS ONLY publishes trails data which are shown on the official park visitor map and hiking guides. Some geometry edits to existing OSM data are anticipated. There is no practical difference to the casual visitor between dirt roads and foot trails, but will be tagged accordingly.

• motor_vehicle=no
• name=Potato Harbor Trail
• nps:verified=yes
• surface=ground
• highway=path

Almost all dirt roads used for administrative purposes are also trails. In this case, they will be tagged accordingly.

• highway=track
• motor_vehicle=yes
• surface=ground

Difficulty ratings will not be address on OSM. For more context on trail ratings, please see the hiking guides.

Man-made Features

Most common man-made features seen in parks are buildings. Buildings will be tagged with the primary amenity or purpose.

Viewing platforms

• name=Prisoners Wetland Observation Deck
• man_made=tower
• tower:type=observation

Survey Bench Mark

• name=*
• man_made=survey_point

Historic Structures

• building=yes
• historic=building
• name=China Camp Cabin

Toilets

Buildings that are restrooms will be tagged as follows to allow the well-known restroom icon to be displayed.

• amenity=toilets
• building=yes
• name=Upper Scorpion Campground

Ranger Stations

Ranger Stations will be represented as a TAGGED NODE of a building, with the following tags:

• amenity=police

The name of the Ranger Station (or name of building) is included in the building name tag, which may have more tagged nodes.

Camping

All camping features will include:

• website=* with a link to [Online Reservations].

Camp Sites

Sites are all tent-only. Campgrounds will be represented by a single node in the approximate middle of the camping area:

• name=*
• tourism=camp_site
• fee=yes

Natural Features

Mountains, rivers, valleys, waterfalls, springs, minor canyons, rock formations and other points of natural interest. We intend on keeping existing tags, notably the GNIS tags.

• ele=*
• gnis:county_id=*
• gnis:created=*
• gnis:feature_id=*
• gnis:state_id=*
• name=*
• natural=*

Mountain Peaks

• natural=peak

Ridges

• natural=ridge

Streams

There are siginificant changes to the streams that have been mapped in the park. Using the NHD 2.0, there is a 40% increase in the number and length of streams in the park. We intend on keeping existing tags, notably the NHD tags.

• NHD:ComID=*
• NHD:FCode=*
• NHD:FType=*
• NHD:RESOLUTION=*
• NHD:ReachCode=*
• NHD:way_id=*
• attribution=*
• gnis=*
• name=*
• source=*
• waterway=*

We haven't worked out the exact technical proposal for updating streams in the park, but any import/update will consider mimizing the number of nodes per stream in consideration of the fact that NHD imports can cause significant size increase of the OSM database. Using ArcMap to smooth or simplify lines before upload is the likely solution. At this time, after consultation with IMPORT-US list members, we are holding off on stream imports until a methodology is agreed to.

See also

• US National Park Service Data
• WikiProject US National Parks
• US National Park Service Tagging

Frequently Asked Questions

None at this time