Report to SCADM September 2011

SCAR Standing Committee on Antarctic Geographic Information

(SCAGI)

Adrian Fox (BAS)

Purpose of SCAGI

1) Provide high-quality Geographic Information products for the Antarctic community – both Science and Operations

High quality = useful, accurate, reliable, up-to-date, accessible, standards-compliant, inter-operable

2) Provide arena for arranging international collaboration: new projects, best practice, international reports

3) Through 1) and 2) support the international leadership role of SCAR

SCAGI products

SCAGI is responsible for four SCAR Community Projects:

 • SCAR Antarctic Digital Database• SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica• SCAR Map Catalogue• SCAR Feature Catalogue

Notable international collaborations in the SCAGI arena:• Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA)• Scanning historic aerial photography archive

Progress with Antarctic Digital Database

• New ice shelf coastline from ENVISAT (PolarView)

• Updated grounding-line based on boundary of contiguous grounded ice from NASA ASAID project

• Antarctic Peninsula upgraded with new 1:250,000 scale mapping from BAS and new coastline BAS/Swansea

• Metadata for existing information as a database to conform to SCAR DIMS (legacy issue from early 1990s)

• Improved access – web-download in ESRI shapefiles

Seamless compilation of best international mapping

Progress with Antarctic Digital Database

• 682 new registrations for download since June 2009

Immediate future plans:• Include BEDMAP 2• Include new topographic data as/if available…….

Longer-term objectives:• Improve rock outcrop• Improve elevation for mountains – GDEM, Tandem-X

Progress with Composite Gazetteer

• Allows features to be unambiguously identified• Shows which features already named and don’t need new

names• Unique identifier shows names that refer to the same

feature, despite multiple names and different coordinates• 36,722 names for 18,715 features – multiple naming,

worst case 7 names for same feature, 3 names common

The SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica (CGA) is a compilation of the national gazetteers

Progress with Composite Gazetteer

• 525 names for 435 new features since June 2009

Most active: Bulgaria; China; UK; USA; Australia• Harmonisation of under-sea names with GEBCO

Current and future plans:• Continue to add new names, update coordinates• Checking against LIMA, convergence of names eg DML

(LIMA = Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica) publish a ‘recipe’ to do this

Progress with Antarctic Map Catalogue

• 5,155 hard-copy maps from 26 countries• 947 digital maps from 5 countries• 1,515 hard copy and 249 digital maps since June 2009• 9,856 downloads since June 2009

Online catalogue showing all known international mapsSearch tools and detailed metadata for entries

Progress with Feature catalogue

• Completed• Developed by AAD and mainly used by them• Other organisations often working in own protocols

Detailed definitions of Antarctic geographic features that can be used to represent them in GIS software

Progress with Aerial photography scanning

• Large international archive of aerial photography back to 1940s – incredible resource for environmental change

• Risk of loss, deterioration – scan to secure• Digital data easier to access• USGS scanning own archive and key parts of others• 330,000 US scenes, 10s of 1000s UK and Australia• USGS and PGIC Minnesota flight-lines and web-

download

International campaign, led by USA, to scan archive of historic aerial photography

SCAGI objectives 2011-2013

• Continue to develop products: ADD, CGA, MapCat• Redevelop website in time with SCAR website (2012)• Improve awareness with user community SSGs and

COMNAP:

Comment on developing SCAR science programmes, input to SRP planning meeting Modena, Feb 2012.

Antarctic Treaty paper on SCAR products as a platform to build links with COMNAP

• Complete scanning of historic aerial photography and implement delivery systems (2012)

• Next meeting Portland, 2012

QUESTIONS ?