Antarctic Digital Database/Data

This page describes the geographic data available from the Antarctic Digital Database and the plans for translating this into OSM form for import.

Coastlines

The coastlines layer of the ADD contains the coastline and ice shelf data. It consists of:

• line strings with attributes indicating coast type as well as data source information
• separate polygons for: land, ice shelf, ice tongue, rumple, ocean
• historic ice coastline data (probably not useful for OSM)

Feature translations

ADD layer	feature type	cst00_srf	Description	OSM Tag(s)
coast		land	Land areas	place=island, except for main land mass
coast		ice shelf	Ice shelves	natural=glacier, glacier:type=shelf
coast		rumple	Broken up ice	natural=glacier, glacier:type=shelf
coast		ice tongue	Glacier ice tongues	natural=glacier, glacier:type=ice_tongue
coast		ocean	Open water areas in ice shelves	natural=water, water=epishelf_lake
coast			Open ocean (not in the original data, necessary for processing)	natural=water, fixme=remove before upload
coast			edge between land and ocean	natural=coastline
coast			edge between ice shelf and ocean	natural=coastline, glacier:edge=calving_line
coast			edge between land and ice shelf	glacier:edge=grounding_line

Line attributes

ADD attributes	Description	OSM Tag(s)
cst00typ	Feature type code, see [1]
cst00dat	Date	survey:date=*
cst00inf	Information text	note=*
cst00src	Data source	source=*
cst00rev	Revision date	source:date=*
cst00edt	Editor
cst00sht	Map sheet

Rock outcrops

This layer maps the ice free areas on land. Although these areas are primarily rocky they are not exclusively solid rock. No further distinction of surface type is made.

Data consists of:

• polygons of the ice free areas
• corresponding line strings containing data source information

The data does not well match the other features in the database and to mitigate this problem the rock areas have been buffered by 2.5 meters on the islands and clipped with the coastlines afterwards. This introduces a slight bias which is well below the data accuracy though and doing this avoids many artefacts.

Feature translations

ADD layer	feature type	Description	OSM Tag(s)
rock		Rock area without ice	natural=bare_rock

Line attributes

To avoid overlaps with other features the rock outcrop polygons need to be clipped and line attributes can not be easily maintained in this process.

Moraines

In contrast to other other area features in ADD there is no separate line string data for the moraines layer. But there is a distinction in form of the mrn00sub attribute to distinguish moraines on glaciers and off glaciers.

Feature translations

ADD layer	feature type	mrn00sub	Description	OSM Tag(s)
moraine		ice	moraine on glacier	natural=glacier, geological=moraine
moraine		other	moraine off glacier	natural=scree, geological=moraine
moraine		*	moraine on ice shelf	surface=scree, geological=moraine overlapping the ice shelf multipolygon

Lakes

This layer maps inland water surfaces. No further distinction is made (sweet/saltwater, frozen or ice free)

Feature translations

ADD layer	feature type	Description	OSM Tag(s)
lakes		Lakes	natural=water, water=lake

The lake polygons are split when they extend across the grounding line but no difference is made in tagging.

Line attributes

To avoid overlaps with other features the lake polygons need to be clipped and line attributes can not be easily maintained in this process.

Streams

This layer maps flowing water. Since all of these are relatively small and usually dry/frozen for most of the year they are tagged waterway=stream.

Since way direction is not consistently downstream in the ADD data direction has been set based on RAMP DEM. This is not perfect either so manual verification would be useful.

Feature translations

ADD layer	feature type	Description	OSM Tag(s)
streams		Water Streams	waterway=stream, intermittent=yes

Locations of research stations, camps and airfields

The point data for research stations, camps etc. in the ADD comes with various additional attributes, translation into OSM tags is described in the following. Note these will need to be carefully merged with the existing POI data in OSM. since Camp seems to be a very broad classification adding a fixme seems appropriate.

Feature translations

ADD layer	feature type	feature_ty	OSM Tag(s)
human		Camp	place=isolated_dwelling, fixme=verify classification of place
human		Depot	amenity=depot
human		Refuge	amenity=shelter
human		Aerodrome	aeroway=aerodrome
human		Station	place=hamlet

Attribute translations

ADD attributes	Description	OSM Tag(s)
hmn00elv	Elevation	ele=*
hmn00nam	Name	name=*
notes	Description	description=*
hmn00nat	Operating nation	operator=*
capacity	Station/camp capacity	capacity:persons=*
	if either status or temporal contains Seasonal	seasonal=yes
	if temporal contains Year-round	seasonal=no
	if status contains Abandoned	abandoned=yes
	if either status or temporal contains Temporarily closed	disused=yes

historic sites

Historic site data in the ADD is somewhat different from the other data. There is essentially only a brief and a longer description for these points so classification is based on keywords in those texts (priority in the order of the table)

Feature translations

Keyword	OSM Tag(s)
plaque	historic=memorial
cemetery	historic=tomb
grave	historic=tomb
cross	historic=wayside_cross
hut	historic=ruins
cairn	historic=cairn

Attribute translations

ADD attributes	OSM Tag(s)
brief_desc	description=*
full_descr	note=*

Contour lines and point elevations

Contour lines are by convention not part of the OSM data and the point elevations have no additional attributes indicating peaks or other features so they are not of interest either.