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Sunday, September 14, 2008

New national database simplifies water tracking

Only about 50% of Australia's drainage basins actually flow to the sea according to a new national Digital Elevation Model developed jointly by the Australian National University and Geoscience Australia.

Digital Elevation Model Version 3 map of Australia.

With fundamental information of this nature and other detailed data, the new GEODATA 9 second Digital Elevation Model, or DEM-9S, data will improve the ability to understand how Australia's water drains across the surface of the continent.

The DEM-9S data will contribute significantly to water accounting, catchment management and modelling the impacts of climate change projections as well as a broad range of emergency management applications.

It is the third version of the digital elevation model and marks the culmination of more than a decade of work to provide a grid of nationally consistent ground-level elevation points covering the whole of Australia.

With a grid spacing of nine seconds in longitude and latitude, or roughly every 250 metres, the new database also includes information on revised stream lines, coastlines, cliff lines and water-bodies as well as trigonometric points from the National Geodetic Database.

A flow direction grid included in the new database details the principal directions of surface drainage across the whole of Australia to delineate stream lines and related catchment boundaries which is particularly useful in low-relief areas where drainage is not defined reliably by elevations alone.

A high resolution image created from the data on the DVD is available as a free download. For more information visit GEODATA 9 Second DEM Version 3 or read the media release.


New NATMAP has wide applications

28 August 2008

NATMAP Digital Maps 2008

Emergency and natural resource managers, industry, educators, adventurers and travellers will benefit from a new DVD mapping resource available from Geoscience Australia.

Called NATMAP Digital Maps 2008, it replaces both NATMAP Raster 2005 and NATMAP Raster Premium 2005 products.

The two DVD set has a number of innovative features, including:

  • all 1:250 000 scale NATMAPs up to July 2006
  • Landsat TM satellite imagery
  • information from the 2006 Gazetteer of Australia, which now includes more than 322,000 place names
  • a split view tool which allows two maps or a map and satellite image to be viewed and compared side by side
  • a transition viewer to allow one map to be placed over another with a variable transparency slide tool
  • a revised viewer to improve utility and reliability.

NATMAP Digital Maps 2008 is compatible with select navigation software and can be used to provide backdrops for geographic information systems (GIS) where information is overlaid and analysed for activities such as emergency response planning and natural resource management.

For travel and recreation, map-based presentations, education and general interest, NATMAP Digital Maps 2008 is an invaluable tool.

To purchase NATMAP Digital Maps 2008, contact our Sales Centre, Freecall 1800 800 173 (in Australia) or +61 2 6249 9966, or email: sales@ga.gov.au. Price is $99 including GST.

For more information visit NATMAP Digital Maps 2008


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