The National Vegetation Survey Databank (NVS) is a physical archive and
electronic databank containing records of over 104,000 vegetation survey plots -
including data from over 24,000 permanent plots.
  
Each year the NVS team produces an annual report to summarise the activities
for the year.  This report describes the new data that has been archived in
NVS, significant data revisions that have been made, efforts to increase
end-user awareness, how NVS data are being used by data accumulators (such as
GBIF), international collaborations, website usage statistics, a summary of NVS
data requests and a list of publications that are based on data archived in
NVS.  The report for 2016-17 can be accessed from the NVS website via the home
page http://nvs.landcareresearch​​.co​​.nz​​/ (see "What's new") or directly from
https://nvs.landcareresearch​.co​.nz​/Resources​/Publications
  
The NVS team welcomes any feedback about this report.

Dear friend


I have changed my email address from pmhughes@clear.net.nz to 
phughes@actrix.co.nz as Vodafone are closing my Clear email server :-((

Please change your email address book if you wish to keep in touch

Any emails sent by mistake to this email will still reach me for a while


Kind regards


Paul Hughes

Hello

I am thinking about doing some large scale vegetation mapping for statistics.  I've been looking at using satellite data from this list of satellite data - http://gisgeography.com/free-satellite-imagery-data-list/

Now, I know there are some indices out there like Normalized Vegetation Difference Index but I don't know if this will tell me much about biodiversity.  It sounds like I can use open source tools to do these types of analyses like QGIS...  It could just be that it tells me if there's vegetation there or not, if the NDVI value is high?

Does anyone have any experience mapping out vegetation biodiversity that can confirm this assumption?

The National Vegetation Survey Databank (NVS) is a physical archive and
electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots -
including data from over 19,000 permanent plots.
  
Each year the NVS team produces an annual report to summarise the activities
for the year.  This report describes the new data that has been archived in
NVS, significant data revisions that have been made, efforts to increase
end-user awareness, how NVS data are being used by data accumulators (such as
GBIF), international collaborations, website usage statistics, a summary of NVS
data requests and a list of publications that are based on data archived in
NVS.  The report for 2015-16 can be accessed from the NVS website via the home
page http://nvs.landcareresearch​.co​.nz​/ (see "What's new") or directly from
https://nvs.landcareresearch.co.nz/Resources/Publications  

The NVS team welcomes any feedback about this report.

Hi all, 

As part of a national meeting of NZ botanic gardens, held in Auckland on November 3rd, we are holding an afternoon of talks on topics relevant to garden record keeping (see list below).

We have room for a few extra people to attend.  If you are interested please contact Emma Bodley of Auckland Regional Botanic Garden: Emma.Bodley@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz

Contributed Papers Session 2: BRON* organising rest of the days sessions
1.45 – 1.50	Tom Myers (Dunedin), update on the BRON network 
1.50 – 2.05	Rewi Elliot (Otari) MapStory 
2.05 – 2.20	Karin van der Walt (Otari) Conservation, science and garden databases 
2.20 – 2.35	Jonathon Wilcken  (Auckland Zoo) Species360 database
2.35 – 2.50	Mike McMurtry (Auckland Council) Engaging with research 
2.50 – 3.05	Ewen Cameron (Auckland Herbarium) NZ herbarium network: connections between gardens and herbaria, records and specimens 
3.05 – 3.20	Murray Dawson (Landcare Research) Progress on the NZ Plant Collection Register and cultivated plant names

*BRON: Botanic Gardens of Australia and New Zealand Records Officers Network (BGANZ).

Regards, Tom Myers

FYI:

Coca-Abia, M.M.; Romero-Samper, J. 2016: Establishment of the identity of Costelytra zealandica (White 1846) (Coleoptera: Scarabeidae: Melolonthinae) a species commonly known as the New Zealand grass grub. New Zealand entomologist, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00779962.2016.1230254

This article should never have made it through peer review! There is absolutely no reason for the name Costelytra zealandica (New Zealand grass grub) to be changed to Costelytra giveni! Article 75.6 ( http://www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted-sites/iczn/code/index.jsp?article=75 ) of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature should instead be invoked to maintain prevailing usage of the name Costelytra zealandica, and prevailing usage maintained until the Commission makes a ruling! This is exactly the sort of situation whereby nobody should want the name to change. Art. 75.6 of the Code provides a way to avoid such counterproductive changes, but it has not been even considered in the above publication!

Stephen

Hi all,

I am helping the Open Data NZ (LINZ) folks <
https://www.ict.govt.nz/programmes-and-initiatives/open-and-transparent-government/open-government-information-and-data-work-programm/>
to get some input into new principles for open data in New Zealand using
the Open Data Charter .

Their key question is: What are the potential impacts if the Open Data
Charter is implemented in New Zealand?

With environmental data in mind, I think it would be great to have some
input from Dataversity members. It is fairly well accepted that open
government data can be used for economic, social and environmental good.
What would you like to see government doing to maximise that?

Here are some ways you can participate:

• Twitters 
• Loomio discussion <
https://www.loomio.org/d/nRvY9XrW/impacts-of-the-open-data-charter-if-implemented-as-the-set-of-principles-for-open-data-in-new-zealand
>
• Teleconference Thursday 15 September 2016 from 12:00 PM to 1:30 PM (NZST)
<
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/open-data-charter-teleconference-tickets-27622705255
>
• Workshop in Wellington Wednesday, 21 September 2016 from 12:00 PM to 2:00
PM (NZST) <
https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/open-data-charter-workshop-wellington-tickets-27691887180
>
• Workshop in Auckland  Thursday, 22 September 2016 from 9:00 AM to 11:00
AM (NZST) <
https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/open-data-charter-workshop-auckland-tickets-27691941342
>
• reply here :).

The next NVS Express workshop will be held in conjunction with the NZ Ecological Society conference in Hamilton on Saturday 19th November 2016.

For more information and to register see: http://era2016.com/programme/workshops.html

If you have any questions please contact us directly: https://nvs.landcareresearch.co.nz/Support/contact

Hi,

This is not intended to poke the borax but rather to provoke discussion.   If I am speaking out of turn please direct me to resources that would assist my education :-)

Interesting.   Who owns the data on the cloud ?  What happens if a cloud service shuts down or is bought out ?   What happens if the terms and conditions change so that ownership and availability change (perhaps with a user-pays fee introduced)?   Can the cloud service guarantee data integrity and privacy?   Will the cloud service do any data matching investigations or mining of its own that are outside the terms and conditions the council undertook when it signed up?   What freedom does any cloud service have to change terms and conditions arbitrarily?   What sort of guaranteed response times from a cloud service could be offered?   What happens during data outages or services are up for upgrade or repair ?   How does that affect council business locally and nationally?   What contingencies are available if this happens ?

An alternative model might be a distributed database service that would safeguard data but also retain ownership locally (not on a cloud) and provide a fast , responsive service.   Suppose for example that we here in HBRC, copied our data over night to Horizons and Westland regional councils and they copied their data to us.

Also suppose that a common raw standard for data were available which was really, really basic.   For example, groundwater, surface water quality and quantity and air quality numeric data could all be stored in CSV format for export.  Locally a council might choose to convert that raw data into more usable formats that offer a faster response.... but the central repository is retained and safe.   Raw data in ASCII only offers 256 choices for data recovery so perhaps offers a better chance of recovery if a catastrophe occurs.   This works for point and time series data.

Transect, picture and particularly time series picture data or digital maps and mapping resources that record time series change are trickier to index and record meaningfully.
It can be done if a common robust format is adopted that is not proprietry to (say) ArcGIS and ESRI.   Perhaps data could be stored locally in an archive folder with known file structure, each folder compressed using a generic compressor with a very robust tokenization scheme (to allow for easier forensic recovery if necessary) and stored offsite.   The issue of a common data format before compression remains though.

Consideration might also be given to safe storage of important scripts or tools built to manage data for the organisation, in event that a complete recovery operation is required.

The common issue here is the need for a common protocol for each data type that is as robust and simple as possible.   The reason for this is three fold:

[1]   It is easy to convert data in it's rawest form to a new purpose if the methodologies
       of presentation change or the "software of the day" uses a different format.   Local 
       councils can still present that data in any form they need, but the original data is 
       safe.

[2]   The raw data can be read across all formats for all contributing organisations.

[3]    If Open Data is an ideal, then any council could read any data stored in this 
        manner simply by converting it into a format useable by their local system.

Lastly a wider application here is for Emergency Services that might need access to data and/or maps.   Coordination could be done by local representatives on each council.  Because of the distances between the backup sites it is unlikely that a single catastrophic event could take out all sites.

The negatives to this are (not exhaustively):

[4]   Capital cost for all councils involved in this increases as they manage their existing 
       resources as well as additional resources to safeguard other councils data.

[5]   Data traffic will increase hugely (though what about incremental backups)

[6]   Other ?


My two cents.  Interested in any comments.

Kind regards,
Grant Upchurch

Hi all,
 
We are at the beginning stages of developing a public API to Te Papa's Collections Online.  We're aiming to have an internal prototype by mid 2016 and some kind of public version in 2017.
 
Our intention is to make available data from the Collections Online website http://collections.tepapa.govt​.nz​/ including:
 
* Metadata about Te Papa collection items and specimens
* Topics & stories about items, people, etc.
* Authority data - names, places, taxa...
* Links to collection media, including licencing details (images, video, etc.)
 
We'd be interested to hear from devs who might be interested in using this kind of API in the future.
 
If you'd like to help, here are some initial questions to help our project scoping:
 
1. Usage - What kinds of things would you use the API to build? e.g. links from your own items to related Te Papa items, 'big data' processing of images.
 
2. Environments - What technical environment(s) might you use? e.g. real-time Javascript calls from a web page, deep analysis using Python on local machine.
 
3. Data formats - What is your most preferred metadata format and why? eg. JSON, XML, turtle, XML, JSON-LD.
 
4. Any other thoughts/requests?
 
You can reply here or email me directly: douglas.campbell@tepapa.govt.nz
 
As we progress through the development we may well have more questions and hope you'll be able to help!
 
Cheers,
Douglas Campbell
Te Papa Digital

I just found out about this tool, which seems like it could be the equivalent of the Common Web Platform for open data, or at least spatial & environmental data. It is not the only such framework around, but given such tools are available, do they provide a sensible way forward for NZ? 

Consistent with INSPIRE & GEOSS standards, based on free, generally well proven components, designed for cloud deployment, this could provide an easy entry point for central, regional, local government agencies as well as other institutions developing an open data capability in house.
A tool or framework like this one, if not actually this one, could reduce costs & implementation issues for the many NZ institutions or agencies that are all currently (re)inventing the same sort of thing in house, much as the CWP has done for website development & maintenance.
http://sdi4apps.eu/
And, of course, using a shared framework brings the added bonus of ensuring data & systems interoperability.
Cheers

Brent Wood

The National Vegetation Survey Databank (NVS) is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. 

Each year the NVS team produces an annual report to summarise the activities for the year.  This report describes the new data that has been archived in NVS, significant data revisions that have been made, efforts to increase end-user awareness, how NVS data are being used by data accumulators (such as GBIF), international collaborations, website usage statistics, a summary of NVS data requests and a list of publications that are based on data archived in NVS.  The report for 2014-15 can be accessed from the NVS website via the home page (see "What's new") or directly from  https://nvs.landcareresearch.co.nz/Resources/Publications.  The NVS team welcomes any feedback about this report.

Kia ora Dataversity members.  I have been asked to post this sad news to this group.  
 
Over the weekend John Sawyer passed very unexpectedly on Mull, Scotland.  John and his partner Karlene moved to Edinburgh 18 months ago.  I am sure the people on this forum would know well John's passion for data and mapping.  In fact his new job in Scotland was as the CEO of the National Biodiversity Network (http://www.nbn.org.uk/)
 
John's last day was spent botanising and had been with a lichen expert who confirmed a new species for the island and John was pretty happy about it. He'd also learned the hazel wood forest in the gully below his family's house was more ancient than he thought and so more precious to him. That afternoon he had also started fencing it off. He passed away over night, Saturday afternoon our time, the day before he was to be a speaker at a biodiversity day on Mull he had organized.  
  
If you have any memories of John you want to share with his family, or for his funeral service I am happy to send them to his partner, Karlene,  who has expressed that she and John's family want John's NZ life and conservation work to be honoured alongside his more recent achievements in the UK.

Send them to me asap.  Bec Stanley
Rebecca.stanley@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz

Hi all,

You may be interested in this event over 6 to 8 November, organised by Landcare and
Callaghan Innovation >.

It’s a hackathon where creatives and coders make web services and apps around natural heritage. Intriguingly, it takes place at a unique and secret location.

Dan

—
Dan Randow
Collaboration Wrangler
http://randow.co.nz 
+64 27 431 4928

Hi Dan,

We are just starting to use it throughout our wider Unit (about 6 different teams) as part of improving our data management. I am not aware of anyone else using it yet, but I know Jono has shown it to people in other Councils. Not sure what the intentions are there though as I have not dealt with them directly.

Cheers,
Briony

Hi Briony,

With apologies for taking FOUR months to reply… that  looks really awesome!

How is your use of it going?

Is anyone else using it?

Dan

—
Dan Randow
Collaboration Wrangler
http://randow.co.nz
+64 27 431 4928

Carl Wezel of DMS NZ gave a presentation on Open Source & Open Source GIS at ALGIM (Association of Local Government Information Management)  earlier this year.
In the last year or so DMS has run several NZ training workshops on the Open Source QGIS application (and related applications, such as their Intramap & ROAM tools) which have been very well and widely attended - with central/local government, research, NGO's and the business sector all represented. 

They are actively contributing to a process I am watching with great interest, that I call "Democratisation of GIS" - 

Many years ago, in a land not so far away, people used to write documents on paper, which were made legible & spell checked by a technical expert called a typist, often working in a pool of such experts, providing a service to organisations. Typewriters became (large & expensive) word processors, then with the advent of PC's & tool like Wordstar, Wordperfect, & the new kid on the block, MS Word, the concept of a specialist pool providing such a service became redundant - anyone & everyone can now do their own (with varying levels of competence) at minimal cost.
GIS is currently undergoing the same transformation - from a specialist service pool using expensive tools supporting an organisation's GIS needs, to a standard desktop piece of software that anyone can install & use (also with varying levels of competence).  I believe QGIS is at the forefront of this change, helped along by businesses such as DMS.

The presentation lists a number of agencies in NZ making serious use of Open Source - & the UK Govt CIO's statement about Open Source being the preferred way forward. It also covers synergies between open source and open data - and how many of NZ's Open Data initiatives are powered by Open Source.

A PDF of the presentation can be downloaded at http://www.mapsolutions.co.nz/blog/24-algim-gis-conference-2015
Cheers,
   Brent Wood

Hi all,

Here is an announcement that Alison Stringer just made in the Open Govt 
Ninjas group .

Biodiversity data people may be interested in this event:

  Open Source // Open Society
  16 & 17 April 2015 in Wellington
  http://www.opensourceopensociety.com/

OS//OS will bring people together from diverse sectors to explore how open approaches are being used in technology, government, business and education.

I expect that the wide view taken by this event will highlight how challenges similar to those faced by biodata people are being met in other areas. It will put the work of linking environmental data and its community into the context of connected data and communities in all domains working together to improve the world. 

I am certain that the stories you have to share from the biodiversity data world will be of intense interest to people from other domains.

Dan

—
Dan Randow
Collaboration Wrangler
http://randow.co.nz
+64 27 431 4928

For those wanting to make effective use of the free environmental and spatial data being made available by institutions such as LINZ, DOC, Landcare Research, NIWA, Statistics NZ, etc, (not to mention international resources such as OSM, NASA, WMO, ...) without buying into expensive commercial GIS software, there are several options, including the use of the world's most popular Open Source GIS application, QGIS. 

QGIS ibecame a core part of NIWA's Open Data policy, after it became obvious that providing open data, without tools tools enabling effective data reuse was a somewhat shortsighted approach. Which in turn led to the realisation that providing some help in using this software is also important.

NIWA & DMS have recently offered low cost QGIS workshops for anyone interested, and there are many online tutorials and other resources. NIWA is also hosting a local QGIS User Group, which helps NZ'rs getting started with QGIS, & now has more non-NIWA users than staff.https://teamwork.niwa.co.nz/display/NQUG/NIWA+QGIS+Users+Group

A new resource is the self paced, free, online QGIS training offered through the Canvas Network, starting Monday:https://www.canvas.net/browse/delmarcollege/courses/introduction-to-geospatial-technology-1


Cheers,
  Brent Wood (& yes, I do work at NIWA :-)