Earth:Australia addresses the transformation challenge of opening up government data sets in its ‘re-purposing’ of GIS (geographic information systems) data from ERSI shapefiles, to the more useable, and accessible KML (Keyhole Markup Language) format. KML files are supported by many different GIS viewers and as discussed in Wikipedia are excellent for: ‘expressing geographic annotation and visualization on existing or future Web-based, two-dimensional maps and three-dimensional Earth browsers’.

The technology Infrastructure for Earth:Australia includes: Google Earth browser plugin for data viewing, Adobe Flex framework for the user interface, and the Geospatial Data Abstraction Libray (GDAL) with related application libraries for shapefile to KML format conversion.

By incorporating the Mashup data into the site, volunteers can now view Government GIS mapping information to help strategically position their local river monitoring sites. For example, they can identify Government surface water monitoring stations, ground water bore sites, major river basins and protected areas across Queensland. They can identify Detox facilities around Victoria to encourage local communities to dispose of toxic substances, such as paint and batteries, at appropriate facilities to prevent them being illegally dumped down drains or directly into our rivers and creeks.

If you have been collecting data on the health of your local river, creek or wetland from anywhere around Australia and would like to submit you information online through our community-owned website, please send us a message using the Contact Us button on our home page at www.communityrivers.org.au.