Spatial Data Citation

You cite the Intellectual Property (IP) of others when it is in the form of a published paper. Published geospatial data is also IP and should be cited appropriately when your work relies on it.

Your first point of reference should always be the licence or agreement you signed when you acquired the data. If the supplier did not specify how they wished to be acknowledged this does not mean you do not have to acknowledge them! Just as with any other reference material used in your research, you need to then check the referencing standard preferred by your School or Institution. Failing that, you need to rely on your common sense.

We have several data sets that are regularly used by researchers here in SAL and have provided their preferred standard citation below. You still need to read your licence/agreement carefully as there are instances where some of these suppliers require that you cite their contributions in different ways, based on how you have used their data!

Australian Bathymetry and Topography Grid – Geoscience Australia © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2009	Gazetteer of Australia 2010 Release © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2010	Geofabric v2.1 © Australian Bureau of Meteorology 2012
NSW Geology 250k © NSW Department of Primary Industries 2003	Geoscience Australia 1 second SRTM Derived Digital Elevation Models (DEM, DEM-S & DEM-H) Version 1.0 © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2011	Global Map Australia 2001 © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2001
GEODATA COAST 100K 2004 © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2004	The NSW Comprehensive Coastal Assessment Toolkit © State of NSW through the Department of Planning 2007 Specific spatial datasets may be the Intellectual Property of other NSW agencies, check the metadata for each dataset to determine whether multiple source attributions are required.	Pinneena GroundwaterData v3.2 and Continuous Monitoring v10.1 © NSW Office of Water 2010

Click here for information on ESRI Data and Maps Redistribution Rights

For additional information on geospatial data citation please talk to the SAL Tech Staff.