A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
A [Back to Top] | ||
| ABARE | Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics [go to site] | |
| ABS | Australian Bureau of Statistics [go to site] | |
| AFFA | Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia [go to site] | |
| ANZLIC | Australia New Zealand Land Information Council [look up] | |
| AODC | Australian Oceanographic Data Centre [go to site] | |
| ASDD | Australian Spatial Data Directory [go to site] | |
| ASDI | Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure [look up] | |
| Australia New Zealand Land Information Council | The peak council for public sector spatial data management in Australia and New Zealand. [go to site] | |
| Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure | A national framework for linking users with providers of spatial information, similar in concept to a national highway or railway network. The ASDI comprises the people, policies and technologies necessary to enable the use of spatially referenced data through all levels of government, the private sector, non-profit organisations and academia. [go to site] | |
B [Back to Top] | ||
| Base data | The basis on which natural resource data can be overlaid, such as a defined portion of the earth's surface represented by a topographic map. | |
| Base map | A map used for orientation, depicting topographic features such as road, rivers, coastline and towns. | |
| BIWG | Biodiversity Information Working Group [go to site] | |
| BoM | Bureau of Meteorology [go to site] | |
| BRS | Bureau of Rural Sciences [go to site] | |
C [Back to Top] | ||
| Cadastre | A graphic representation of land ownership and or title and associated attributes. | |
| CANRI | Community Access to Natural Resources Information [go to site] | |
| Catalog | A directory or list of resources of a particular type. Examples are catalogs of online data, people and organisations. See also OpenGIS Catalog. [look up] | |
| CLIO | Community Landcare Information Online [go to site] | |
| CMA | Catchment Management Authority | |
| Core data | Data which an agency nominates as fundamental to its business. | |
| Custodian | The agency accountable for negotiating and ensuring the care and maintenance of a clearly defined portion of natural resources information within the public sector. | |
| Custodianship | The responsibility to ensure data is collected and maintained according to specifications and priorities determined by consultation with data users, and made available under conditions and in a format that conform with agreed standards and policies. [go to site] | |
| Cycad | Seed-bearing plant similar in appearance to modern palm trees. | |
D [Back to Top] | ||
| Database | A collection of data arranged for ease and speed of search and retrieval. | |
| Dataset | A homogeneous collection of data records managed as a single entity. | |
| DEC | NSW Department of Environment and Conservation [go to site] | |
| Dicotyledon | A flowering plant characterised by a seed with two seed leaves (cotyledons). | |
| Distributed | Located on different computers which communicate over a network. | |
| DNR | NSW Department of Natural Resources [go to site] | |
| DPI | NSW Department of Primary Industries [go to site] | |
E [Back to Top] | ||
| Ecologically Sustainable Development | Using, conserving and enhancing the community's resources so that ecological processes, on which life depends, are maintained, and the total quality of life, now and in the future, can be increased. [go to site] | |
| ESD | Ecologically Sustainable Development [look up] | |
F [Back to Top] | ||
| Feature | A discrete object in the real world represented as a point, line or polygon in a dataset or map layer. | |
G [Back to Top] | ||
| Gazetteer | A comprehensive, authoritative list of geographic features and their spatial coordinates. | |
| GDA | Geocentric Datum of Australia [look up] | |
| GEMET | General Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus [look up] | |
| General Multilingual Environmental Thesaurus | Developed by the European Environment Agency (EEA) and others to serve the needs of environmental information systems, GEMET's 5,400 generalised environmental terms and their definitions support validated indexing, cataloguing and retrieval within environmental information services as well as translation between 19 European languages. [go to site] | |
| Geocentric Datum of Australia | The GDA is a standard that defines the surveying and mapping coordinate system adopted in Australia. | |
| Geocode | To use a spatial feature name or address to produce a mappable location expressed in spatial coordinates. | |
| Geographic Information System | A computer system capable of assembling, storing, manipulating and displaying geographically referenced information, ie. data identified according to their locations. Practitioners also regard the total GIS as including operating personnel and the data that go into the system. | |
| Geography Markup Language | An XML encoding for the transport and storage of geographic information, including both the spatial and non-spatial properties of geographic features. [go to site] | |
| Geomorphology | The study of the classification, description, nature, origin, and development of present landforms and their relationships to underlying structures, and of the history of geologic changes as recorded by these surface features. | |
| Geophysics | The branch of geology that studies the physics of the Earth, using the physical principles underlying such phenomena as seismic waves, heat flow, gravity and magnetism to investigate planetary properties. | |
| GIS | Geographic Information System [look up] | |
| GML | Geography Markup Language [look up] | |
| Groundwater | All water that occurs below the land surface in aquifers, or porous sediments and rocks. | |
H [Back to Top] | ||
| HITS | Hunter Integrated Telemetry System [go to site] | |
I [Back to Top] | ||
| ICMISS | Integrated Community Mapping and Information Support System, the fore-runner of the NSW Natural Resource Atlas. | |
| IM&T | Information Management and Technology | |
| Interoperability | The ability of independent, distributed software components to operate together as part of a larger system. | |
| iPlan | A state-wide planning information network that delivers integrated computer based, location focussed planning information and services to the community of NSW. [go to site] | |
| ISO | International Standards Organisation [go to site] | |
L [Back to Top] | ||
| LGSA | Local Government and Shires Associations. [go to site] | |
| LPI | Land and Property Information, a division of the NSW Department of Lands. [go to site] | |
M [Back to Top] | ||
| Map layer | A map showing features of one type, such as rivers or protected areas, that can be combined or overlaid with other layers in an interactive mapping tool like the NSW Natural Resource Atlas Mapmaker. | |
| Mapmaker | The online mapping tool incorporated in the NSW Natural Resource Atlas that enables maps to be viewed and overlaid. | |
| MDBC | Murray Darling Basin Commission [go to site] | |
| MET Online | Metadata Entry Tool Online. [go to site] | |
| Metadata | Data about data, describing the content, quality, currency and availability of data. Essential for discovering data and determining its suitability for a particular use. A policy has been developed for Natural Resources' metadata in NSW. [go to site] | |
| Monocotyledon | A flowering plant characterised by a seed with a single seed-leaf (cotyledon), flower parts arranged in threes, and leaves with parallel veins; for example, grasses, lilies, palms. | |
N [Back to Top] | ||
| NAP | National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality [go to site] | |
| Natural Resources | Land, water, biodiversity, vegetation, air, soil and related resources. | |
| NCC | Nature Conservation Council of NSW [go to site] | |
| NLWRA | National Land and Water Resources Audit [go to site] | |
| NRDD | NSW Natural Resources Data Directory [go to site] | |
| NRIMS | Natural Resources Information Management Strategy [go to site] | |
| NSW | New South Wales [go to site] | |
| NSW Natural Resources Data Directory | A catalogue of a wide range of natural resource information for New South Wales. The information described (called datasets) covers flora, fauna, land, water and air, and is primarily held by government agencies. [go to site] | |
O [Back to Top] | ||
| OGC | Open GIS Consortium [look up] | |
| OICT | Office of Information and Communications Technology [go to site] | |
| Open GIS Catalog | OpenGIS Catalog Interface Implementation Specification. [go to site] | |
| Open GIS Consortium | An international industry consortium of companies, government agencies and universities. OGC develops publicly available specifications that support interoperable solutions to "geo-enable" the Web, wireless and location-based services and mainstream IT, and empower technology developers to make complex spatial information and services accessible and useful with all kinds of applications. [go to site] | |
| Open source | Software whose code is available for users to look at and modify freely. [go to site] | |
| Open standards | Publicly available specifications for formats, interfaces, graphics, networking and so on, established by industry-wide bodies to assure hardware and software compatibility. | |
P [Back to Top] | ||
| Pan | Move across a map or image to view adjoining areas, without changing scale. | |
| Portable Document Format [look up] | ||
| Portable Document Format | A universal file format that preserves the fonts, images, graphics, and layout of any source document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it. [go to site] | |
| Portal | A web page which provides access to a range of sites or information resources for a specific audience group. | |
| Projection | A process used to portray the surface of the earth or a portion of the earth on a flat surface. Some distortions of conformality, distance, direction, scale and area always result from this process. | |
Q [Back to Top] | ||
| Quickmap | A pre-configured map, ready for viewing in the Natural Resource Atlas Mapmaker, containing several map layers related to a single topic. | |
S [Back to Top] | ||
| Salinity | The concentration or build-up of salts in water and/or soil. [go to site] | |
| SCOTS | Standards-based Commercial Off-The-Shelf (software) | |
| SDI | Spatial Data Infrastructure [look up] | |
| SoE | State of Environment reporting [go to site] | |
| SPADE | Soil Profile Attribute Data Environment [go to site] | |
| Spatial Data Infrastructure | Technologies, policies and institutional arrangements that facilitate access to spatial data. An SDI provides for spatial data discovery, evaluation and download, and applications for all levels of government, the commercial sector, the non-profit sector, academia and the general public. SDIs use standard practices, protocols and specifications, and are commonly delivered via the Internet. [go to site] | |
| State Water Monitoring Strategy | Aims to provide a coordinated and cost-effective approach to water monitoring in NSW. It will establish a procedural framework of protocols and quality assurance provisions by which water monitoring in NSW will be conducted. [go to site] | |
| SWMS | State Water Monitoring Strategy [look up] | |
T [Back to Top] | ||
| Topoweb | Web-based map viewer for topographic data, provided by NSW Department of Lands. [go to site] | |
W [Back to Top] | ||
| Web Feature Server | OpenGIS Consortium specification for an online service that supports insert, update, delete, query and discovery operations on geographic features using HTTP as the distributed computing platform [go to site] | |
| Web Map Server | OpenGIS Consortium specification for an online service that provides maps in one of a number of standard image formats. [go to site] | |
| WebMap Composer | A software product from Social Change Online for creating interactive online maps without requiring data management or interface programming. [go to site] | |
| WFS | Web Feature Server [look up] | |
| WMS | Web Map Server [look up] | |
X [Back to Top] | ||
| XML | The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is the universal format for structured documents and data on the Web. [go to site] | |
| XML Schema | XML Schemas express shared vocabularies and allow machines to carry out rules made by people. They provide a means for defining the structure, content and semantics of XML documents. [go to site] | |
Z [Back to Top] | ||
| Zoom | Show a smaller area of an image at a higher magnification ("zoom in") or a larger area at a lower magnification ("zoom out"), as though using a zoom lense on a camera. | |