Sourcing topographical (topo) maps in India - contacts & tips request
Submitted by ashis on April 21, 2010 - 18:07
At the India Water Portal, we have received several enquiries from users, regarding sourcing topographical (topo) maps, an important aid in taking up work on water on the ground.
While the Survey of India (SoI) Map Transaction Registry (http://www.surveyofindia.gov.in/MTR/soivector/soi/login.htm) promises that, "Registered users can purchase Digital data (both Raster and Vector Format) of all SOI maps and Paper map of any scale", in practice however, it appears from the experience of individual users, that the response from the Survey of India main office in Dehradun, even after consistent follow up to any order or enquiry for maps by phone/email/fax, is extremely poor/non-existent.
SoI's regional offices at state capitals (http://www.surveyofindia.gov.in/Organization.html) are also supposed to stock these maps. However even here, only a visit to their office helps in getting any response, and they too have only limited supply and of only some maps (the others are either out of print or not available), and ask users to get in touch again with the Dehradun main office. Also, maps of 1:25000 scale have the most detail and hence are the most useful, however these are the most difficult to find, and only supply of 1:50000 or 1:250000 scale seem available, if at all.
In this context, we seek help on the following:
- Any successful experiences in being able to source topo maps (in both digital / print form) from the SoI. What is the best way to go about this? How can the out of print / not available maps be sourced from the regional/main offices
- Considering the importance and great usefulness of topo maps, should not they (apart from maps of restricted areas) be put online free for use by the public (like Google Earth/Maps has done), just as the rationale for IMD to be putting up Met Data for public use. Will a collective campaign from users, which led to IMD releasing the last 5 years data, similarly work here?
- Are there any online or other print/digital sources for topo maps (One such source of historical topo maps we have come across is here: http://indiawaterportal.org/node/6224), which are available free or easily to the public without much hassle? Can Google Maps be tweaked and used in any way, for this purpose?
Comments
1. Google & govt requests
Came across this blog post recently, which records the number of requests that Google gets from governments to block data, which could be for several reasons -
http://www.google.com/governmentrequests/
I have not gotten around to see the ranking of India as such, but would be interesiting to see if we could write to Google about our query --
They (Google) are also doing another effort in order to encourage data from government, read more here -
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/controversial-content-and-free.html
2. The United States Geological
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) is one of the premier governmental agencies in the US for disseminating elevation data that are freely available and widely used in all aspects of natural resource management, particularly in the field of water resources management.
Several years ago they put out the HYDRO1K database which is a 1KM x 1KM gridded elevation dataset for the entire world. More details can be found here: http://eros.usgs.gov/#/Find_Data/Products_and_Data_Available/gtopo30/hydro
In my opinion, the government of India vis-à-vis SOI or some other public-private partnership venture should take the lead in such an endeavor and make the data publicly available for free. An effort of this scale certainly requires government backing and funding.
In the meantime, however for regional (or greater) scale studies within India, I believe the Hydro1K dataset can be made use of, since I believe this is probably the “best available” elevation dataset for the Indian sub continent that provides a seamless coverage and is available in the public domain.
3. Thanks Sumant for a very
Thanks Sumant for a very informative post.
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