Having recently come across Open Infrastructure Map and noting what features are shown there, I’m wondering if there is any opportunity for the ‘major’ stomwater drainage pipes to be added as well if the data could be sourced.
In the Melbourne region, this would be drainage pipes that are owned by Melbourne Water, not local councils. Note that these are independent of the sewerage network.
Yes!
In Sydney we have a few stormwater pumps mapped with utility=stormwater and drains mapped with substance=rainwater, you can usually find these on the ground and can survey them directly.
I think all infrastructure is useful, both Melbourne Water and local council infrastructure, though the physical layout may be difficult to survey beyond drain grates.
Andrew, that’s good to hear.
A couple of councils here in Victoria have stormwater drains on their own online maps (eg. https://bendigo.pozi.com, zoom in a bit, and at the Layers button (top left), choose Assets and tick ‘Drainage Pits’ and ‘Drainage Pipes’).
Digital Twin Victoria (https://digitaltwin.vic.gov.au/public/) also has some council drainage data, ie. Explore Data → Govt Data Hubs - > Local Government → Wyndham → Stormwater Pipes / Pits as an example.
Alas, many of the online maps are copyright so we would need to seek permission to use the data in OSM (if we don’t already have the required permissions).
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Andrew,
Are you able to indicate where in Sydney these sample pumps and drains are, please? It would be interesting to check them out, in case I decide to do a few examples of stormwater pipes & pits near home (using their location on the local council’s online mapping website as a guide).
Thanks,
Good point, although as noted in my other reply, where they are shown on the council’s own websites or on DigitalTwin, this could be used as a guide for anyone wanting to map such features themselves.
Another thing is that at the current annual series of A-Spec forums, a speaker from a company interstate doing similar asset data capture to me at work made a comment along the lines of “what do the councils do with all this data (provided through A-Spec)”. 
Recently, I made a contact in local government whose work inlcudes GIS, and when I mentioned my work, he replied that it would be good to have online maps for drainage for their council, to help with maintenance work or similar.
You can use an Overpass Turbo query of utility=stormwater or substance=rainwater in "NSW, AU" eg. overpass turbo
One of the stormwater pumping stations is Way: Sydney Water Stormwater Pumping Station (305547878) | OpenStreetMap but stormwater pumping stations aren’t common here, they are mostly gravity flows either discharging into creeks or the ocean.
Andrew,
I’ve added some example pipelines and manholes (pits) along Pier Street at: OpenStreetMap
I’ve used the local council’s online mapping website to determine the location of the Melbourne Water pits and pipes, and then walked along this street to pick them up with Vespucci after checking the manholes in person. Some details were added later back home in OSM.
I agree with your comments about stormwater pumping stations; I don’t think I’ve come across any at work as the outfall often goes to wetlands / waterways or similar.
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Just ensure you’re only using their online mapping data for hints about where to look and you’re not basing any information from their maps and only from your surveys. For example while you can survey manholes, network topology generally can’t be surveyed only estimated from the manholes.
Mornington Peninsula Shire don’t release any of their data as open data and we don’t have the necessary permissions to publish their data.
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Andrew, I’ve only done around a 650m length of pipe as an example of stormwater pipe and pit (manhole) pckup for OSM; if need be, I can find someone to chase up at Council to look to get an OK for the pipe location permission from their website.
In that case, please ask for full access to their Open Data!
If only they had any open data to begin with…
An update for those interested in the Mornington Peninsuila Shire council mapping website, it is updated at: https://mornpen.spatial.t1cloud.com/spatial/intramaps/?project=Public&module=General&configId=a876603d-3827-4328-b2bc-bad1485f65d7&startToken=96c3f00b-9ad6-4032-8db0-e974ca69130e
If you click on the ‘Asset’ option, you will note that South East Water pipes and pits for sewerage and water supply have been added, along with street lighting, gas / oil pipelines, and United Energy fibre optic cables (I can’t find any of the latter these with a quick glance).
I’m assuming still no open data though.
A follow-up now that I’ve been through the site to note what is new and may be of interest:
General:
· Leash free / Dog control areas
Assets:
· Street lights
· More details on memorials
· South East Water water supply & sewerage lines
· Road and other signs
· More details on car parks
· Grassed areas
· Garden beds
· Footpath & paving surfaces
· Traffic lights
· Retaining walls
· Major oil & gas pipelines
My thoughts are it is best used as a reference for OSM’ers to then validate in the field before adding to OSM.
But until we get permission to use their data, we shouldn’t be using it at all for anything OSM related.
That’s interesting, Graeme.
I would have thought that adding a feature to OSM from physical verification of something on an online map would be OK.
In practice, I didn’t think it would be too different from how I’ve added park furniture near home, walking through the reserve and adding features as I came across them using a smartphone app (but no use of the Council online map for that).
Hi John,
Thanks for sharing — especially the update on the drainage pits for Mornington. That’s really helpful.
Do you know if there’s any way to access the underlying shapefiles (similar to the City of Melbourne’s drainage pit dataset)? I’m wondering whether the Shire or SEW make those available on request, even if they’re not published as open data.
Hello Jia,
I’m not sure if the Shire would make them available, you would need to contact them directly about that, their website gives an email address of: gis@mornpen.vic.gov.au.
South East Water has a smartphone app (I’ve got this on my smartphone) for locating sewer and water supply features, see: SEWmap | South East Water
SEW also have the Asset WebMap at: Asset Webmap | South East Water, some of my workmates will have access to this, but again I don’t know if you could get this data provided to you; you would need to contact SEW directly.
By comparison, Yarra Valley Water have public-access web maps, see: Request Rejected
Regards, John
Seems to always be me saying this, but while they do indeed say “We freely provide this information to the public” it then also goes on to say “data is not to be used to produce materials for sale to a third party, or for general sale, without prior written consent”. As OSM can be used for commercial purposes, I would think that the second bit would mean we would need permission & a waiver signed to allow copying into OSM.
SE Water is also the same.
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just means the public can view and access it (at no cost), it doesn’t imply anything about the public being able to republish or remix the material in other works (like OSM).
So I agree, we can’t incorporate any of this.