📜 OPEN DATA  ·  LICENCES & ATTRIBUTION

Data Licences & Attribution

The Geospatial System is built on open elevation (DEM) datasets published by national and state government agencies. This page lists each data source, its licence terms, and the attribution statements that apply to data and products served through our platform.

Data Sources

Licence terms by source

All datasets used are open data. The United States federal sources are in the public domain; the Australian, New Zealand and Queensland sources are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution licences, which permit use, sharing and adaptation — including commercial use — provided the required attribution is given.

NASA SRTM-GL1 (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, 30 m)

U.S. GOVERNMENT — NO RESTRICTIONS
Products derived from: SRTMGL1 V003 global 1 arc-second DEM (NASA JPL / LP DAAC)

Licence type: Open NASA Earth science data, distributed by the NASA LP DAAC free of charge and without restrictions on reuse, in accordance with the NASA EOSDIS Data Use and Citation Guidance. Citation of the dataset is requested.

NASA JPL (2013). NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission Global 1 arc second [Data set]. NASA EOSDIS Land Processes DAAC. https://doi.org/10.5067/MEaSUREs/SRTM/SRTMGL1.003

Licence documentation: earthdata.nasa.gov/data/catalog/lpcloud-srtmgl1-003 · EOSDIS Data Use Policy

USGS National Elevation Dataset / 3DEP (1/3 & 1/9 arc-second)

PUBLIC DOMAIN (U.S. GOVERNMENT)
Products derived from: USGS NED 1/3 arc-second (~10 m) and NED 1/9 arc-second (~3 m) DEMs — now part of the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP), The National Map

Licence type: Public domain. All 3DEP products (including the legacy NED layers) are free and in the public domain with no use restrictions. The USGS requests acknowledgement of the originating agency in derived products.

Elevation data courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey — USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) / The National Map.

Licence documentation: usgs.gov — Terms of Use/Licensing for The National Map

Geoscience Australia — Digital Elevation Model 5 m (LiDAR-derived)

CC BY 4.0 INTERNATIONAL
Products derived from: DEM of Australia derived from LiDAR, 5 Metre Grid (eCat 89644, DOI 10.26186/89644), drainage catchment DEM collection (eCat 150163), incl. GDA2020 / MGA zone mosaics accessed via the Elvis — Elevation and Depth platform

Licence type: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Copyright in the material is owned by the Commonwealth of Australia and licensed for reuse, including commercial use, with attribution.

© Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia). Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of Australia derived from LiDAR, 5 Metre Grid. Licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Licence documentation: ga.gov.au/copyright · Dataset record (DOI 10.26186/89644) · Dataset record (eCat 150163) · CC BY 4.0 licence text

Toitū Te Whenua — Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), DTM 5 m

CC BY 4.0 INTERNATIONAL
Products derived from: LiDAR-derived digital elevation models published via the LINZ Data Service / NZ Elevation open data programme

Licence type: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). LINZ does not hold copyright in all elevation data it distributes — copyright may rest with regional councils or other licensors identified in the survey metadata — so the attribution statement must name the relevant licensor(s).

Sourced from the LINZ Data Service and licensed by Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand and contributing licensors for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Licence documentation: linz.govt.nz — Licensing and using data · Attributing elevation data

State of Queensland — Brisbane LGA 2009 LiDAR DEM, 1 m

CC BY 4.0
Products derived from: Queensland LiDAR Data — South East Queensland 2009 Project (Brisbane 2009 LiDAR capture), distributed via QSpatial and the Elvis portal

Licence type: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0), © State of Queensland. Queensland Government open spatial data is released under Creative Commons Attribution licensing permitting use, sharing and adaptation, including commercial use, with attribution. (Some legacy 2009-era project records were originally released under CC BY 3.0 Australia; the licence stated in the dataset's current metadata record applies.)

© State of Queensland (Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Manufacturing and Regional and Rural Development). Queensland LiDAR Data — South East Queensland 2009 Project. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.

Licence documentation: QSpatial metadata record — SEQ 2009 LiDAR Project · Queensland Government copyright & licensing

Note on derived products. Elevation values, tiles, profiles and other products returned by the Geospatial System API are derived from the datasets listed above. The original agencies do not endorse this service, and the data is provided “as is” without warranty from the originating agencies. If you republish or redistribute outputs from our platform, please carry the relevant attribution statements above through to your own products. Questions? Contact us.