Survey Policy

Introduction

Once a Discovery has Been Made

As part of the access conditions to the cave, anyone discovering new passage must, in additon to their conservation responsibilities, survey their discovery with at least tape and compass and supply the survey data to the PDCMG survey officer. If confidentially is requested by the discoverers, it will be respected by the PDCMG Survey Officer, but the data should still be submitted within a reasonable amount of time (2 months).

Photocopies of the original survey notes should be supplied and if possible the data should also be supplied in a PC digital format, either as a spreadsheet or a Survex data entry file. In addition to the survey data the names of passages, the names of the explorers and the names of the surveyors, any relevant dates and a description of where the survey joins the main survey should also be supplied. The Survey Officer should then be able to supply a survey showing the new discovery, for the discoverers to verify.

Data Use

All supplied data will join the Ogof Draenen data pool. The data in this pool will be made freely available, (once confidentiality is no longer required):-

1. For use in supplying statistics about the system
2. To aid further exploration within the system
3. To check the accuracy of other surveys
4. And for the reproduction in non-profit making publications

A non-profit making publication is defined as either a publication which provides no commercial / publicity benefit to the publisher or a caving club journal.

If survey data is requested for publication in a profit making publication it will normally be made available once a suitable donation to the work of the PDCMG has been agreed with the PDCMG. It is hoped that the size of the donation will be determined by the publisher, because they want to make a donation to this worthy cause and not because they have to.

The Release of Survey Data

The Survey data is compiled using Survex, so all files released by the Survey Officer will normally be in a Survex electronic format. Each file released will contain a standard header stating who has supplied the data contained in it. All publications must credit the suppliers of all of the data published in the survey, whether that be by name (Joe Bloggs), Initials (JB), or organisation (JBCC). Very small 'thumbnail' surveys (A6 or smaller) need only credit the PDCMG data pool.

Future Enhancements

All survey data held by the group for which consent to publish has been given will be made freely available on a web site.