Normalización de datos geoespaciales de fuentes y manantiales inventariados en el Nomenclátor Geográfico de Andalucía (España)

Abstract

Gazetteers require official or standardized toponyms by a competent organization according to standards, recommendations and applicable regulations. The Geographic Gazetteer of Andalusia (NGA) is a georeferenced registry, in continuous updating and in accordance with INSPIRE Directive. It aim is to be the reference toponymic database of Andalusia, a Spanish autonomous community. The toponymic quality control of is a complex task involving problems such as the absence of physical limits of a geographical entity (e.g. a natural site), the non existence of official or standardized toponyms, the need to carry out an onomastic study or the disappearance of people who know the places and its history. All of this make toponymic verification and its standardization even more difficult. It is increasingly common for gazetteers, such as the NGA, to be linked to other geospatial datasets, reusing their geographic names for enrichment and updating. Without the application of universal identifiers, unique and permanent, for entities, its name and its location, plus its typology, are essential elements in the linkage between these datasets. This article presents some problems, solutions and standardization proposals, following the NTCA 02-021 technical standard, adopted in the annual linking of NGA with the geodatabase "Conoce tus Fuentes", a collaborative online catalogue of water sources and springs of Andalusia. This process is allowing transmitting: the importance of standardization, exemplified in this typology of names; and how the existence of unique and persistent identifiers has helped in the linkages between this project and NGA.