Data Reference & Usage

The GroundSource dataset is a structured catalogue of historical flood events across the Indonesian archipelago, compiled by Google's Environmental Intelligence team and released on Zenodo. Each record contains a geospatial polygon, estimated inundated area (km²), year of occurrence, and province-level administrative attribution. The dataset contains no personally identifiable information.

The Ground Source Project ingests this dataset as Parquet files, queries it via DuckDB, and exposes it through an interactive map, analytics dashboards, and a gated commercial API.

The GroundSource dataset is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. This means you are free to:

• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercially.

Under the following terms: Attribution — you must give appropriate credit (see Section 3), provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.

The CC BY 4.0 license does not limit the Ground Source Project application code, which is governed separately (see Legals).

When publishing work that uses or references data accessed through Ground Source Project or the underlying GroundSource dataset, you must include attribution. The recommended citation format is:

For academic publications, follow your institution's preferred citation style, but ensure the dataset name, Google as originator, the Zenodo DOI, and the CC BY 4.0 license are clearly identified.

In digital products (web apps, dashboards, reports), attribution may be placed in a footer, credits page, or data source section. It must be clearly legible and not buried in ToS text.

The following uses are explicitly permitted under CC BY 4.0 and the Ground Source Project platform terms:

• Academic research and education, including redistribution of derived datasets with proper attribution.
• Journalism and public interest reporting on flood risk in Indonesia.
• Commercial products and services (insurance, proptech, logistics risk modelling) accessed via the commercial API under a valid API key agreement.
• Government and NGO planning tools for disaster preparedness and climate adaptation.
• Personal, non-commercial projects and portfolio work, with attribution.

The following uses are restricted or prohibited:

• Accessing the /api/v1/ commercial endpoints without a valid, active API key.
• Automated scraping of the public web interface at scale in a manner that disrupts service for other users.
• Presenting the data as your own original work without crediting the GroundSource dataset and Google as the originator.
• Using the data for emergency response decisions without independent verification by qualified professionals. See Section 7 (Accuracy and limitations).
• Applying technological measures that restrict others from exercising the rights granted by CC BY 4.0, if you redistribute derived datasets.

The /api/v1/ endpoints are gated behind API key authentication and are intended for commercial integrators (insurance carriers, proptech platforms, logistics risk teams). Key terms:

• API keys are issued per organisation. Sharing keys across organisations is prohibited.
• Commercial users obtain the right to query and embed aggregated flood data in their products, subject to attribution requirements (Section 3).
• Raw dataset redistribution (bulk parquet downloads) is not available via the API. Redistribution must reference the original Zenodo source.
• Rate limits and quotas are defined in the API key agreement. Exceeding quotas may result in key suspension.
• Cliche ID reserves the right to revoke API access for violation of these terms, with reasonable notice except in cases of abuse.

The GroundSource dataset is a research-grade product derived from remote sensing and modelling. Users should be aware of the following limitations:

• Area estimates are model-derived and may differ from ground-truth measurements. Treat values as indicative, not definitive.
• Administrative attribution (province, region) reflects boundaries at the time of data compilation and may not match current administrative divisions.
• Coverage may be uneven across the archipelago due to satellite revisit frequency and cloud cover, particularly in remote or heavily forested areas.
• Forecast projections generated by the platform use linear regression and are illustrative. They should not be used as the sole basis for infrastructure investment or emergency planning.

This platform is not an emergency response tool. For real-time flood alerts, refer to official national agencies such as BPBD (Badan Penanggulangan Bencana Daerah) and BMKG.

If you create a derivative dataset or analysis tool based on GroundSource data, CC BY 4.0 requires attribution but does not require your derivative to be released under the same license. You may apply any license to your own contributions, provided the original attribution is preserved and your license does not impose restrictions that contradict CC BY 4.0 on the original material.

If you publish a derivative dataset that substantially reproduces the GroundSource catalogue, we ask (but do not legally require) that you notify the Ground Source Project and link back to the original Zenodo repository to support discoverability.

See also: Privacy Policy · Legals