The number of permits issued for entry into Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs) in

Australian Antarctic Territory data on the annual number of permits issued for entry into Antarctic Specially Protected Areas (ASPAs). The indicator, considered obsolete and no longer maintained, was produced by the Australian Antarctic Division (AU_AADC) to monitor pressures and responses related to protected area visitation. Records were kept in a database, with annual reports detailing total permits and counts for each area.

Use Cases

• Analyzing trends in permitted human activity within protected Antarctic areas based on annual permit counts.
• Monitoring regulatory pressure on sensitive ecosystems based on the permit system described.
• Linking permit data to other environmental indicators, such as the number and area of protected areas, as mentioned in the description.

Strengths

• Data is derived from a formal, verifiable permit system as described in the rationale.
• Indicator was designed for annual reporting, suggesting a consistent time-series structure.
• Spatial scale explicitly covers the Australian Antarctic Territory, the whole of Antarctica, and the Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands.

Limitations

• The indicator is explicitly noted as obsolete and no longer maintained.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Australian Antarctic Division (AU_AADC)

Collection Method

Permit applications were recorded in a database, with annual reports extracted.

Time Range

Annual reporting, but specific temporal coverage is unknown.

Freshness

Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Geography

Australian Antarctic Territory, the whole of Antarctica, and the Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands.