Abstracts
TS 1 - Regional SDI Initiatives
TS 1.1 - Evaluating Spatial Data Infrastructures in The Caribbean for Sustainable Development; Tatiana Delgado Fernández (Cuba), Joep Crompvoets (The Netherlands)
This paper presents the current developments of SDIs for supporting sustainable development in The Caribbean using several evaluation approaches. The topic of the paper is strongly in line with of the theme of GSDI 10: “Small Island Perspectives on Global Challenges: The Role of Spatial Data in Supporting a Sustainable Future” focusing on The Caribbean. No island nation in this region today can ignore the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. Sustainable development demands complex decision-making that weighs up economic, social and environmental consequences of the choices that are made about how resources will be used. Such complex decision-making requires ready access by decision-makers and stakeholders to current, relevant and accurate spatial information. SDIs that support the collecting, maintaining, analyzing, presenting and disseminating spatial data are vital in the complex decision-making processes of the future, particularly for sustainable development.
The existing SDI-initiatives in The Caribbean are evaluated by different evaluation approaches in order to contribute to the enhancement of SDI development for sustainable development in this region. In this way, we can explore the degrees in which The Caribbean island nations are prepared to establish (successful) SDIs, expose best practices in the region, exchange experiences as a base for better understanding, identify key problems/barriers, and assess the performance of existing SDI-projects whether these initiatives are actually achieving goals such as increasing efficiency and effectiveness in the management of information or helping to advance health, education, social welfare, security, safety, etc.. The results obtained might also support decision-makers and policy-makers in the development of successful strategies (policies) for planning, financing, and implementing SDIs or related initiatives.
Different evaluation approaches are used in order to arrive at a more comprehensive evaluation. The approaches that are considered are: SDI-Readiness (Delgado et al., 2004), Organizational (Kok and Van Loenen, 2005), and INSPIRE State of Play (KULeuven (SADL), 2003; 2004; 2005), Clearinghouse suitability (Crompvoets, 2006), and Generational (Rajabifard et al., 2006).
The results of these evaluations are based on the project collaboration between RGI-005 “Development of Framework to assess worldwide National Spatial Data Infrastructures” funded by the Dutch Bsik innovation program “Space of Geo-Information” and CYTED-project “Evaluating and strengthening Spatial Data Infrastructures for sustainable development in Latin-America and the Caribbean” (IDEDES-606PI0294).
TS 1.2 - Implementing Features of Regional Spatial Data Infrastructures; Mauro Salvemini (Italy)
The paper is based on the implementation process of a Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure. INSPIRE has an implicit dynamicity adopting the services’ architecture and considering data as material to be processed for the benefits of the users. It is easy to detect that the public administration has been based, with the exception of few cases, on a lower level of dynamicity in providing end user services. As matter of fact services (simple and complex) provided by public administrations usually have an high grade of complexity due to the implicit characteristic that are based on acts, rules, regulations and processes drafted and realized in a relevant amount of time and through a very articulated process (political – administrative – physical) involving a conspicuous number of human resources. The territory (originator of GI) for a relevant number of reasons is the dominion where the services are more static.
Any attempt to introduce in public administrations dynamic processes for providing GI based services has to take into account the impact of modifying already well established and experimented economic and societal processes and administrative procedures.
In order to mitigate the critical impact of different dynamicity the implementation of SDI, starting from the design phase, has to take into careful account the impact of how to use dynamic solutions applied to low dynamic or near static nature environments as it is possible to be surveyed in public administrations.
This feature has high relevance as already discussed by Ian P. Williamson who says “The SDI concept is still evolving. However a key component of SDIs is that they are dynamic in nature due to the intra- an inter-jurisdictional partnerships they are based on. These partnerships are important between jurisdictions, between urban and regional environments, between users and suppliers of spatial data in the industry, as well as in the implementation and reform of the administration, integration and reform of land administration systems.” (ref. Spatial Data Infrastructure Supporting Sustainable Development -- Ian P. Williamson -- Land Administration and Spatial Data Infrastructures – Trends and Developments - FIG XXII International Congress, Washington, D.C. USA, April 19-26 2002)
In spite of the appropriate framework set up by INSPIRE in terms of technical and political rules in reality the SDI implementation is not only based on technical specifications and on political awareness but it needs robust contract specifications and internal administrative and technical regulations able to manage the realization of software, user interfaces, the rehabilitation and the sharing of data, the metadata construction and other related activities. For instance it is absolutely strategic that the different phases of setting the contract have to be defined and managed choosing the appropriate process of announcement and award in order to select the most suitable entity able to carry out the complete activity of SDI realization. At this regard it should be highlighted that the SDI realization is characterized by relevant amount of integration activities and that the necessary skills to perform these activities are not easily founded within the ICT market.
During the realization of the SDI the appropriateness of software engineering methods for controlling the implementation is absolutely relevant since the based service architecture requires specific accounting systems and metric for controlling the software development such as function points (FP) technique or person/day production of LOC (lines of code) for measuring and for assessing the production of software and services and the internal and external reuse of software.
In spite of INSPIRE is aiming to a software web based architecture it has to be clear that not always public administrations are ready to serve to final users the afore mentioned (in the feature N.1) processes using distributed GIServices. Having in mind that the evolution of distributed GIS evolved from the static map publishing to static web mapping, to interact web mapping and finally to distributed GIServices (see Plewe B. and others) it has been particularly interesting to survey that the solutions chosen by some public administrations in order to serve the GI based services to end users are not always choosing the distributed GIServices architecture. On the other hand they prefer to set up more simple services based on static maps.
The paper shows how the developed components of two RSDI are related to the server and client types and where the components are positioned in the space defined by different types of server and client.
The survey and the experience show how often the solutions based on static maps, on data map generators and on proprietary map generators are preferred by the public administrations and/or they are offered by the present vendors (especially in presence of a narrow integration level) in order to satisfy the public demand of so called GI based services.
The feature addresses the very relevant aspect regarding the dynamicity and the interaction level of the map served to final user.
TS 1.3 – SITNA: Evolving Beyond an SDI; Maria Cabello, Andres Valendin (Spain)
In the developing Information Society, the access to spatial information will be a key factor for spatial related decision making and could be defined as an infrastructure component. Therefore, Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) developments are currently under development on all levels, from local to Global. Different organizations collect geographical data but they have little or no contact with other organizations doing similar work in neighboring regions.
From the regional point of view the use of spatial data has a lot of common aspects all over the World and especially for cross-regional or cross-border scenarios. Keep in mind, that decision making is always spatial and does not stop on regional or national borders. Current data show that roads do not connect over borders, information on forests is not comparable, rivers are at different levels and the same mountain can be higher in one region than in another.
The Territorial Information System of Navarra - SITNA launched in 2000 and the regional SDI publication (IDENA) in 2005 supposed a milestone, since although the increasing spatial information use was evident and measurable by means of statistics request, until the launching of module of discharges, other use and benefit indicators arising from SITNA could not be applied. IDENA was the answer from Navarra to fulfill the requirements from Spanish SDI (IDEE) and European SDI (INSPIRE)
But, the current situation, in spite of its consolidation, doesn't prevent weaknesses or threats that will be presented next to the strengths and opportunities in a SWOT analysis.
To guarantee the viability of the system, we have to foresee, at least, which will be the minimum resources that it is necessary to arrange the Systems. The financing includes the expenses arising from its general managing and diffusion. The layers production and integration, the exploitation and specialized diffusion is in the charge of the respective ownerships and users.
In this sense, SITNA has had a wide and continuous political support from its beginnings and bet in the future for the development of SITNA GeoPortal, in which we could find not only SITNA Web or the different Regional, Local or Thematic SDIs, but also different services on the SDIs. Moreover, developments that are currently in progress will consolidate SITNA as open door where different regions all around the World could find ideas, experiences and best practices.
It is in the interest of Globalization, that the regions around the world could handle the “spatial problem” in a similar way in order to be interoperable and to be able to elaborate joint plans, programs and projects, this is one the goals of INSPIRE directive in Europe.
This interoperability is not restricted to the technical point of view (the systems have to work with the others), but from the semantic and cultural point of view as well.
The organization, the information and the technology place also SITNA as a powerful driver of Modernization of Public Administrations, a decisive contribution to the development of the Information Society, an infrastructure for the regional development and, in definitive, an essential improvement of the public service.
TS 1.4 - Creating Spatial Data Infrastructure at Various Levels from Local to National in India; Dr K R Murali Mohan, Dr R Siva Kumar (India)
Natural Resources Data Management System (NRDMS) is a multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional program launched by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India for developing a scientifically proven database approach for operationalising the concept of micro-level planning. Major objectives of the program include a). Development of integrated district level resource databases on natural resources b). Research and software support for spatial data management c). Demonstration of the utility and use of the databases and spatial data management tools in local level planning d). Development of Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) in different sectors of integrated rural development.
In this paper, the consolidated views, efforts and initiatives to develop National, Regional and Local level SDI's in India is provided.
National Level: Considering the advantages, prospects and importance of NSDI, Govt. of India has constituted a high powered Committee in 2001 drawing members from major primary geo-spatial data generators at National level. The main objectives of the Committee was to study and recommend the detailed modalities to implement National Level SDI. It includes Standards, data Clearinghouse, web services (Web Map Server, Web Feature Server & Web Registry Server), data security and delivery mechanisms to stakeholders. It is envisaged to populate the NSDI geo-portal with meta data extracted from existing 1:50000 Scale maps and improve the scale to 10000 scale in coming years. The efforts also made to look in to the policy changes that required to enable the spatial data distribution and access in open domain. Based on the recommendations, Govt of India has established NSDI Institution and also brought out the policy changes by way of 'New Map Policy'. The New Map Policy defined the usage of dual series maps, one Defense Series Maps (DSM) for exclusive usage in Defense applications and other, Open Series Maps (OSM) for Civilian use. Each series will have its own projection systems. Based on these structural changes, now, the NSDI is in its advanced stage of implementation.
Regional Level: At Regional level, 'State' is an administrative region which in turn consists of number of administrative units called 'Districts'. For planning, implementation of developmental schemes, preparation of rescue and rehabilitation plans in case of disasters, a relatively large scale (1:25K) maps at a single source is the need. To meet the above, the development of State level SDI's was initiated and to prove the concept, a pilot project was initiated in Karnataka, one of the States in India. The Karnataka State constitutes 27 districts and over the period spatial data at 1:25K was created in all districts. Now, a project is under implementation to create a State Geo-portal that will contain OGC based web services, meta data and data security systems. The geo-portal will be connected with all 27 districts and is also part of NSDI portal at National level.
Local Level: In line with National and State SDIs we have also initiated a project on “Development of District Level SDIs”. In India, a “District” is an administrative Unit which will in turn consist of Taluks/Mandals. A Taluk or Mandal is a collection of number of Villages. Developmental schemes planned at national or at state levels will be implemented at Districts. Therefore, the requirement of large scale spatial data collated from various State Agencies is the need successful implementation of the schemes. To meet the above requirements, a pilot project is being implemented at Prakasam District of Andhra Pradesh. The District contains 56 mandals and it is planned to create 1:10000 scale spatial data at each of these mandals. The spatial data includes the digitized cadastral scale Land holding sketches, village boundaries, geological aspects, land use land cover, hydrological parameters, integration of the census data, communication networks and private and government amenities etc. It is envisaged that each Mandal will have a Data Centre connected to Central Server at District Headquarters. A web based access to all the mandals and a centralized geo-portal at District Headquarters will provide access to geo-spatial data to all the Govt. agencies and to other stake-holders. The district geo-portal in turn connected to state-level geo-portal and as well as to the national level NSDIs.
Village Level: We are also creating a spatial data at village level at 1:2000 scale. A village is the final node of the administrative set up. The bottom up and top down approach for implementation of national level SDI to village level SDI is followed. The detailed maps available at village level shall provide a basis for planning and policy decisions by considering a village as a Unit. Each village will be provided with an Geo-spatial information kiosk, communication link and an Automatic Weather Station. The communication link provides a means to gather the village level information and as well as alerting in case of natural disasters. Therefore, a complete suite of standards based SDI's right from National level and up to Village level is being implemented to realize the full potential of the current geo-spatial technologies for sustainable development.
TS 1.5 – INSPIRE State of Play: Development of the NSDI in 32 European countries between 2002 and 2007; Danny Vandenbroucke, Katleen Janssen, Jos Van Orshoven (Belgium)
In 2001, the European Commission initiated the INSPIRE initiative. With this initiative the European Union wants to contribute to the development of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure. This infrastructure should allow the public sector users at the European, national, regional and local levels to easily share spatial data from a wide range of sources in an interoperable way for the execution of a variety of public tasks. One of the key elements of INSPIRE was the elaboration of a legislative framework. Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) was published in the Official Journal on 25 April 2007. The INSPIRE Directive entered into force on 15 May 2007.
From the very beginning, it was recognized that INSPIRE should build upon the existing components of the emerging SDIs at national and sub-national level. In order to have a better view on the status and development of these SDIs, the Commission launched in 2002 a study which is known as INSPIRE State of Play. The study collected information on 32 NSDIs in Europe according to the components as described in the GSDI cookbook: legal framework and funding, reference data and thematic data, metadata, access and other services, and standards. A 6th component was added, i.e. the status of the environmental information, since this is the sector of application of INSPIRE. The information was collected through the study of key documents, the visit of websites and geo-portals, through contacts with key experts and during visits to some of the countries studied. A list of 30 indicators was established to assess the SDIs at organizational, legal, funding and technical level. A typology was elaborated to classify the 32 countries based on the way the development of the SDI is led, the involvement of its users, the existence or non-existence of a formal mandate and the degree of operationality.
The paper will give a general overview of the approach and methodology applied to assess the NSDI. It will discuss in detail the status of the European NSDI, as well as their development between 2002 and 2007. The paper will assess where the European Union stands as compared to the requirements set out in the INSPIRE Directive. It will give examples of good practices regarding the technical and organizational approaches, and the data sharing practices as they are being applied in different European countries. Furthermore, the paper will describe some of the key issues for successful development during the coming years when the INSPIRE Directive will be implemented by all the Member States of the EU.
TS 2.1- Developing an Open and Participative Spatial Data Infrastructure for Europe: The INSPIRE Progress and the Challenges Ahead, Max Craglia and Alessandro Annoni (Italy)
The INSPIRE Directive, establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information for the European Community, was adopted in March 2007, after six years of sustained effort since its original inception. This lengthy period was necessary first to formulate the technical and policy framework in collaboration with leading experts from the Member States and relevant stakeholder community, and then for the political negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council to take place. The approval of the Directive sets a milestone for the development of SDI in Europe and acts as a model for other developments world wide. Many national and regional SDIs across Europe have already started aligning themselves to the Directive, and the current challenge is to develop the technical specifications that will ensure the interoperability of all these infrastructures across 27 countries and 23 official languages. The paper assesses the current state of progress in developing these specifications, and uses the example of metadata to illustrate the emerging tensions between what would be desirable from the perspective of interoperability, and what is feasible when taking into account the very variable technical, organizational, and financial context of the organizations called to implement the specifications. Mediating these tensions in an open, participative, and political context is critical, while at the same time assessing the directions, opportunities, and challenges set by research., technology, business, and social practices (such as Google Earth, Virtual Earth, Second Life, MySpace and so on), as well as other international initiatives such as GEOSS, the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. By building the present while planning for the future, we can ensure that the spatial data infrastructures of today are also fit for purpose for tomorrow.
TS 2.2 – What do we need laws for? The Use of Regulatory Tools in Establishing an SDI; Laila Aslesen (Norway)
Establishing an SDI requires the use of many different tools. The right technology, the appropriate administrative solution, the good will and support from stakeholders and politicians and the legal framework required.
It is important to have freely available geodata for both public and private use. But it is even more important to actually have the data. To ensure that one needs to take a pragmatic approach when applying the various tools, even if one needs to sacrifice a few principles that looks good on paper.
From the Norwegian standpoint we have found that establishing an SDI by getting the stakeholders together voluntarily have worked very well. For this you need to accommodate the stakeholders need to feel that they have control over the data they use resources to establish, and that the use of their data by others gives a reward of interest to them. You need political support for your aims, but not necessarily any formal regulations specifically for building SDI. After a while the stakeholders see the benefits and are willing to discuss simpler rules and more expedient ways of exchanging data. A great help here is of course offering technology that will allow this.
In Europe we are trying to establish an SDI for public sector needs with the INSPIRE directive and supplementing regulations. As a supplement for the needs of the private sector, we have the PSI (re-use) directive. It is important to remember that regulations are tools for a purpose and not an end in itself. The question is whether a regulatory approach helps in a way that other methods can not. It is also a general experience that legislation meant to construct new systems or make major changes to existing ones, needs vigorous follow up for a long time in order to work as expected.
It is interesting here to look at traditional legal concepts such as transparency and how the two supposed complimentary directives are working together. One cannot avoid the ever present discussion of funding and the discussion on whether the moving around of money between public organizations serves a purpose.
And if one takes a global view, it is interesting to consider how these regulatory tools could work in other places. There are countries where establishing data and encouraging development is more important than getting what you have into a system.
TS 2.3 - Spatial Enablement of Government and NSDI: Policy Implications; Bas Kok (The Netherlands), Abbas Rajabifard, Ian Williamson (Australia)
The development of a spatially enabled government was a key outcome of the 17th United Nations Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Pacific (UNRCC-AP) and 12th meeting of the UN supported Permanent Committee for GIS Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific (PCGIAP) in September 2006 in Bangkok, Thailand. This outcome lead to Working Group 3 (formerly Cadastre) of the PCGIAP to refocus its activities on Spatially Enabled Government as part of developing National Spatial Data Infrastructures (NSDI). In conjunction with the GSDI Association, WG3 (Spatially Enabled Government) of the PCGIAP hold a dedicated workshop on “Spatial enablement of government and NSDI – policy implications” during the 13th PCGIAP meeting in Seoul, Korea on 12th June 2007.
The focus of the workshop was on commencing dialogue in and better understating the concept of spatially enablement of government and further to better understand and describe the legal and economic issues and policies on global and regional level in the development and implementation of SDIs in supporting this concept.
The key issues that were highlighted concerned the importance of the use of spatial data and services in different government activities internationally, international trends in research to spatially enabling government, the research problems facing implementation efforts and the role that spatially enabled government plays as part of eGovernment strategies of meeting sustainable development objectives.
This paper presents and discusses the contents and outcomes of this workshop as well as the opportunities, issues and challenges involve in the design and development of a spatially enabled government. The paper further discusses the policy drivers and the legal trends for the development of SDI’s as enabling platforms facilitating this spatially enabling government process.
TS 2.4 - The Evolution of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure in Colombia: A High Level Strategy to Support Policy Formulation and Spatial Information Management in the Context of the Colombian Space Commission; Ivan-Dario Gomez, Lilia-Patricia Arias (Colombia)
The Colombian Space Commission – CCE was created by the President of the Republic in 2006, as the high level program in charge of promoting access to knowledge about the national territory, the earth and the space, through the application of satellite technologies.
In this context, the CCE advances in an inter-institutional capacity building framework to consolidate policies that address educational, research and development activities and the strengthen of the aerospace industry in Colombia, as a mechanism to meet the society needs and to achieve the national economic, social and environmental development goals.
The CCE coordinates several plans, projects and financing schemes that are focused on the sound access and use of space, communication and information technologies as remote sensing, telecommunication systems and global navigation satellite systems, in the perspective to improve the productivity, efficiency and competitiveness of the Colombian economy. In addition, the CCE leads the representation of Colombian interests at international level, in the framework of the Space Conference of the Americas – CEA and the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space – COPUOS , among others.
Considering that the space technologies provide the fundamental source of information about earth observation, Colombian government has linked the implementation of the NSDI to the CCE, as a strategy to promote the production and access to geospatial data.
In this sense, several ministries and national institutions are interested on sharing data resources and investments for driving a variety of applications such as precision cartography, soil and subsoil studies, weather change assessment, navigation improving (aviation, maritime and roads), natural resource management, disaster prevention and management, learning programs, medical services, national security, physical infrastructure design, etc. Briefly, the space and geo-information technologies offer valuable data and services for decision making and sustainable development of urban and rural areas, based on the geography context.
As a result of the CCE activities, the Colombian Spatial Data Infrastructure – ICDE has evolved toward a national priority, taking into account institutional development, policy establishment, adoption of standards, the implementation of Geographic Information Systems – GIS and geospatial web services, and the formulation of a knowledge management model that allow to share best practices among institutions and training centers.
In the Information Society, the geographic knowledge is opened to the world. The Colombian Society is accessing two Web Sites “Colombian Geoportal” and “Maps of Colombia”, applications which allow to be connected through distributed networks to access geographic information from different sources. The users can discover quality, trust and useful geographic data for different thematic applications. Those web sites are the result of the effort between producers and users of geographic information.
Finally, the Vice-Presidency of the Republic, the head of the CCE, has played an essential role giving support to space satellite projects and the consolidation of the National Geographic Information Policy through the signature of two agreements, respectively, which become the structural goals of the CCE Master Plan.
TS 3 Application of SDI for Disaster Management and Development
TS 3.1 – The Use of SDI in Aid Management and Donor Coordination, Carmelle Terborgh (USA)
Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) can provide significant contributions to developing countries engaged in aid management activities and to international development organizations and international financial institutions aiming at donor coordination. National governments are looking for means to better manage the aid programs within their territories. They must reconcile the needs of their country in terms of poverty reduction, natural resource management, and economic development with the wishes of bi-lateral and multi-lateral donor institutions. As stated on the Development Gateway Foundation’s Aid Management Program, “international aid provides a welcome boost to developing countries in critical areas — infrastructure, health, education, private sector development — but coordinating and managing aid for the greatest impact can be a huge challenge.” A basic requirement in aid management is a visual, place-based understanding of the needs and the resources to address these development needs. Many benefits can be derived from spatially enabling databases, such as the Accessible Information on Development Activities (or AIDA), and enhancing aid management systems with relevant, sub-national foundation data layers from a national SDI (NSDI). New patterns and trends in aid activities can be visualized and analyzed through integration of data layers from multiple sectors; inclusion of detailed sub-national geographies; overlaying of sector data with poverty maps indicating lack of access to basic needs and economic inequality; etc. For international development and financial institutions, an SDI can assist with donor coordination and the harmonization of multiple aid activities. There is much debate on the appropriate indicators to include in aid harmonization by the donor and financial community – but there is little debate on the need to locate these donor projects on the ground. At the OECD’s 2nd High Level Forum on Harmonization and Alignment of Aid Effectiveness in March 2005, the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group notes in their November 2004 report on Indicators on Aid Harmonization and Alignment that “the development of a culture of ‘collective self-discipline’ among development assistance providers is clearly a critical aspect of moving harmonization forward.” NSDIs lend these organizations a mechanism to collaborate with a consistent spatial framework – location- as they rationalize their activities by sector. In summary, SDI and the related spatial technologies, such as geographic information systems (GISs), have a role as an integrative platform for aid management and as collaborative tools for donor coordination. Harmonization of aid programs is an undertaking with very spatial characteristics.
TS 3.2 - Natural Disaster Prediction/Assessment Modeling for Small Islands with Arc GIS and Google Maps; Amit Jain, Vineet Kumar (India)
Natural accidents like hurricanes, earth quakes comprise great danger to the environment and public health. A number of accidents have taken place in small islands with serious costs in terms of human life as well as with considerable – and in many cases irreversible – damage to the natural environment. Disaster planning for small islands includes wide variety of techniques in order to determine individual factors of accidents and stress factors of the urban environment. Within these fields, monitoring and disaster modeling have been created with a few aims: to estimate short term and long term changes, to develop models that can simulate a real disaster situation, and to aid the decision making process. The paper is concerned with mathematical models of natural disaster prediction in small islands using Geographic Information System (GIS). The use of recent techniques like GIS in disaster prediction is at nascent stage in small islands. GIS has been used quite extensively in transportation related research but only few studies have been carried out in disaster prediction related research by making use of ArcGIS and Google Maps. Further to assess the damage and carry out emergency planning and response exercise, it is essential to overlay the outcome on a map having features such as other industries, residential areas, schools, markets, road, rail, etc. Also the resources required such as fire and spill control, medical aid, etc. to combat the emergency situation arising out of natural accident, their location and access to site of accident can also be plotted. Keeping in view the plotting requirement along with linkages of various databases, it has been considered appropriate to use ArcGIS and Google Maps for emergency planning and response. The ESRI software ArcGIS and Google Maps is the instrument of choice in the implementation of the risk assessment models and the visualization of the results. ArcGIS and Google Maps are especially suited to maintaining and to managing line-based data and information by means of dynamic segmentation and to perform analyses based on spatial or geographical criteria. The implemented models reflect the current state-of-the-art in chemical risk assessment and were successfully built into the geographical context through the collaboration between engineers, GIS and IT specialists and the government authorities. Generally models available are from developed countries and they do not take typical small islands characteristics into account. This is the main reason why most of the disaster prediction models fail in small islands. The study has taken into consideration into the different variables to be considered for developing the model. Limitations and underlying principles governing the models were studied. Proposed model has tried to overcome the limitation of existing models. Moreover the key variables specific to small islands have been taken into account. The model is robust and flexible at the same time.
TS 3.3 - The Andean Information System for Disaster Prevention and Relief-SIAPAD: An Initiative for the Development of a Thematic SDI; Ruben Dario Vargas Franco, Martín Molina (Perú), Salvador Bayarri (España)
The Andean Information System for Disaster Prevention and Relief – SIAPAD for its initials in Spanish- is an initiative of the CAPRADE (Andean Committee for Disaster Prevention and Relief), carried out through the project "Capacity Building for Disaster Prevention in the Andean Community" (PREDECAN) which is funded by the Andean Community General Secretariat (SGCAN) and the European Union. SIAPAD, in its initial phase, is conceived as a geoportal making available relevant information for decision making during the different stages of disaster risk management: prevention, mitigation, preparation and relief. SIAPAD is an internet access point that primarily provides tools for data and information discovery, visualization and access, depending on the institutional policies implemented in different technical organizations of the five Andean Community countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú and Venezuela.
Effective decision making in the field of disaster risk management requires sound information on hazards, vulnerabilities, local conditions and the risks in specific territories and the communities living in them. It also involves knowledge of the human and material resources, legal frameworks and methodological tools available to support implementation of disaster risk management policies. The requirements for an information system like SIAPAD to be useful and efficient are: 1) provided data meets the requirements of the different stages of the disaster risk management process, so user needs are met by data and information producers; 2) users have a fast, timely and adequate access to data and information.
The conceptual model guiding the SIAPAD graphic interface and functional design emphasizes the need of a closer link between data users and producers. It aims at defining not only the type of information the system delivers but also the most appropriate way the information is presented to the user in order to make it more useful. The software tool being developed, regarded as component of a thematic SDI, offers different mechanisms for data searching and retrieval (by keywords, thematic search and assisted search) which are aimed at different user profiles. At the same time the tool provides a way to educate users who may not be specialized in disaster risk management . The SIAPAD search tools, standard OGC web services and visualization engine are built through the integration of existing Open Source tools. Its standard-based architecture allows the system to interoperate with the diversity of software platforms, data formats and services used by participant institutions in the Andean Community.
TS 3.4 - Developer of Geospatial Portal for the Mexico’s Disaster Prevention with Data Infrastructure Approach; Verónica R Totolhua, Oscar Zepeda, Marco Muñoz, Lucrecia Torres (México)
Since 2002, Mexican government through National Center for Disaster Prevention has been working in the implementation of the Mexican Atlas of Risk–Risk Information System. This program has the purpose to evaluate the risk by the spatial and temporal analyst of natural and human-made hazards, measuring the social and physical vulnerability, identify and quantified damages.
The project design included a distributed data schema and had the spirit of interchange geospatial information with many agencies of the federal and states governments. The goal of this paper is to show the aspects related with of the Prevention Disasters Geospatial Portal (PDGP) implementation and how the project has been adopted a schema based in the Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) core.
The risk management and disaster prevention are good example about the SDI utility. For example, in México, the civil protection authorities looked for a system that could be collect, process and disseminate data, and those could be used as input into the models for generating different risk scenarios, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, landslides, and hazardous material transportation. In addition, the system can be visualizing information about emergency response plans, number of people who were affected, measuring the affected area, evacuation places, supplies, etc. It was the first effort to develop national information geodatabase from different kind of sources, thought new information technologies, storage, automation, wireless, semantic web, grids, etc.
The PDGP is classified as a catalog portal because it use internet standards, and the user can get into it true the internet connection that follow the HTTP protocol. The portal work has wms services provider. The application is builder with HTML, XML and JSP technology. The metadata and spatial geoinformation are located in file system data relational geospatial databases. This portal has six main sections: metadata catalog, map services, local searching services provided by Google and incorporated publications and RSS services.
PDGP is based in a hybrid system technologies, are combine as ArcIMS as map server, as ArcSDE gateway and ArcGIS client, as well as open code technologies: Toolkit Dojo AJAX, Minnesota Map Server, P. Mapper client, and de SDI Mapbbender initiative, for the WMS and WFS services map management, trying always the best portability in the solution.
This article will show the technical aspect’s about PGPD architecture the main problems and challenge associated with emergent technologies and standards, which are in advance (WMF, CWS, SWE, GLS, GDAS). Additionally the strategy will be described that has been implemented to make this development show as a reference query about the risk level information in Mexico.
TS 6 Web Services Trends and Applications in SDI
TS 6.1 - Shared Land Information Platform - A Cost Effective Spatial Data Infrastructure Supporting Sustainable Development; Kylie Armstrong, Mike Bradford (Australia)
The Shared Land Information Platform (SLIP) is a Western Australian success story. Through Landgate, formerly the Department of Land Information, and the Western Australian Land Information System (WALIS), the State Government initiated the $26 million SLIP project in early 2005.
SLIP connects 17 government agencies and provides a virtual single point of access to more than 200 datasets, in real-time. More data sets will be made available throughout 2007. The initial four focus areas; Emergency Management, Natural Resource Management, electronic Land Development Process and Interest Enquiry, were to develop prototypes as part of the SLIP Implementation Plan, two have now been turned into functioning systems.
SLIP aims to streamline the Government’s land and property information by providing the infrastructure and services necessary to link multiple agencies together so customers can better access the range of information available. The shared infrastructure provided by SLIP includes OGC data services, an integrated metadata catalogue, web-based map viewer, security, and management services. A key consequence of adopting a shared approach is that agencies can build information systems which integrate land information at a reduced cost when a shared foundation is in place, allowing even the smallest of players to be involved.
In providing this future focused environment, SLIP has embraced open standards, open source software, and challenged existing models for delivery of a spatial data infrastructure. This paper will provide a demonstration of the SLIP Enabler, including the technical environment, the capabilities that have been delivered and describe some of the challenges in delivering a cross-government project at the forefront of spatial information technology.
Mike Bradford is the Executive Director, Information Access, within Landgate. Mike joined Landgate in 2006 and has experience in implementation and operation of geospatial information systems, project management of complex IT systems and overseas development assistance. Mike holds a Bachelor of Surveying and a Masters Degree in Project Management.
Kylie Armstrong is the Manager for Business Programs, with Information Access. Kylie joined Landgate in 2003 and has been the Business Manager for SLIP Enabler since 2005. She has experience in managing the development of complex, multinational infrastructure and online programs. Kylie holds a Bachelor of Business.
TS 6.2 - Integrating 3D, Geoprocessing and Location Services into future SDIs; Alexander Zipf (Germany)
Until recently development of SDIs seen from the technical point of view focused on 2D geographic data and its management and visualization (mapping) mostly. Recently a range of new specifications by the OGC offer a much broader range of possible services including 3D, routing, geoprocessing and more. Therefore much more sophisticated applications based on future SDIs using open standards can be realized. Within projects like Heidelberg-3D (Geo-Spatial Data Infrastructure 3D http://www.gdi-3d.de) or www.Ok-GIS.de (Open and Free GIS for Disaster Management) we set up a 3D-SDI based on relevant services (WFS, WMS, CS-W, WCS, WPS) using Open Source tools and frameworks such as geoserver and degree. These are supplemented by our own implementations of:
- OGC Web3D Service (W3DS) – serving 3D scenes, accompanied with our 3D-Viewer
- OGC OpenLS Route Service (RS)
- OGC OpenLS Utility Service (Geocoder/Reverse Geocoder)
- OGC OpenLS Presentation Service
The OpenLS directory service will be added later. Based on these base servies we have realized further services that use these OWS:
- 3D Route Service (3DRS)
- Emergency Route Service (ERS)
- 3D Emergency Route Service (ERS-3D)
All of these use the OpenLS RS interface, but provide extended internal functionality.
The new OGC Web Processing Service (WPS) specification now also allows to process geodata in a quite generic way within SDIs. This has caused a lot of discussion and needs further research. We have realized a range of new WPS processes using the current implementation of the leegree WPS and analysed some pros and cons of using the current version of the specification for geoprocessing in SDIs.
Additionally we realized a new Accessibility Analysis Service (AAS) for calculating accessibility to given locations. The interface is related to the OpenLS interfaces, but could also be integrated into a WPS.
The current state of these new services for SDIs will be introduced and their service interaction within the SDI will be illustrated through applications as 3D-navigation or disaster management. Within these project a range of additional aspects have been investigated that are relevant for realizing future. The main results of these can be highlighted and include:
- What about metadata for 3D landscape and city models? Are standards as ISO 19115 sufficient or what amendments would be wishful?
- Experiences from chaining OWS through Web Service Orchestration based on BPEL (Business process Execution Language)
- Preprocessing of 2D and 3D data using the Web Processing Service (WPS) e.g. generalization of the DEM, aggregating data etc.
- 3D-SLD: Extending the 2D-GIS concept of separation of raw geometry data and visualization rules (Styled Layer Descriptor SLD or the new Symbol Encoding , SE) into 3D. For that we developed an XML-schema as a proposal for a 3D-profile for SLD/SE. It is currently implemented into our W3DS. First results can be presented.
- Our current and future work on integrating OGC Web Services, SDIs and the concept of GRID-Computing (www.gdi-grid.de )
TS 6.3 - The Development of Taiwan Geospatial One-Stop Portal; Jin-Hsiang Shen, Chung-Chi Chang, Yao-Chun Chuang, Kun-Yu Lan (Taiwan)
In 1990, Ministry of the Interior established the “National Geographic Information System Steering Committee” (NGISSC). The Committee is composed of 9 working groups from different agencies which have subsequently developed geographic information and databases. Due to the organizations where data produced are located at different places, end-users find it very difficult to get complete, real time spatial data from various agencies through one platform. It has resulted in redundant data construction, insufficient information gathering, and other issues. Besides, it has also degraded the strengths of comprehensive and diversified geospatial information.
Because of those shortcomings, in 2003, the Information Center of Ministry of the Interior constructed the NGIS Data Warehouse and Clearinghouse (simply referred as Taiwan Geospatial One Stop Portal, or T-GOS) for providing the e-commerce service of processing data circulation applications. T-GOS provides 3-Tier network structure, supporting the web map service (WMS) of the XML framework, and conducting demo verification on the web feature service (WFS). Currently, T-GOS not only providing metadata query, maps overlay, and free map download, but also providing users with online purchase, payment, and online download of maps data. In addition, the T-GOS has brought the PKI feature and its related authentication function into the information security system to confirm users’ identities. Through this security mechanism, it is able to provide more solutions to authentication and authorization demands.
Furthermore, in 2007, realizing the needs of value-added applications among various organizations and by studying the local and international e-commerce technology as well as their development of e-governments, the Information Center of Ministry of the Interior advocates the concepts of web services and integrated process technology. It has introduced services oriented architecture (SOA) to reinforce the functions of T-GOS, utilizing enterprise Web 2.0 structure and standardized service interface to provide integrated service elements from various sources, making map data circulation service and the development of value added applications happen. With hope to smoothly speed up the development of applications of the NGIS, the Information Center has gone one step further to integrate the public needs as well as major national infrastructure programs for land monitoring, land planning, land restoration, and disaster prevention and rescue. Consequently, T-GOS has built a comprehensive geospatial information circulation and integrated service platform.
At present, T-GOS has collected spatial data from 6 governmental organizations, 52 map data which are appropriate for storing in. There are 12 agencies participating in the alliance and offering online purchase and payment, map data circulation, and other services. The amount of metadata has reached to 817 records. T-GOS has also solved relevant issues of NGIS data supply, provided online metadata searching, cross-node map layer browsing, and online map query. It has already turned in excellent results in terms of resource sharing, achieved the goals of geospatial data warehousing, and enhanced the application value of the NGIS.
TS 6.4 - Distributed Geoprocessing in SDIs - A Forest Fire Risk Mapping Application; Nicole Ostlaender, Roberto Lucchi, Michael Lutz, Anders Friis-Christensen (Italy)
The ORCHESTRA (Open Architecture and Spatial Data Infrastructure for Risk Management) project is designing and implementing the specifications for a service oriented spatial data infrastructure for improved interoperability among risk management authorities in Europe, Several pilots are showing the architecture's applicability in the risk management domain. The focus of this paper is to report on the results of one of these pilots dealing with pan-European risk and damage assessment related to natural hazards. More specifically it focuses on the pilot's implementation of a forest fire application that enables users to access risk-related information in an interoperable and interactive manner by providing appropriate web service-based tools.
Forest fire data are being collected by the EU Member States. This data, which includes the fire ignition point, the cause of the fire, the time it was detected/extinguished and the burnt area, can be analyzed to create forest fire hazard, damage and risk maps. These analyses support decisions on measures for risk prevention on a European scale. In the presented pilot an application has been developed for mapping forest fire frequency and density by administrative units, and, based on this, calculate forest fire risk through combining forest fire density and burnt area into risk classes.
The application implements a workflow that involves several services for data access, processing and visualization that are distributed over the internet. These services are orchestrated by an additional aggregated service (subsequently called Risk Assessment Service), which executes the workflow defined in WS-BPEL. In this paper we focus on the experiences from creating such a service-based application in the forest fire application area. In particular, we discuss the following issues:
- Enabling distributed interoperable processing to support ad-hoc analysis within an SDI architecture.
- Defining workflows that combine several services into a value-added service chain to achieve a certain goal and deploy such workflows as executable service instances.
The application is based on web services implementing standardized OGC interfaces:
- Web Feature Service (WFS) for accessing forest fire data as well as administrative units
- Web Processing Service (WPS) for providing required processing operations
- Web Map Service (WMS) for rendering data using a given symbology
A client application performs all interactions with the user and formulates all queries towards the Risk Assessment Service, which executes the requested workflow. Due to the technological constraints of the workflow engines, which require WSDL based services descriptions and SOAP services binding, the standard OGC services involved in the chain have been wrapped by a SOAP handler and described by using WSDL documents.
Based on the experience in the pilot, we discuss the following issues and present possible solutions for them:
- Passing data between the services of the chain by value vs. passing data by reference
- Performance issues (time used for computation and for passing data between services)
- Stateful communication for dealing with concurrent executions of the Risk Assessment Service
- Defining service endpoints at runtime
- Synchronous vs. asynchronous interaction modalities.
TS 6.5- Reconceptualizing User in the Context of Two-Way Spatial Data Infrastructure, Nama Budhathoki, Bertram (Chip) Bruce, Zorica Nedovic-Budic (USA)
Within the spatial data community, users have typically been viewed as passive recipients of spatial information. Often referred to as ‘end-users’, a term reflecting their marginalized role, they merely receive and use providers’ offerings. For instance, national mapping agencies (NMAs) collect spatial data, design maps and then distribute to users. In this process, providers make two assumptions: first, their products/services satisfy users’ needs; second, which follows from the first, users employ these products/services in congruence with the providers’ intent. This legacy view of the user has continued with spatial data infrastructure (SDI). Although there have been calls to involve different stakeholders, including users, in the SDI development process (Puri 2006; Craglia and Annoni 2007), these calls are aimed, at best, to ensure the optimum use of what is provided through SDI; efforts to capture the enormous amount of spatial information users already possess, or which they can create, are still missing. The development process thus ignores the funds of knowledge (Moll et al. 1992) held within communities of users and consequently, achieves far less than it might.
Recently, we have begun to witness a growing interest in individuals to create and share spatial information in other SDI-like initiatives. We now have several examples, such as Google Earth and Google Map API, Common Census, a design exercise in Second Life, wikimapia (the spatial equivalent of wikipedia), openStreetMap (Goodchild 2007; Tulloch 2007). These examples are in line with the notion that those who are close to a particular spatial phenomena have the richest spatial knowledge, and therefore needs to be captured and utilized (Carrera and Ferreira 2007: Under Review). This is increasingly facilitated by technological development. The potential is promising enough that researchers now call to explore the role of individuals in augmenting the automated means of spatial data collection (Goodchild 2007).
However, it is unclear whether the users’ current enthusiasm to create and supply spatial information is ephemeral or sustainable. In this paper, we review pertinent use and user studies from mainstream information science and attempt to analyze this recent trend from users’ perspectives. In particular, we will argue that the notion of user needs to be reconceptualized to fully capitalize their potential in the context of emerging two-way spatial data infrastructure.
REFERENCES
Carrera, F. and J. Ferreira (2007). "The Future of Spatial Data Infrastructures: Capacity-building for the Emergence of Municipal SDIs." International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures Research.
Craglia, M. and A. Annoni (2007). INSPIRE: An Innovative Approach to the Development of Spatial Data Infrastructure in Europe. Research and Theory in Advancing Spatial Data Infrastructure. H. Onsrud. Redlands, ESRI Press: 93-105.
Goodchild, M. F. (2007). "Citizens as Voluntary Sensors: Spatial Data Infrastructure in the World of Web 2.0." International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures Research 2: 24-32.
Moll, L. C., C. Amanti, et al. (1992). "Funds of knowledge for teaching: Using a qualitative approach to connect homes and classrooms." Theory into Practice 31(2): 132-141.
Puri, S. K. (2006). "Technological Frames of Stakeholders Shaping the SDI Implementation: A Case Study from India." Information Technology for Development 12(4): 311-331.
Tulloch, D. L. (2007). "Many many maps: Empowerment and online participatory mapping." First Monday.
TS 7 Government Policy and Management Issues
TS 7.1 - The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions: The Double Role of the Public Sector in making Spatial Data Available; Katleen Janssen, Jos Dumortier (Belgium)
The discussion on the role of the public sector in making available spatial data for public access and to the private sector for re-use has a long tradition. A common topic we find in this debate is the difference between the so-called open access and cost recovery policies for accessibility of spatial data. A second question addresses the respective roles of the public and private sector on the information market. However, the relationships and crosslinks between these issues need to be clarified in order to move the debate to the next level.
The current role of the public sector in providing spatial data is twofold. On the one hand, it is a supplier of “raw data”, in many cases holding a monopoly on these data. These data are made available for public access, and often also as a resource for re-use by the private sector in value-added products or services. The direct purpose and the result of providing data to these two groups may be vastly different (enhancing democracy and accountability versus stimulating the market). However, these differences are rarely reflected in the open access – cost recovery debate. Should they be?
On the other hand, the public sector can also be a supplier of value-added data products and services on the market, implying that it is could also be seen as a buyer of its own raw data. On this side of the equation, it may be competing on the market with private sector suppliers providing comparable services or products. If the public sector enters the market and performs economic activities, competition law will normally apply. However, the public sector may try to justify this competition by the need of the general public for accessible and comprehensible (hence value-added) information, and not just access to raw data, which has no meaning or use for any layperson. This may lead to the public sector not being subject to the competition rules, because it performs a public task rather than an economic activity. Hence, there may be a clash between the democratic and the market purpose of making spatial data available. Improving the former may harm the latter. Can competition law help us in trying to determine whether the democratic purpose or the market purpose should prevail?
This paper will try to make a clear distinction between the activities of the public sector in providing spatial data to different target groups and try to divide the often generalized discussion on the role of the public sector into elements that need separate debate, while yet not forgetting that these debates can influence each other. It will examine whether existing principles of competition law can help in these debates.
TS 7.2 - Geographic Information Prices for the Colombian SDI Development; Dora Ines Rey-Martinez (Colombia)
Definition of geographic information policies has been a big challenge at national and institutional levels in the development of the Colombian Spatial Data Infrastructure. Actually, the NSDI has several technical results, but legal definitions have faced many constrains to be formalized.
Institutions involved in the SDI initiative, after a long period of consensus, defined statements to create the legal component of geographic information management for the country. The statements give elements to improve production, documentation, standardization, access and availability, copy right, and coordination and integration between national and local SDI initiatives. In spite of policies have not been formalized, institutions agreed to adopt the definitions as a frame of action.
The government, conscious of improving the information management in the state, has developed several programs in which the NSDI has a principal role and this is producing high level decision makers be aware geographic information is a basic information for the national development.
From an institutional point of view, policies are conceived as a component of a geographic information management model. These policies should be oriented to control geographic information and products life cycle, in a way that the institution can accomplish its goals. Under a national administrative structure of costs recovery, one of the most important policies is the definition of the “right” prize, dealing between institutional economic sustainability and accessibility by the end users.
In the definition of the “right” prize, different elements in different proportions can be considered. Conditions from the costs, competitors, market, buyers and end users, are examples. The important issue is to facilitate the geographic information access to be applied for the social, economic and environmental development.
The Agustin Codazzi Geographic Institute has reviewed its cartography prices policy, following the national SDI statements and in the last year free access of some data and reduced prices for other digital information have rose the incomes, improved the institutional perception by the users and benefited several programs and projects in the country, showing the SDI benefits in the geographic information marketplace.
TS 7.3 - Institutional quality management in Dutch SDI; Floris de Bree, Dick Eertink, Peter Laarakker (The Netherlands)
Up to now different ministries were partially responsible for governmental geo-information management in the Netherlands. To have a more coherent steering mechanism on geo-information the Dutch government established the GI-council in June 2006. The GI-council consists of representatives of ministries, the umbrella organization of municipalities, the umbrella organization of provinces and governmental executive organizations. Currently, the GI-council is trying to define the size and nature of the field of geo-information. This project aimed to provide a helping hand in this.
Assessing Geo Information Infrastructures (SDIs) is a challenge because of its many intangible definitions. Over the last decade, the use of quality management tools to assess organizations themselves has been widespread within the public and private sector. Also as Kadaster we have positive experiences using a ‘total quality management’ model for internal assessments. This so-called INK management model is based on the European model EFQM. The model provides an evaluation framework for assessing what an organization does (enablers) and what it achieves (results).
Currently, the INK foundation is developing an extension to its model to use it for assessing quality of cooperation within networks of organizations. As SDI consists of cooperation between organizations within the field of geo-information, it was decided to use this extension of the model for our assessment. The project uses a case-based approach, focusing on cooperation in practice. The geo-information case studies assessed in this project are: geo-information delivery in the private housing market, geo-information delivery for disaster management and geo-information delivery for water management. These cases are chosen to cover the key organizations involved in the geo-information sector.
Representatives of these organizations are brought together to get a common understanding of the nature of their cooperation, their different roles and possibilities for improvement of the cooperation. Besides these case study specific lessons, focus will also be put on acquiring a common view of the characteristics of cooperating within the Dutch geo-information community as a whole.
The paper which will be presented on GSDI10 focuses on the outcomes of this project.
TS 7.4 - Building a Sustainable Land Information Infrastructure in British Columbia; Brian Williams, Roger Balser, Gary Sawayama, Donna Humphries (Canada)
Infrastructure for land information usually encompasses the construction of a series of base information layers (spatial and attribute) that are inter-related and form the foundation for geo-spatial decisions by both the private and public sectors. Making it sustainable meant including the considerations of maintenance and financing beyond the initial implementation.
In British Columbia, the layers are:
• Geodetic Control
• Topographic Digital Data sets
• Imagery, (air photo and orthophoto) and
• Cadastral/ Ownership
This report addresses the components of building, maintaining, financing and accessing these datasets and the various business partnerships that were considered to ensure their sustainability, as well as the risk analysis related to each sub-project.
We will also reference the principle of “Enterprise Solution” and how it applied, and did not apply, throughout the project.
A key component of sustainability is making sure that regulations, standards, and documentation are ISO compatible and that through communities of practice, broad ownership is reflected. This process will be covered in this report.
In a project such as this, it is common that there are many factors that threaten its success. Despite advanced technology, assembling and integrating these datasets takes a fair amount of time, money, commitment, and above all, strong leadership and political support. Staff changes, the changing climate of political interests, conflicting agendas, and inadequate marketing to stake holders and clients can all lead to diminishing support, which could spell the ultimate challenges for the initiative. These issues will be addressed along with the approaches we took to minimize the negative impacts of each situation.
TS 8 Applications of SDI: Internal and Cross Agency Challenges
TS 8.1 – Informing Above-ground Geospatial Data Coordination by Looking Down Under: Netherlands Case Study; Lance, Georgiadou, Bregt (The Netherlands)
The paper examines cross-agency coordination using the case of the Dutch National Geo-data Repository (Dutch acronym: DINO), a successful spatial data infrastructure (SDI) initiative for below-ground geospatial data in the Netherlands. DINO’s portal (DINOShop) provides access to geoscientific data on the shallow and deep Dutch subsurface. Rather than focus on the technologies, standards, or laws that support coordination, we use a politico-administrative lens that highlights the management controls and interdependencies influencing how cross-agency coordination has evolved in the case of DINO. DINO is developed and maintained, in a formal principal-agent relationship with clear objectives and accountability, by TNO (agent) through a performance contract with the Ministry of Economic Affairs (principal). The DINO program is characterized by the pooling of financial resources from five ministries, the internal tracking of activity progress by TNO, routine reporting to the user community, and regular monitoring and evaluation by TNO for the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Analyzing how agencies coordinate data from ‘down under’ has the potential to inform the 'above ground' geospatial sector in the Netherlands. The latter recently has taken steps to improve coordination amongst government agencies, with Geonovum acting as agent and the Ministry of Housing (VROM) acting as principal. While the principal-agent relationship noted for DINO and Geonovum helps each program clarify its objectives and establishes accountability for results, there is a potential downside. These geospatial programs are accompanied by a number of other government-supported programs, and each is managed separately, leaving a gap with respect to overall national SDI governance. Some members of the geospatial sector have indicated that this has resulted in inefficiencies, and they have called for greater central steering. However, after dialogue and consultation, characteristic of the Dutch politico-administrative system, agencies have backed away from the prospect of more deliberate oversight.
TS 8.2 – Fostering a Culture of Metadata Production; Terri-ann Campbell (Jamaica)
This paper gives a report of the Land Information Council of Jamaica (LICJ) Metadata Project. The project was an initiative conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands through the LICJ to foster and develop a culture of metadata management among its member organizations. The aim was to encourage metadata collection, in order to facilitate the management of the country’s spatial data resources and to promote data sharing.
With the aid of a grant from the Geospatial Data Infrastructure Association (GSDI), four (4) students from the University of Technology Jamaica were hired for one (1) month to collect, edit and update metadata for some fundamental geospatial datasets. The students were assigned to four (4) LICJ member agencies that had a critical need to create metadata.
This paper highlights the approach and procedure used in the execution of the project and describes the methods employed to create the metadata records. The limitations of metadata creation are highlighted by the experiences of the project participants and are used as the basis for the recommendations made. The paper evaluates the project and recommends future plans to address key issues of metadata management in Jamaica.
It is hoped that the project will be used as a model for metadata management interventions, and that the lessons learnt from the project may direct implementation strategies both regionally and globally.
A culture of metadata creation facilitates the sharing of geospatial data and therefore, the success of a National Spatial Data Infrastructure.
TS 8.3 - Marine Geospatial Infrastructure: Workflows and Standards; Andrew Hoggarth (Canada)
This paper will discuss some of the workflows required in establishing a Marine Geospatial Data Infrastructure (MGDI) that handles hydrographic information and facilitates its integration into a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). It will describe how existing data needs to be easily discovered to allow hydrographic survey missions to be planned and executed effectively. It will discuss how data collected in the field finds its way back to the agency responsible for its storage and subsequent discovery. This marine information will be housed in a single interoperable database, which different geospatial applications or clients can connect to.
The paper will describe how the data in the central database can be accessed through thick desktop clients for quality control purposes, via industry standard formats like IHO S-57 and Bathymetric Attributed Grid (BAG), or via thin web clients for to browse and download data utilizing Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.® formats like WMS and WFS.
All the data entered into the MGDI will have metadata associated with it to aid easy discovery; the ISO 19115 standard will form the basis but it has been recognized that it does not go far enough for Marine data. This paper will discuss some possible extensions to 19115. Both the metadata capture and subsequent data discovery within the MGDI will take place through a single portal. The portal will utilize the latest web mapping and catalogue technology.
Finally, the paper will introduce the concept of a workflow management system as a means for stakeholders to interact with the MGDI and to ensure ongoing quality, consistency and completeness of the marine data flow.
TS 8.4- SDI’s and Knowledge; Andres Valentin and Maria Cabello (Spain)
The territory must be seen from several points of view; in consequence, the thematic diversity of the territorial information is very extensive.
We live in an alphanumeric culture, in which the explosion of the consumption of geographical information emphasizes the deficit of basic knowledge of many of its users.
The interoperability tries to answer to a cooperation claim; unfortunately this will not only be achieved including data, metadata and services, but also people and community knowledge.
These reflections come to reinforce the position outlined along the development of the Territorial Information System of Navarra (SITNA) about the need to efficiently manage the knowledge, provide several communication channels (top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top and horizontal) and promote the participation of the users.
Intending to answer these objectives the Portal of Knowledge and Participation (PCyP) of SITNA, has been developed.
The Portal already running (https://www.pcypsitna.navarra.es) distinguishes three different access profiles:
- Public, without restrictions, by INTERNET
- Corporate, for the employees of Public Administrations
- Restricted, for people that have responsibilities in the management and development of the System
We will have to continue advancing in the undertaken road, but already from the beginning, we think about a new horizon. The Spatial Data Infrastructures are achieving, among many other things, to put in a corner the GIS developments that are conceived as closed, isolated, unconnected; every time is more unavoidable a position in which each agent develops its activity like the part of a group. If the interoperability and the standardization of data, metadata and services are efficient expressions of the cooperation; why shouldn't we think about those objectives under the knowledge scope we have of the territory?
TS 9 Organized Session: Disaster Management
Organizers: Suha Ulgen, Jeremy Collymore
TS 11 National SDI Initiatives – Latin America and the Caribbean
TS 11.1 - Towards the Implementation of a National Spatial Data Infrastructure for Trinidad and Tobago; Bheshem Ramlal (Trinidad and Tobago)
The effective management of land and its resources requires spatial data that are current and reliable. Several countries have successfully developed spatial data infrastructures and geographic information systems to meet their spatial data needs. In Trinidad and Tobago there are significant problems with the present infrastructure for the provision of spatial data. The systems currently in place are not responsive to the needs of the country. GIS and a NSDI provide viable alternatives to address this problem. This paper provides an overview of the major problems and issues involved in setting up a national spatial information infrastructure for Trinidad and Tobago and suggest strategies for moving forward. These strategies are based on a comprehensive study completed by the author as part of a working group appointed by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago.
TS 11.2 - SDI in Chile: National System of Coordination of Territorial Information (SNIT), State of the Art and Projections; Alvaro Monett (Chile)
In Chile, publication of Supreme Decree N°28/2006, from Ministry of National Goods constitutes a relevant milestone for public institutions, since it means to recognize by side of authorities of the country, the necessary integration of territorial information in the elaboration of public policies.
Among primary objectives of SNIT it is considered: coordinate actions of the State in management of public territorial information, to guarantee citizen access to this type of information and to give authorities tools for decision making and implementation of public policies. These objectives are framed in concepts of modernization of the State, fortification of democracy, transparency and government near citizenship.
The SNIT creates an institutional framework that includes to all organs of administration of the State which they generate or they use public territorial information. It is integrated by the Council of Ministers of Territorial Information; an Executive Secretariat; a Technical Committee of Inter-Ministerial Coordination; Eight Thematic Areas, and a Regional Coordinating Delegation.
The work of SNIT is oriented mainly into two lines. First of them, the technical one, aims to achieve agreements and technological means that support the development of an Infrastructure of Spatial Data. The second line is oriented to generate institutional arrangements that allow giving continuity and permanence to the work of national coordination, opening therefore the necessary spaces for discussion, agreements and normalization of works with territorial information.
In relation to the previously exposed, the fundamental tasks that SNIT has drawn up they are the following ones:
In a normative scope: to fortify institutional framework of SNIT by means of a proposal of Law for territorial information; to study, to evaluate and to propose modifications to the norms, that allows to optimize interchange, access, use and certification of territorial information; to adopt initiatives of legislative character that support coordination of SNIT.
In the scope of information and data: to sanction core data framework for the country; to adopt and to sanction agreements about institutional responsibility on data; to elaborate new products in benefit of management; to generate conditions of interoperability for territorial information both fundamental data and high-priority thematic data.
In the scope of applications: to provide technological support for knowledge and access to territorial information, among them, Metadata Catalogue, SNIT Web Atlas and SNIT Web Portal; to provide technological support for coordination and cross sectional work in subjects of territorial information; to implement Territorial Information Systems (SIT) of regional character, among others.
In the scope of metadata: to study and to propose actions to fortify the process of feeding of Metadata Catalogue; to spread this tool within the Government, as much at central level as regional.
In the scope of diffusion and capacity building: to spread successful experiences, advances and good practices in management of territorial information; to develop activities for transference of capacities at level of users and decision makers, everything in order to optimize the use of territorial information.
The National System of Coordination of Territorial Information (SNIT), at the moment in a process of consolidation, fortification and permanence, involves as much political aspects as technicians, who direct and regulate their operation, having as target to satisfy necessities of our users: Chilean citizens, the organizations of the State of Chile and the entire world.
TS 11.3 - Geographic Information System on the Internet (PROSIGA); Juan Ernesto Rickert, Jorge Horacio Machuca (Argentina)
Geographic information is necessary in order to take accurate local, regional and global decisions. Management of natural resources, the development of infrastructure works, urban planning, reduction of flood damages, environmental recovery, value of lands for comunitary use and recovery after disasters are just some examples of the areas where people in charge of convenient decision taking may benefit from this information.
Likewise, in our country there are different sources of geospatial information, Secretaries, Ministries, Province Governments, which have developed their geographic information, many times far from a unique reference system and different criteria. A very difficult integration and efforts duplication are the result of this.
PROSIGA Project appeared in order to solve these inconveniences, and aiming at having a unique Geographic Information System on the Internet, adopting international standards, so standardizing all of its information, assuring its interoperability with other external systems all over the world.
The aim of this agreement is to jointly develop, based on IGM “SIG 250” Geographic Information System, an integrated GIS with data provided by the participating organizations to be consulted on the Internet, named “National Argentine Republic Geographic Information System Project” (PROSIGA).
The purpose is getting, by means of coordinated actions, the development and use of normal standards, the availability of digital data and interoperable technologies as a support to decision taking, at all scales and for different purposes. These actions include policies, organizational competences, data, technology, standards and delivery mechanisms to insure that all the people working globally, regionally o nationally not to be disabled from getting to their goals.
The next steps are closely connected to transforming what at the beginning was named “Geographic Information System on the Internet” to a “Space Data Infrastructure”. At present a Nomenclature, Data Catalog and a WMS service are to be added.
Among the benefits provided by this project, we can mention the remote access to information by means of Internet, the availability of simultaneous visualization of geospatial information by the ones who plan or execute different types of operations; simultaneous updating of a large volume of data from different organizations; the access to information integrated at different capture scales, from national or regional to cadastre; the requirement to data generating organizations to work under regulations or standards which may assure their integration and avoid overlapping and duplication of efforts.
During the development of this project, different tasks are performed for it to materialize; among which there are some strictly informatic, and others related to the management of geographic data. Here we may mention that, for the first time, a series of Regulations and Standards for Geographic Data in GIS format is going to be published in our country, which will be the basis to allow the spatial and thematic integration of data of the system under development
TS 11.4 - The Implications of SDI Development to the Family Land Communal Tenure Structure in Trinidad and Tobago; Charisse Griffith-Charles (Trinidad and Tobago)
The systematic land titling program that Trinidad and Tobago is embarking on will achieve a comprehensive cadastral data layer in the national spatial data infrastructure. The large number of persons who now informally occupy land without the benefits to be derived from having secure title will be issued with a State guaranteed title. However, the communal tenure system, known as ‘family land’ in the Caribbean and found in some areas of Trinidad and notably in Tobago, will not fit neatly into the normally individualized tenure structures of land title registration systems. No special procedures to accommodate communal self governance or any other methods for acknowledging communal tenure have been put in place.
This paper investigates the nature and potential for sustainability of the family land tenure structure in Trinidad and Tobago using a small sample and case studies in Tobago and anticipates the future of the family land tenure in the face of the land titling program. In the survey it was found that 31% of the sample indicated their preference for retention of the tenure type while 64% preferred the subdivision and formalization of the land, even though it would mean the dismantling of the communal system. Five percent were uncertain about their attitude to the retention or eradication of the tenure form. There is therefore the potential for dissatisfaction from a percentage of the target group.
TS 12 SDI and Land Administration Initiatives
TS 12.1 - E-Governance Solutions: How SDI Forms a Foundation; Mukund Rao (India)
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TS 12.2 - SDI Supported Land Administration and Management – The Single Agency Model of Hungary; Gabor Remetey-Fülöpp (Hungary)
A transparent and efficient land administration based on well established legislation contributes directly to the strengthen of land and property market and sustainable rural development.
The features of the Hungarian model is introduced, where the land and property registry as well as the cadastral mapping is under a single root since more than 30 years.
The institutional and ICT upgrade of the land office network was accelerated by the Phare assistance program of the European Commission started in the early 90’s.
The development process will be introduced started by the computerization of the registry of nearly 10 millions properties, followed by the developing an intranet and extranet based clint service as well as the further enhancement of the services exploiting GI capabilities in the Capital and at the county level. The accomplishment of the digital cadastral mapping with a full country coverage will be highlighted. Repetitive aerial surveys in order to produce fresh orthophotos as tools for the implementation and control of agricultural and environmental policies will be introduced. In Hungary cadastre serves as skeleton for the NSDI, and majority of the core SDI data (according to the INSPIRE Annex 1 and 2) has to be provided by the institutional network of the land administration.
The best practice examples provided by the institutional network of the land administration will be introduced as far as data, products and services are concerned. Examples called will include the land parcel based administrative boundaries database, countrywide land cover and land cover change assessments, as well as a wide selection of operational programs using geo-referenced land related information integrated with remotely sensed data.
The establishment of web-portal will be introduced with special emphasis to core data accessibility and re-use of Public Sector Information, present barriers
Institutional set up of digital multipurpose cadastre an d related services including local SDI support eg. for the vineyard registry in the wine regions will be highlighted.
Capacity building affected the employees of 130 land offices countrywide , awareness raising related to the novel and innovative services, sharing expertise and exchange of experiences, as well as participation in international networking such as FIG, EuroGeographics, UNECE WPLA, EUROGI and GSDI (via HUNAGI) will be presented.
Finally, the role of Land Administration in the approval of the NSDI strategy, in the national spatial data infrastructure development and in the implementation of the INSPIRE legislation framework directive will be summarized. An SDI based land administration is an effective tool to gain sustainable development with positive economic, societal and environmental impacts.
TS 12.3 - The Current Status and Development Direction of Korea Land Information System (KLIS); Hyung Bok Kim, Dong Soo Ha, Hyung Tae Kim (Republic of Korea)
Korea government has developed and operated KLIS to maintain the data of land management, raise operational efficiency in land administration affair, enhance scientific land management policy, and improve the quality of public service.
The main databases of KLIS consist of individual parcel maps, continuous cadastral maps, edited cadastral maps and zoning maps.
This paper shows the current status and development direction of KLIS.
The individual parcel maps were built by digitizing individual paper parcel maps with their land register and were adjusted parcel boundary caused by merger and division.
The continuous cadastral maps were built by edge matching the individual parcel maps and has been used to provide total land regulation information on the internet for public service.
The edited cadastral maps were built by transforming the continuous cadastral maps to overlay on topographic maps for GIS applications.
The zoning maps such as agricultural promotion zone and land use planning with 80 land regulations were built by each ministry in charge and reflected on the continuous cadastral maps and edited cadastral maps.
The development of KLIS started in 1998 and then was incrementally installed to nationwide local governments. Finally, it was completed in 2006 all over the 234 local governments.
80% of cadastral affairs documents are issued by KLIS in local governments.
Internet public services are currently provided in Seoul and Jeju where the data for cadastral and zoning maps are revised and will be expanded nationwide in 2007.
With the successful operation of KLIS, the more expanded fields and diverse services are demanded in many areas now.
The next steps for KLIS are as follows.
- Revision of base maps (improvement of map update process, position accuracy enhancement of continuous cadastral map, conversion to International Terrestrial Reference Frame)
- Integration of spatial data and systems by standardization (environment, forest, farmland, culture assets, marine, etc.)
- Development of advanced application systems (policy decision support system, system infrastructure enhancement in local governments, internet portal services)
- Progress of contents (LiDAR data and digital orthophoto)
TS 12.4 - Mainstreaming Spatial Data Infrastructures in Land Management and Administration; David Siriba, Hussein Farah (Kenya)
While Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) play a much broader role than supporting land administration, land administration is considered a key driver in SDI evolution. However, in most cases there is divergent development of SDI and land administration systems. In order to determine how to mainstream/integrate SDI in land administration, a framework for the integration is required, so as to exploit the potential benefits of SDI in supporting more effective and efficient land administration.
In evaluating land administration systems, SDI could be considered one of the key elements/ toolbox principles, and some of the SDI elements that would need to be structured to support land administration include: standards arrangements, core datasets, process modeling, pricing, data modeling, access network and service integration. The objective of the paper is to identify opportunity areas in land administration systems where SDI would play an important role and highlight the particular SDI elements that would be considered and how they need to be structured/ implemented in the context of land administration systems, taking into account that various jurisdictions have different land administration systems.
TS 13 Application of SDI for Disaster Management and Development
TS 13.1 - Improving Disaster Management in Jamaica Using Spatial Data Infrastructure; Damian S. Graham (Jamaica)
The development of national infrastructures has been occurring for centuries. Governments across the globe have invested billions of dollars into the creation of these infrastructures in order to ensure consistency in their design and development. Transportation, telecommunications, education, health, information and spatial data are all examples of such infrastructures. All infrastructures though unique, share the common objective of providing access to valuable products and services.
Spatial information and its related technologies play a critical role at every stage of disaster management. This spatial information can span several geographic boundaries and is usually obtained from multiple sources. Ensuring that the spatial information required for disaster planning and response is accessible, reliable, complete, accurate and up-to-date is a major challenge. This is a very important challenge as timely and accurate spatial data describing the current situation is critical to a successful emergency response operation. In addition, it is important that this information be shared between the various personnel in order to prevent a duplication of efforts, facilitate a more coordinated response and improve the overall management of the emergency situation. Disaster managers are now starting to realize the benefits of utilizing spatial data infrastructures to seamlessly integrate and share critical pieces of geographic information at the local, regional and national level. Spatial data infrastructures consist of several fundamental components including policy and institutional frameworks, technical standards, fundamental datasets and a mechanism by which these fundamental datasets can be made accessible to the various stakeholders. It is this mechanism (clearinghouse/ portal) that provides disaster managers with the seamlessly integrated information they require for making informed decisions.
The objective of this paper is to describe the use of the national clearinghouse as a tool for improving disaster management capabilities in Jamaica. The paper is based on a project undertaken by the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management, Spatial Innovision Ltd and the University of Technology. One of the objectives of the project was to create a disaster management application that would allow for the integration, sharing, manipulation and analysis of critical datasets from several government organizations before and during a disaster. The project relied on the use of the country's metadata and geospatial clearinghouse which is based on proprietary web server technology integrated with open source software.
TS 13.2 - Open Access Geospatial Information in Decision Support for Environmental Resource Management and Climate-related Disaster Risk Mitigation in SIDS; Martin van Brakel (Malaysia)
Small island developing states (SIDS) are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters such as tropical cyclones, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but also to anthropogenic hazards such as deforestation. Climate change will further exacerbate the vulnerability of SIDS. The frequency and intensity of climate-related natural disasters are likely to increase. It is crucial to integrate disaster risk reduction into regular development planning and poverty reduction programs, while enhancing resilience of poor communities to the effects of climate change. An improved understanding of the impacts of climate change and variability on ecological and social systems will enhance our ability to respond to change and extreme events.
Efforts must be made to improve early warning, forecasting and disaster related decision-making. This requires improved access to spatial information. Open access to spatial data can greatly enhance decision support in data poor environments. Geospatial information is of particular importance in the area of natural resource management. Contemporary remotely sensed Earth observation data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-Radiometer (MODIS) sensor on board NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) Terra and Aqua spacecraft are publicly accessible and can serve planners in a timely fashion. Such data are vital for a better understanding of global climate dynamics and processes occurring on the land, in the oceans, and in the lower atmosphere.
This paper explores the use of open access MODIS imagery to monitor climate variability and provide decision support to environmental resource management and climate related disaster mitigation in SIDS. Environmental resource management in the Pacific is a challenging task. SIDS in the Pacific region have a high degree of ecosystem and species diversity and economic, subsistence and cultural dependence on the natural environment. Important population and environmental linkages include loss of biodiversity, deforestation, and sea-level rise due to global warming. The anticipated rise in sea level and temperature will lead to major changes in coastal and marine ecosystems, such as mangroves and coral reefs. Reefs are sensitive to temperature increases, which are a major cause of coral bleaching and damage to reef ecosystems. Islands in the Pacific Region tend to depend heavily on coral reefs. Such systems provide a range of ecosystem services. Subsistence fishing is still an important food source for most island communities. Apart from direct benefits to fisheries coral reefs protect shorelines and attract tourism.
When combined with socio-economic data, open access MODIS land and ocean products can be used to target communities at-risk from the effects of climate change. Such information is needed by decision makers in order to target beneficiaries for assistance to increase resilience but conversely also can be used by the communities themselves to anticipate the effect of climate change on the natural resource base they depend heavily on for their livelihoods. This will assist communities in their livelihood adaptation and help improve resilience to future climate related shocks and natural disasters.
TS 13.3 - Flood Hazard Mapping and Risk Management in Part of Lagos N.E.; Olusegun Adeaga (Nigeria)
Massive development to meet the socio-economic needs of the emerging metropolises and mega cities without adequate consideration for the hydrological environment has brought about many challenges, like the need to sustainably manage the increasing incidence of more destructive flood, even in regions that used to be considered safe.
Causes of flooding in Lagos (the industrial and commercial hub of Nigeria and the West African sub-regions) include increasing encroachment of urban facilities on to the flood plain and unprecedented land reclamation without provision of adequate drainage paths; prolonged heavy rainfall, unplanned development and blockage of natural and artificial drainage paths and the physical characteristics of Lagos, as a coastal region, which further compound the flooding problem within the region
Hence, in order to address the flood uncertainty and calculate the flood design risk and vulnerability within part of Lagos N.E., this study entails mapping of floodable area using a terrain based approach. The approach entails generation of a digital elevation model (DEM) for the region. Reclassification and cross-tabulation of the DEM dataset was carried-out, in order to identify floodable and non-floodable area in relation to selected threshold elevation value of nine (9) meter. In addition, flood probability maps were generated at acceptable risk level of 20%, 10% and 5% while the cost implication of the floodable region was estimated. This is necessary for adequate pre-disaster measures and the establishment of a lead-time preparation for a wide variety of flood mitigation towards scientifically sound decision towards an effective flood risk management plan within Lagos N.E. region.
TS 13.4 - Municipal Level Geo-Information Usage in Disaster Mitigation – A Case Study of Ratnapura Municipality of Sri Lanka; Homindra Divithura (Sri Lanka)
Many organizations in Sri Lanka have been involved in spatial data collection and distribution. However, most local authorities have not been using the available spatial data optimally. This can be identified as an important issue where disaster mitigation activities are concerned.
The major functions of local authorities fall within the categories of public health and security, environmental sanitation, public thoroughfare and public utilities. But, at present, the effectiveness and efficiency of local authorities operating under these fields are not up to the expected level. Problems regarding geo-information usage within the local authorities cannot be identified as the only reason for the inefficiency and the non effectiveness, although it has major implications on the current operational practices in local authorities. This paper discusses this issue in detail by considering Ratnapura Municipality as a case study.
The Ratnapura district being the most vulnerable area in the Island for frequent flooding and land slides which was also affected by the year 2003 flooding with highest damages reported has been selected as the area for field survey. Also the Ratnapura Municipality being the responsible agency for overall management of the Ratnapura Municipal area can be identified as one of the organizations with high potential for GI usage.
The data collected by using questionnaires, interviews, physical observations and available supported documents were analyzed according to series of matrices, including grids with interest vs. awareness. Such grids identify the improvement strategies as: strengthen the municipal capacities to cope with Geo-information related matters, improve the relationships with major geo-information providers and obtain sufficient motivation from higher administrators to incorporate Geo-information for municipal works.
TS 14 Organized Session: Development Partners supporting Sustainable Geoinformation
Organizer: Roger Longhorn
TS 16 National SDI Initiatives
TS 16.1 - The Danish e-Government Initiative Versus INSPIRE Implementation: Synergy or Conflict; Jes Ryttersgaard (Denmark)
The Danish e-Government initiative became a reality in 2002. It is based on a mutually binding co-operation involving the Government, regional and local administrations. The permanent secretary from the Ministry of Finance has the chairmanship
The initiative has been very successful. In the latest UN-survey Denmark is number two in the world after the US. The strategy for the period 2007-2010 was launched in spring 2007. This strategy id titled "Towards better digital services, increasing efficiency and stronger co-operation". The strategy highlights the importance of spatial data and INSPIRE. The strategy is based on the so called channel strategy, where the public sector will be structured in a number of domains/channels. The domains will cut across the existing organizational sectors. The individual domain will be governed by a "domain board".
One precondition for a successful implementation of e-government is standards, as well standards for IT-architecture as data standards. The Ministry of Technology and Innovation has set up a structure for preparation and approval of the necessary standards. The standardization activities are based on specific sectors. Obviously there is no coincidence between the sector view and the domain structure.
There is a risk for conflict between the channel strategy and the sector view. This is not the only risk for conflict.
The directive on Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe - INSPIRE - became a reality in spring 2007. Member States are obliged to bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this Directive by May 15 2009. The first technical implementations shall be in place in 2010.
The e-government initiative is based on consensus. INSPIRE is a legal based infrastructure.
The basic idea behind INSPIRE is to support the environmental sectors needs for data and information. In Denmark environmental related data is maintained, handled and used by more than half of the Government Departments.
A comparison shows that the generic content of the e-government initiative and INSPIRE almost is identical, but apparently there is difference is the actual foreseeable implementation order. If the two initiatives are implemented independently there is a great risk for conflict and double-work. On the other hand synergy is an obtainable possibility.
The paper will focus on the challenge to create a political and an organizational understanding and agreement on coordination of the channel strategy and INSPIRE. One of the most urgent goals is to avoid double implementation.
Because INSPIRE has legal base, it might be an enabler for the further developments of e-government.
TS 16.2 - Mapping and SDI Perspectivesin India: Technology, Applications and Policy Considerations; Maj Gen RS Tanwar (India)
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TS 16.3 - CartoCiudad: Integration and Harmonization of Official Digital Geographic Information exploited by OGC Services through the Spanish National SDI; Alicia Gonzalez Jimenez, Sebastian Mas Mayoral, Angel Garcia San Roman, Ana Velasco Tirado (Spain)
The present paper describes “CartoCiudad”, the Official cartographic Data Base of the Spanish cities and villages with their streets and roads networks topologically structured. It has been built from the harmonization and integration of official digital data produced by several of the main suppliers of Geographical Information in de National Government of Spain: the General Directorate of Cadastre, the Statistical Office, the Post Office and the General Directorate of the National Geographic Institute.
Its data make up a continuous collection of information over which it is allowed to carry out operations of cartographical visualization (both urban and non-urban zones) with no gaps, navigation on the Spanish road-street network, spatial analysis and direct and inverse location searches.
“CartoCiudad” Data Server in one of the data servers accessible through the Spanish NSDI (IDEE). Users and added value services providers can use these data through different OGC services (WMS, WFS, WPS, Gazetteer…).
TS 16.4 - Technical Architecture and Implementation Plan for GDI-DE, Andreas Wytzisk, Voges Uwe, von Dömming Andreas (Germany)
In September 2007 the architectural baseline for the German National Spatial Data Infrastructure (GDI-DE) was adopted and presented to the public. The SDI architecture has been conceived to be technically open and defines the most important rules to be applied in order to ensure the interoperability of GDI-DE's constituent components (GDI-DE 2007). It is based on an analysis of INSPIRE and other international activities and the existing SDI initiatives on both state and federal level, and it is rooted on ISO and OGC specifications.
Considering typical use cases within GDI-DE, technological requirements were identified that the architecture has to fulfill. The focus was set on implementation specifications that are relevant to geoinformation (particularly those laid down by ISO and OGC), as well as legal frameworks, E-Government (KBSt 2006) requirements and commercially available product solutions. The specifications were categorized according to their level of maturity into three groups of varying levels of obligation:
• GDI-DE Essential: Those solutions that are supported by nationally and internationally recognized specifications and which have been implemented on the market in numerous available solutions form the essential or obligatory core of the GDI-DE architecture. These obligatory specifications are to be applied whenever a respectively specified solution sample is applicable among the spatial data and services supplied.
• GDI-DE optional: Solutions for which uniform, practically tested implementations exist, but for which no mature set of specifications has yet been devised to assure interoperability are recommended as optional modules that can be integrated in the GDI-DE architecture. These solutions are to be given precedence ahead of new developments.
• GDI-DE future: Requirements that are currently not being addressed, neither through a stable specification structure nor by way of operational solutions are categorized as future themes. Discussions on the development of appropriate solutions should be initiated at an early stage via the business and coordination office of GDI-DE.
The Business and Coordination Office GDI-DE and the Architecture Working Group devised a comprehensive masterplan for the construction of a combined SDI (GDI-DE) that comprises central (federal), state and local government levels. The masterplan is based on the technical concepts of the GDI-DE architecture (GDI-DE 2007) and it states activity fields, procedures and instruments which can be employed both on the different operational levels and GDI-DE as a whole. It also lays down - in a more general way - the central tasks of the GDI-DE for the years after 2009:
• Increase the number of spatial data offerings
• Establish and increase the number of spatial data access and processing services
• Establish an infrastructure of distributed catalogue services as well as other horizontal services (e.g. for authorization and authentication, monitoring).
The paper will present both the technical architecture as well as the implementation plan in detail.
References
GDI-DE (2007): Architecture of the German Spatial Data Infrastructure (Geodateninfrastruktur Deutschland) Version 1.0 beta (public review) (in German). Editors: Working group for the GDI-DE architecture and the GDI-DE business and coordination office, in cooperation with con terra GmbH. Frankfurt. http://www.gdi-de.org/de/download/GDI_ArchitekturKonzept_Entwurf.pdf
KBSt (2006): SAGA 3.0 – Standards and architectures for E-Government applications (in German). Coordinating and advisory office for information technology within the Federal administration. Berlin.
http://gsb.download.bva.bund.de/KBSt/SAGA_v3_0.pdf
TS 17 SDI and Land Administration Initiatives
TS 17.1 - Universal Land Registry to Support Independent Economic Development in Tanzania; Martin Huber (Switzerland), Klaus Mithöfer (Kenya), Peter Schär (Switzerland), Oscar Mukasa (Tanzania), Francis Harvey (United Kingdom)
A recent in-depth study commissioned by the Government of Tanzania (de Soto 2006) revealed that only 11% of the land properties in Tanzania are legally registered. The value of extralegal Tanzanian assets is estimated to 29.3 billions US$, capital that goes largely underutilized due to the lack of protection by the Government. Creating the legal and organizational framework to turn this "dead" into "liquid" capital to make it accessible for private investments and for taxation is therefore high on the agenda of the President and the ruling party CCM.
To provide land tenure security is highly complex in Tanzania where different legal systems overlap, where the registration of a parcel might take up to 8 years and where regulatory intervention is seen as a means to dispossess vulnerable groups. Nevertheless, proof of ownership of land is accepted as a vital need for development, thus the extralegal economy developed several independent ways to document land ownership and transactions. Not surprisingly, costly land disputes are frequent, yet the extralegal documents are of limited value to obtain mortgages and credits. Land tax collection is in disorder depriving the Government of the resources to build an effective system of land registration to provide land tenure security, a vicious circle.
Simple solutions are not at hand. A consolidated procedure to develop the one solution considering all legal, organizational and technical aspects as well as all parties involved is only a distant prospect. Know-how to build an IT and GIS supported land registry is not present in the country. In this context a group of students and lecturers at several universities took the initiative to design a solution architecture for a universal land registry (ULR) that can be deployed independently of the political process to develop a new framework for Government assured land tenure.
The main purpose of the ULR is to capture, organize and track all kinds of land right information. Based on the "Cadastre 2014" proposal of the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG 1998) a data structure is developed to register the rightful claimant (owner), the legal land object and right. The solution considers, that the proper identification of subjects, rights and land objects is crucial but difficult in the Tanzanian context: only a fraction of the 36 millions inhabitants possesses a passport or identity card, land tenure information is kept on 40,000 survey plans for the legal records (Silayo 2005) and in more than 10,000 different locations for extralegal records (de Soto 2006). The ULR therefore has to consider the highly distributed nature of land tenure information and to provide means to register people (fingerprints, photographs, signatures), land (GPS, aerial photographs, topographic maps, georeferencing functionality) and documents describing land rights (scanner).
The ULR caters for heterogeneous land information because experience from other countries shows that land information consolidation can take several generations. Not only will the ULR evolve together with the legal and organizational framework, but it will also provide most valuable information for other sectors like regional planning, environmental protection and infrastructure management.
TS 17.2 - Assessing Poverty, Risk and Vulnerability: A Study on the Flooded Households in Rural Bangladesh; Md. Israt Rayhan, Ulrike Grote (Germany)
Flood is a common catastrophe for Bangladesh. The combination of its geography, population density, and extreme poverty makes Bangladeshi people vulnerable to flood risks. This study is set forth to examine the poverty, risk and vulnerability for flood hazards in the year 2005. Cross sectional household survey was carried out after two weeks of the flood in four districts and 600 rural households were interviewed through three stages stratified random sampling. A utilitarian approach is used to assess flood vulnerability and its components: poverty, idiosyncratic and aggregate risks to capture the effect of flood on household’s welfare. To estimate the correlates of flood vulnerability, a set of fixed households’ characteristics are used as explanatory variables. The results depict that elimination of poverty would increase household welfare and thus lessen vulnerab