Global Survey of National Spatial Data Infrastructure Activities: 2000 Update and Status Report
Professor Harlan J. Onsrud
Department of Spatial Information Science and
Engineering and
National Center for Geographic Information and
Analysis
University of Maine
Orono, ME
04469
onsrud@spatial.maine.edu
Text Of Abstract
Many national governments throughout the world are involved in developing spatial data infrastructures that will better facilitate the availability and access to spatial data for all levels of government, the commercial sector, the non-profit sector, academia and citizens in general. In the summer and fall of 1998 with the support of FGDC and NIMA, a survey to assess the nature, extent and status of spatial data infrastructure activities of nations around the world was accomplished. A questionnaire consisting of 23 open-ended questions was sent electronically and by hard copy to contacts in over one hundred nations. By November 1998 when the initial results were reported at the GSDI 3 Meeting in Canberra Australia, responses had been received from 23 nations and several multi-nation regions. The questionnaire, the list of nations from which responses were received, and each full response may be found at http://www.spatial.maine.edu/~onsrud/harlan/gsdi/gsdi.htm.
In the first few months of 2000, we intend to seek participation in the survey from many more nations. Names of individuals in each nation who are likely to be able to respond knowledgeably on the subject matter are continuing to be compiled. With a core of close to thirty national responses at hand and published on a central web site, it should be much easier to convince others to submit responses for their nations. For those nations for which we have previous responses, we will request updates in order to track changes in thinking and approaches within these nations over the past two years.
After updates have been received and more nations have been added to the response pool, the previous implications drawn from the initial survey responses in 1998 will be reassessed. The new larger pool of data also will be explored for additional and alternative implications. Finally, plans will be discussed for exploring institutional arrangement models that could lead to increased wide-scale sharing of geographic information. In particular, factors affecting the ability and willingness of data suppliers from around the globe to make datasets available through library-like electronic sharing arrangements will be explored.
The SDI Implementation Guide: a Cookbook to support the GSDI
Doug Nebert
Clearinghouse Coordinator
US Federal Geographic Data
Committee
Text of Abstract
The SDI Implementation Guide or Cookbook (Version 1.0 - March 2000 - released at this Conference), through the support of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure community, will provide geographic information providers and users with the necessary background information to evaluate, implement, or participate within a growing digital geographic information community known as the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI). In order to take advantage of this growing body of geographic knowledge, this GSDI Cookbook identifies:
Although proprietary or project-based solutions for information sharing might exist, the adoption of consistent geospatial data sharing principles will provide a better solution for publishing geospatial data using the Internet and computer media. In an increasing "global community" there is a need to ensure that trans-national implementations and common knowledge bases are available. The ultimate aim of these SDI collaborations are to facilitate the geospatial data industry to become main-stream and a component of every day life.
The SDI Cookbook has been internationally authored, is accessible on the internet, and is also being distributed on CD ROM and in paper format. Version 1.0 of the Cookbook (prepared for this Conference) consists of a general introduction and nine chapters covering the following SDI topics:
The Impact of Open GIS upon GSDI Goals
Cliff Kottman, Ph.D
Vice President and Chief Scientist
Open GIS
Consortium
6614 Rockland Dr.
Clifton, VA, 20124-2414, USA
ckottman@opengis.org
Text Of Abstract
Over the past two and a half years, the Open GIS Consortium has delivered marketplace-consensus Implementation Specifications on the subjects of "Simple Feature Access," "Gridded Coverages", "Catalog Services" and "Coordinate Transformation Services." These Specifications provide the technical foundations for the most recent, and must useful, specifications: "Web Mapping Services."
"Web Mapping" refers to an environment in which a simple client may:
The Web Mapping client may be customized for applications such as urban planning, agriculture yield prediction, flood control, disaster management, and so on.
The more data stores that are stood up behind OpenGIS-enabled servers, the more "vertical integration" of different themes becomes possible. Vertical technical integration across many themes is virtually equivalent to horizontal policy integration across many departments and agencies. Web Mapping technology allows government offices to leap over the barriers to horizontal integration, and achieve virtual horizontal integration using technology, not policy. The water department becomes technically (and not necessarily politically) integrated with the civil works office, and both of these with the transportation office, and so on. But this only works if the water department puts its data behind an OpenGIS-enabled server, and the civil works office puts its data behind an OpenGIS-enabled server, etc.
The goals of GSDI will be enormously advanced as a cascade of "data source" institutions to stand up OpenGIS-enabled data servers. Here, a "data source" institution is one that has data of value to GSDI stake holders. This should include the government and private remote sensing satellite institutions, the "global atlas" institutions, weather institutions, global change communities, global natural resource management interests, international education and training institutions, international development agencies, international relief agencies, non-government agencies, and so on.
DISGIS: An Interoperability framework for GIS
Arne-Jørgen Berre, Roy Grønmo, Hjørdis Hoff, Ida Solheim, Kim Lantz*, Olaf Østensen**
SINTEF Telecom and Informatics, *GIS Denmark , **Norwegian Mapping Authority
Text of Abstract
The work reported here has been done within Distributed Geographical Information Systems(DISGIS) in the period from 1996 though 1999. DISGIS is an EC-supported Esprit project and the focus has been to develop mechanisms for GIS Interoperability, based on use of state of the art technology from the distributed system domain.
The DISGIS Interoperability approach is based on the ISO RM-ODP model for Open Distributed Processing, the usage of UML for model-specification and the usage of XML and/or binary streaming for data exchange.
The aim is to support interoperability between components on the feature-model level, independent on the underlying storage structure and access mechanisms. Even though it is important to define platform-dependent storage and manipulation interfaces for a data server level, such as the OGC Simple feature specification for SQL and COM/OLE, our aim has been to specify an interoperability interface on a storage-independent application server level.
The DISGIS Interoperability Reference Model is an interoperability approach based on the ISO RM-ODP model. ISO RM-ODP uses five viewpoints to describe open distributed systems. Each of these viewpoints is an abstraction of a complete system that focuses on a specific area of concern. As various emphasis is given in each of the viewpoints, the viewpoints provides a basic for discussing various aspects of interoperability. The Interoperability Reference Model uses the five viewpoints to identify and discuss various aspects of interoperability. In each of the five ISO RM-ODP viewpoints the Interoperability Reference Model identifies one type of interoperability. The Interoperability Reference Model also shows how these types of interoperability can be achieved.
The DIS results of the DISGIS project are an ODP Methodology approach to interoperability , with associated UML modelling tools and code generation tools for C++ and XML/Binary-streaming, supported by a distributed communication framework. The GIS results of the DISGIS project are an architecture and protocol, the DISGIS API, for interaction between client and servers in a distributed environment, supporting a geodata model suitable for the requirements of the partners, and related to the geodatamodels of ISO/TC211 and OpenGIS. The Client Mapping Framework is a framework to help the mapping between the Geodata model and clients internal and proprietary models. A coordinate transformation service is an example of a reusable geospatial processing service. An example usage of XML for Geodata encoding is shown through an XML-browser based on the ISO/TC211 15046-18 Encoding standard, with a Java-based browser. Proof of concept for the integration of the ISO/TC211 and OpenGIS standards. In particular demonstrating a common interface portability/interoperability feature layer that can be placed on top of different geodata-servers. The Interoperability approach described here can also be applied to other domains. In particular it have been tried in the domain of finance and C4I.
Implementation of Global Mapping Project for Global Environment
Minoru Akiyama
Secretary General, ISCGM
Geographical Survey
Institute,
Kitasato-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0811 Japan
e-mail:
m-akiyama@gsi-mc.go.jp
Text Of Abstract
The global environment problems have been well discussed since UNCED was held at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. However, currently available geographic information with scientific quality is still insufficient. Therefore, Global Mapping concept was proposed by Ministry of Construction of Japan in 1992. The International Steering Committee for Global Mapping(ISCGM) was established in 1996 to promote Global Mapping Project. The Global Map was defined by ISCGM as a group of global geographic datasets of known and verified quality with consistent specifications , which a common asset of mankind with scientific quality for world-wide distribution at marginal cost. The efforts and needs of Global Mapping have been recognized in international communities. The need of Global Map was adopted at UN Conference in 1997.
The scale of Global Map is approximately 1:1,000,000. Global Map has eight layers of transportation, boundaries, drainage, population center, elevation, vegetation, land cover and land use. The detailed specifications were adopted in the 5th ISCGM meeting in Canberra.
In November 1998, UN sent letter of Prof. Estes, Chairperson of ISCGM, inviting National Mapping Organizations(NMOs) to GM project and recommendation letter of Mr. Habermann, Director of UN Statistics Division, to heads of them. There has been remarkable increase of participation in the project. Sixty seven countries have participated in the project and forty countries are considering participation.
Activities on Global Mapping was appraised at Cambridge Conference in July 1999. Some participating organizations have been developing Global Map with international cooperation. More activities will be presented in 4th GSDI conference.
The Global Mapping Project has been closely coordinated and well supported by activities of GSDI. The project also has been in cooperation with other international activities, such as CEOS/WGISS, CERCO, ICA, IGBP, ISO/TC211, MEGRIN, PCGIAP, SCAR-GGI and UNEP.
Next ISCGM meeting will subsequently be held in Cape Town on March 16th, 2000 hosted by Chief Directorate Surveys & Mapping of South Africa.
Step by Step towards a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure
Dipl.-Ing. Klaus Barwinski,
Director Surveying & Mapping Agency
Northrhine-Westfalia
Advisor to the Executive Board of DDGI
Dipl.-Ing.
Martin Knabenschuh
Head ´Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing´ Surveying &
Mapping Agency Northrhine-Westfalia
Secretary General of DDGI
Text of Abstract
The last events during earthquakes, floods and hurricanes have once again underlined the necessity of documenting processes and of creating more effective tools of disaster management. A stewardship for the earth is badly needed, since the earth cannot cry. It can neither speak for itself nor help itself. There is a must for a balance sheet of the earth, which should be up-dated regularly and therefore needs global homogeneous and up-to-date spatial coredata.
To solve that problem virtual 3D models of the globe are required as soon as possible.
There are a lot of spatial data around the globe, but these data are not standardized, not complete, not suited for all purposes and sometimes not very qualified. This differs from region to region.
To prepare the way for a GSDI we should proceed according to the following four steps:
A lot of activities to produce spatial data and build up metadata services are already existing on local, state and federal level around the world. Now we have to bring together these data and activities. In high developed countries the database is of high quality, in other parts of the world such a database has to be built up from scratch.
We have to look for an organization existing of two sectors, the public and the private sector. Only this combination seems to be able to solve the problems. We need results very soon. There is no time to get such a mass of data only from one sector. Such an organization could link all the already existing - for global use selected - coredata in a reasonable time and additionally could acquire the missing coredata, where they are not available up to now. This organization next should offer an information service for all interested parties around the world as part of a worldwide spatial meta-metadata center. The German Authoritative Website Cadastre for large scale activities and the Authoritative Topographic Kartographic Informationssystem (ATKIS) for medium scale activities could be used for case studies.
The proposed activities will on the one hand protect and manage our living space and on the other hand offer a good chance for new interesting projects and action fields in economy based on spatial data.
Global Mapping - The Shuttle Radar Terrain Mapper
Dr. W. Senus, Chief Scientist, NIMA
Text of Abstract
In January 2000 the US National Imagery and Mapping Agency in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration will conduct a joint mission to determine the terrain height of the earth between plus/minus 60 degrees latitude. This unprecedented mission will model the terrain height over 80 percent of the earth's landmass. If successful the mission will produce two accurate terrain models with post spacing every 100 meters and every 30 meters respectively. The 100 meter model will be available for distribution to the global community and will provide an order of magnitude improvement over the best global models available today. This paper will describe the mission , the quality of the data collected, the accuracy of the terrain models derived and the availability of the data sets. The timing of the 4TH GSDI conference will allow for a post flight analysis of the actual mission. Specific coverage of terrain data and mission imagery will be described.
Development of NSDI: Opportunities and Challenges for India
Ravi Gupta
Editor, GIS@development
Director,
Centre for Spatial
Database Management and Solutions
A-13, Sector 22, NOIDA 201 301
India
Email: Ravi.Gupta@csdms.org
Text of Abstract
India is a nation of mind-boggling contrasts. It is considered to be one of the poorest nations in the world, still trying to cope with the problems of illiteracy, hunger and shelter. On the contrary, it also boasts of being the home of one of the largest pool of scientists, software professionals, universities and research institutes in the world.
GIS community in the country is not devoid of similar contrasts. It is endowed with a huge infrastructure of Survey of India, having a history of more that 250 years which has covered the whole country of 32,87,263 km2 by 1:50,000 rigorous surveys in more than 5,000 toposheets. India is also the birthplace of the IRS series of satellites, which are providing high-resolution remote sensing data to global markets. Despite this immense strength, the state of the spatial data infrastructure in India today is still infantile. Some requisite data quantum already exists but is either unknown or inaccessible to potential users, in and outside the government. India is not able to take advantage of its varied heritage of data, as compared to other countries because clear legal and commercial framework for data exchange is not in place. Although, major funds are being allocated for generation of new data in various sectors, but the efforts are still inadequate for wise consolidation and dissemination of the existing datasets.
Owing to the explosion of software industry in India, a high-level awareness for computerisation has been realised which has fuelled the demand for digital geographic data in the last few years. This demand is not being efficiently fulfilled due to the lack of concerted efforts on the part of the government in formulating a geographic information roadmap for the country.
The paper will try to address the opportunities and challenges for the development of National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) in India and its possible future integration with the regional and global efforts of similar nature.
Alessandro Annoni
European Commission - Joint Research Centre
Space Applications Institute,
Agriculture and Regional Information Systems Unit
TP 262 - 21020 Ispra (VA)- Italy
E-mail: alessandro.annoni@jrc.it
Text of Abstract
As a part of the Joint Research Centre direct actions in the Fifth Framework Programme a specific project "GI & GIS: Harmonisation and Interoperability" is started in 1999. The project supports the actions to create a European Geographic Information Infrastructure (EGII), addressing scientific and technological aspects related to Geographic Information (GI) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
The project has been designed to provide technical support to the Services of the European Commission, with the final goal to provide benefits for the European Community helping GI and GIS stakeholders, providers, system vendors, ... and users of spatial information services.
The GI&GIS project aims at helping to pave the way both for private and for public sectors in the EU to overcome the difficulties that hinder the development and application of GI. The specific objectives of the GI&GIS project are:
Here following a list of main initiatives to assist the creation of EGII under the GI&GIS project:
To conclude the GI&GIS project can be seen as an integrating tool, a bridge between information technology and applications domains that have a direct impact on our life.
Access To Spatial Data - What Determines The Willingness Of Organisations To Share It?
Uta Wehn de Montalvo
SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research,
University of Sussex
Text of Abstract
With the increasing use of geographic information systems (GIS) in developed and developing countries, the availability of spatial data has become an issue that affects many organisations. Spatial data infrastructures (SDI) are reliant on the willingness of different organisations to effectively overcome bottlenecks in the availability of spatial data. Yet the determinants of spatial data sharing behaviour of different types of organisations have not been dealt with in a systematic fashion and therefore they are difficult to address.
This paper presents the findings of empirical research designed to systematise the determinants of organisations' spatial data sharing behaviour. It presents a model to understand and predict the willingness of organisations to engage in spatial data exchanges across organisational boundaries.
The paper reports how the model was designed and implemented in a survey focussing on South Africa as a case study. Representing the variety of organisations in the GIS community at large, the survey drew on participants from local, provincial, and national government, para-statal organisations, the private sector, academia and non-governmental organisations. It included some 150 key individuals who were able to offer insights on their organisation's perspective and decision-making on spatial data access issues.
Drawing on the analysis of the empirical data, the paper assesses the importance of different determinants and offers suggestions of how they may be addressed. It concludes by turning to the practical implications of the findings for SDI policy arrangements. The paper indicates which particular determinants the spatial data initiatives should take into account in order to foster the sharing of spatial data among different organisations and how these insights can help to optimise the SDI policy efforts.
Lisa Ting BA, LLB, LLM
Lawyer
PhD candidate, Department of
Geomatics
The University of Melbourne
Parkville, Victoria 3052,
Australia
Email: ting@sunrise.sli.unimelb.edu.au
Ian Williamson
Professor of Surveying and Land
Information
Department of Geomatics
The University of
Melbourne
Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia
Email:
i.williamson@eng.unimelb.edu.au
Text of Abstract
The UN-FIG Declaration on Land Administration produced at Bathurst, NSW in late October 1999, stated that appropriate land administration systems are integral to the achievement of sustainable development objectives.
Spatial data infrastructures are increasingly recognised as crucial for the effective functioning of land administration systems. Land administration systems of the future must manage the growing complexity of rights, restrictions and responsibilities over land due to environmental and social imperatives. Spatial data infrastructures will be an invaluable tool in the resolution of the ongoing tensions between people and land or more to the point, between human poverty and environmental conservation. Thus spatial data infrastructures need to be embedded in a legal, institutional and socio-political-economic framework for good governance if they are to be a successful tool for dynamic and sustainable decisionmaking.
This paper will examine the vision espoused in the UN-FIG Declaration on Land Administration in detail and critically discuss the role of spatial data infrastructures in the context of that landmark vision. Specific reference will be made to a case study of New Zealand, which was one of the first countries to introduce a Ministry for the Environment and push a holistic legislative approach. Yet the OECD's review of New Zealand in 1996 revealed that inadequate data was a chief obstacle to the implementation of their ground-breaking legislative innovations for resource management.
The paper argues that partnership between effective spatial data infrastructures and good governance should be determining features of land administration systems for sustainable development.
The Synergism of Global Map, GSDI, and Digital Earth: The Importance of Relationships
Karen D. Kline
Remote Sensing Research Unit
Department of
Geography
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060
USA
John E. Estes
Remote Sensing Research Unit
Department of
Geography
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060
USA
estes@geog.ucsb.edu
Text of Abstract
Today there are three major projects underway involving global data, standards, and technology. These are the Global Map, the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI), and Digital Earth. The Global Map project, under the direction of the International Steering Committee for Global Mapping (ISCGM), will release in 2000 Global Map v1.0. The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure is roughly defined as encompassing "the broad policy, organizational, technical and financial arrangements necessary to support trans-national or global access to geographic information." The Digital Earth initiative, led by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is focusing upon the technology needed to bring to life Vice President Al Gore's vision of a "digital earth."
The technology required to produce, access, archive, distribute, and utilize global data sets is critical. With the increase in data streaming down on a daily basis from the satellites above us, there is a need to be able to harness this data process and analyze it and use it to our benefit. But we cannot do this without the technology, which Digital Earth is endeavoring to provide us.
Policies and standards allow us to communicate and transmit the data we have. Metadata, visualization, access and delivery are all very important. If every organization or discipline uses proprietary standards, or language, it is very difficult to communicate between organizations and disciplines. With a common language, or GSDI, these hurdles are overcome, allowing scientists and others to share their data with a minimum of difficulties. With this sharing comes a plethora of information from collaborative efforts.
Last, but not least, is the data, which the ISCGM is primarily focused on providing via the Global Map v1.0. This product is a multinational effort focused on providing a global data set that contains framework data layers, including administration, land use, vegetation, drainage systems, elevation, and transportation networks. This data set will be updated on a regular 5-year interval, allowing for global change studies and other analyses requiring framework data.
Together, these three complementary efforts provide the three most critical components: the technology, the data, and the standards. Relationships between Global Map, GSDI, and Digital Earth are critical to the continued evolution of the three, for without each other, the reason for existence disappears.
Regional Geographic Information Policy: The case in Europe at 2000 and lessons for GSDI
Roger A. Longhorn (BSc, MSc), Principal Consultant - GI/GIS
IDG (UK) Ltd,
EC Projects Office, Neihaff, Ingeldorf, L-9161 Luxembourg
Text of Abstract
GI communities at national, regional and multidisciplinary levels are now resolving "technical" GI and GIS issues that can be addressed by standards (data and systems interoperability) and further advances in ICT itself. But other, often more complex data issues remain, e.g. IPR/copyright, invasion of privacy, data protection, liability for use/misuse of data, access to information, especially public sector information, pricing, etc.
To confront these issues, the European Commission (EC) initiated a consultative process at the end of 1994. The EC's goal was to set up a framework within which the European Geographic Information Infrastructure (EGII) could be defined and established. Wide consultation was held throughout 1995 and 1996. A draft Communication document ("GI2000: Towards a European Policy Framework for GI") was produced and again debated during 1997. Questions were asked in European Parliament about the delay in adopting GI2000 in September 1998 and the initiative effectively died in October 1999.
The "European Union" (EU) is a unique international region, unlike almost any other in the world, in that 15 sovereign nations have given up specific rights, by signing several international treaties, in order to promote and progress their societies and economies as a region. With 12 more CEEC (Central and Eastern European) countries now slated to join the EU in the next decade, there is obvious need for implementation of any tools and policies that can assist in planning for such a varied region, comprising widely disparate economic backgrounds and diverse cultures, and then executing those plans.
In order to investigate regional GI/SDI issues that propose regional solutions requiring regional policy leading to regional legislation, there must be a regional law-giving institution in place and committed to at least understanding the issues.
The question investigated in this paper is simple, but crucial, as stated below.
"If implementing a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure requires answers to similar information related questions that still face the European GI community within the EU 15, yet the EU's Executive Body cannot find time or resources to adequately address these issues in their own region during a time of great territorial expansion, then what hope is there for GSDI?"
The paper is in three parts. The first presents an account of events covering the period of development of the GI2000 draft Communication and the aftermath of withdrawal of this document from the official EC agenda. The second looks at how regional GI/GIS is being approached in the Asia-Pacific region via the Permanent Committee for GIS Infrastructure in Asia and the Pacific, searching for commonality between the two regional initiatives, if any exist. The third part examines the potential pitfalls (or triumphs!) that await GSDI implementers.
From Local to Global SDI initiatives: a pyramid of building blocks
Abbas Rajabifard1, Ian P. Williamson2, Peter Holland3 and Glenn Johnstone4
Department of Geomatics, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia
1 Email: abbas@sunrise.sli.unimelb.edu.au
http://www.geom.unimelb.edu.au/research/SDI_research/people/abbas.html
2 Professor of Surveying and Land Information,
Email:
i.williamson@engineering.unimelb.edu.au
http://www.sli.unimelb.edu.au/people/ipw.html
Australian Land Information Group (AUSLIG),
PO Box 2,
Belconnen, ACT, 2616, Australia
3 General Manager,
Email: peterholland@auslig.gov.au
http://www.auslig.gov.au
4 Email:
GlennJohnstone@auslig.gov.au
http://www.auslig.gov.au
Text of Abstract
There is a strong hierarchical relationship among different political/administrative levels of SDIs concepts. Based on this hierarchical relationship a SDI pyramid can be formed by taking a perspective that starts at a local level and proceeds through state, national and regional levels and is completed by developing a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI). Therefore, it is argued that by better understanding and demonstrating the nature of this hierarchical relationship, GSDI development can gain support from a wider community of both government and non-government data users and providers.
The aim of this paper is to contribute to GSDI development in general and its organisational framework in particular. This is shown by:
SDI Challenges for a New Millennium - NSDI at a Crossroads: Lessons Learned and Next Steps
John Moeller and Mark Reichardt, U.S. Federal Geographic Data
Committee
Text of Abstract
The U.S. National Spatial Data Infrastructure has grown significantly since its inception in 1994 under Presidential Executive Order 12906. Since that time, a core set of critical metadata and data content standards have been developed and endorsed. A common Framework of geospatial data has been defined. Over 175 national and international sites are accessible through six Spatial Data Clearinghouse gateways on the Worldwide Web. To implement the NSDI nationally, key partnerships have been forged between federal, state, local, and tribal governments, academia, and the private sector. The FGDC has recently moved to increase its commitment to international and global SDI development and collaboration. However, much remains to be accomplished. Federal government-wide adoption of NSDI principles is not complete. Challenges continue to exist in expanding the NSDI to local levels and the private sector.
At a recent Geodata Forum held in Washington, DC to address making livable communities a reality, the U.S. NSDI was examined thoroughly by over 460 professionals from all walks of government, academia and industry. Expert panels and workshops led to a number of key recommendations to advance the NSDI. Some of these recommendations include: the accelerated use of testbeds to achieve standards and interoperability, documentation of funding mechanisms, development of case studies, increased investment in decision-support systems, increased educational experiences at all grade levels, and examining a more dynamic organizational structure to further the NSDI. A follow-on Congressional Subcommittee hearing on GIS and Policy recommended the reevaluation and update of the NSDI strategic direction, broadening of the organizations that guide the NSDI, legislation to accelerate NSDI implementation, and promotion of locally-independent and regionally-coordinated geographic information processes as means of achieving national consistency.
This paper examines the recommendations and the associated FGDC plan for action resulting from the U.S. NSDI Geodata Forum and Congressional Subcommittee on GIS and Policy. The recommendations and plan are reviewed for potential value to other national SDI programs, and the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure. An accelerated US policy on international collaboration is described, along with a call for action to implement national and regional infrastructures, partnerships and pilot projects to help nations establish and sustain globally compatible SDIs.
Jane Patterson
BA and MS UNC Chapel Hill and NC State
University
Additional studies at Harvard University
Advisor to the
Governor of North Carolina and the Director of the Office for Science and
Technology
Karen Siderelis:
Center for Geographical Information
Analysis-North Carolina and President of
National States Geographic
Information Council
Parrish, Thomas
Education: Ph.D. Candidate at NCSU GIS
Concentration
Text of Abstract
North Carolina has been through three major hurricanes within three years. The ability to inform citizenry and to utilize information that can be shared and jointly developed has become a major effort.
Community colleges have begun development of curriculum to train more GIS workers to build human resource capacity within the local government communities.
Information that can be shared with workers such as: weather officials, evacuation personnel, transportation officials, military branches of government, relief workers, doctors, animal and human rescue workers, etc. has become a major task that has demonstrated the necessity to work on common platforms that are web based.
This presentation will demonstrate the fits and starts of a state grappling with this mammoth task of mobilizing not once but three times for major disasters within three years.
This presentation should provide some real world situations where GIS provides the underlying platform for collection, management and dissemination of information.
R.A. O'Neil
Canada Centre for Remote Sensing/Geomatics Canada
Natural
Resources Canada
Room 650
615 Booth Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A
0E9
Canada
e-mail: oneil@ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca
Text of Abstract
The overall design intent of the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) was described at Global Spatial Data Infrastructures 2 (1997). The discovery and access component of CGDI (http://www.geoconnections.org) is being built to be interoperable with the National Atlas Information Network. This network offers 3 principal services: discovery, visualization and access. The discovery service (CEONet) is interoperable with the Federal Geographic Data Committee's clearing house.
The visualization service permits the data holdings of the National Atlas of Canada to be rendered and layers overlaid. Of particular interest is the role that will be played by national scale thematic information such as is found in the National Atlas of Canada. The Atlas contains geospatial frameworks or secondary reference systems such as postal codes, census divisions, ecozones etc. These, the associated attributes and other geospatial features from the Atlas can be exploited by the user to form polygons bounding the search areas for data sets known to the infrastructure.
The access service (GeoGratis) provides an implementation of best practices for the delivery of free geospatial data. Data sets which can be distributed free of charge are stored as files or in a geospatial data warehouse. Data in file form is delivered through a formatting engine to meet the user specifications. Alternatively, the user can select features sets from distributed warehouses and these may be viewed and delivered through an Open Geospatial Datastore Interface. A parallel delivery channel similar to the Open GIS Consortium's Web Mapping Testbed may be opened in the future.
CGDI is becoming accepted as the most appropriate way to manage and advertise geospatial data in Canada. Many data bases are now being connected to the infrastructure by groups outside the traditional geospatial community. For many, the connection is facilitated through the use of with common meta-data standards and re-usable software components (Application Programming Interfaces - APIs). It has also become necessary to extend the overall architecture to accommodate custodians of large, diverse data bases. Such data bases may be managed within provincial (for example) infrastructures that are not be strictly interoperable with the original design concept of the National Atlas Information Network. As a result, CGDI is now exploring the design of peer-to-peer connections in which a user entering CGDI may access the search facilities within the peer (provincial) infrastructure to identify suppliers, collections and products of interest; and in a reciprocal arrangement, the provincial infrastructure may use the facilities of CGDI to search national holdings and those of other infrastructures.
CommonGIS - Common Access to Geographically Referenced Data
Dr. Hans Voss, German National Research Institute for Information Technology - GMD, Schloss Birlinghoven, D-53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany
Email: hans.voss@gmd.de
Text of Abstract
CommonGIS is an EC-funded Esprit project that started in November 1998. It envisions the dissemination and exploitation of geographically-referenced data (geo-data) to a broad cross-section of the public. Geo-data encompass various thematic or statistical data on demography, economy, education, culture, history, etc. The key-thought of CommonGIS is to make geo-data commonly accessible and usable for everyone, from everywhere, by providing a WWW-based Geographical Information System (GIS) with specific functions for the automatic generation of thematic maps.
The software developed in CommonGIS is designed as an open, object-oriented, distributed system providing knowledge-based GIS services. The user interface is realized as Java-applets, thus providing comfortable access and interactivity while only requiring a standard (Java-enabled) Web-browser. It helps to effectively view and analyze attributes of and relations between selected geo-data by generating informative and interactive two-dimensional representations as thematic maps. The development is realized as an integration and adaptation of the two existing Internet-based GIS Descartes (GMD) and Lava/Magma (PGS).
CommonGIS concurrently applies and integrates the following technologies: WWW; mobile code (Java); GIS; and expert systems. Web technology is used to render the system remotely available. To improve usability, a rich and user-friendly interface is mandatory. To cope with the shortcomings of the Web with regard to local user-interactivity, we apply mobile-code technology, specifically Java. To render the visualization of geo-data effective for the casual-user we apply expert system technology in order to generate thematic maps automatically.
CommonGIS is demonstrated by several pilot projects, the focus being on a demonstrator built by the Portuguese Association of GIS users USIG. The construction of new applications, i.e. bringing together thematic (statistical) data and corresponding maps, is supported by a tool called Application Builder. In order to be applicable for a wide range of existing maps, the application builder automatically recognizes and imports a number of widespread formats of map data.. Regarding the thematic (table) data, it also supports the import of different source formats. Most important, however, is that CommonGIS has defined a so-called data characterization language (DCL) for the conceptual and semantic modelling of given thematic data. The descriptions of attributes and specified relationships between those attributes are exploited by the Application Builder to structure and guide the modelling process itself, and are also essential for the automatic construction of sound visualizations. We are currently seeking for ways of bringing the DCL into standardization processes.
URL's:
CommonGIS: http://commongis.jrc.it/
Descartes: http://nathan.gmd.de/and/java/iris/
Lava/Magma: http://www.pgs.nl
Yves Reginster
GERE SA
35, rue J.F. Kennedy
L - 7327
Steinsel
yves.reginster@gere.lu
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ETeMII is an accompanying measure (AM) funded by the EC under 5th Framework Programme to support the future creation of the European Geographic Information Infrastructure.
Partners of ETeMII consortium are:
Four national associations involved in the national GI
infrastructure: GISFORM (Italy), CNIG (Portugal), AFIGEO (France) and DDGI
(Germany);
Three European associations: MEGRIN, EUROGI and AGILE
Industry: consulting companies: GERE SA and GEOBASE Consultants
Ltd, and
GIS industry: SICAD Geomatics gmbh and Open GIS Consortium
Europe.
Last but not least, the EC Joint Research Centre, the Space
Application Institute (JRC/SAI).
The AM aims organising a network of excellence, bringing together most of the stakeholders of the territorial management; a particular attention will be paid on user's needs. It will have to build a consensus on the technical issues that are the foundation of ETeMII: · reference data, data access policy,
Awareness activity is an important component of the AM, promoting contribution to European Geographic Information Infrastructure, using metadata services, implementing standards, using reference data. Reference data: The objective is to reach a European and global (GSDI) technical consensus on the definition of reference data and making them available, at affordable cost. Metadata: through workshops, awareness activities, the aim is to build upon existing initiatives, to reach some consensus on the way to meet user's needs, and to remove barriers to data access. It is important to enable searching of any kind of information with a single tool. A particular focus will be given to semantics and the use of multiple interoperable thesauri to record the multi-cultural and multi-lingual characteristics of the European Information Society.
Standards ad interoperability: the work will be based on seeking interoperability standards requirements, and offering awareness on existing very extensive but possibly incomplete interoperability standards activities to target. At the same time it will ensure that there are new observation windows between pure research activities and standards development.
Three thematic work package (3,4,5) follow the same phases:
1. User requirements
2. Solutions analysis
3. Plans for future actions
4. Raising awareness and communication to the users community; technical
forum, co-ordination with CEEC, and GSDI.
Awareness and communication activities encompass:
XML-based Spatial Data Mediation Infrastructure for Global Interoperability.
Ilya Zaslavsky, Amarnath Gupta, Richard Marciano, Chaitanya Baru.
San
Diego Supercomputer Center, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA,
92093-0505
{zaslavsk, gupta, marciano, baru}@sdsc.edu
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The World Wide Web is a successful global infrastructure, and XML (eXtensible Markup Language) emerges as its data interchange model. In this paper, we present the XML information mediation framework developed at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, as it extends to spatial information integration. We explore the potential and challenges of mediation among geographic sources 'wrapped' in XML, in particular the information mediation architecture enabling global interoperability of geographic data. By contrast to the traditional data warehousing, our approach implies a mediating layer between user interfaces and geographic sources, responsible for dispatching user queries and assembling the results. Spatial data reside on different servers instead of being moved to one or several repositories, which leads to better scalability and easy updates. While it is not currently feasible to standardize geographic data formats on a global scale, XML compliance provides for enough freedom in structuring geographic data, at the same time ensuring that different local standards can be made interoperable within a common framework.
The main components of the XML-based mediation architecture for the emerging GSDI are as follows:
The Need For Developing A Standardised Meta-Data For Spatial Datasets In Ghana
Foster K. Mensah
Remote Sensing Applications Unit
University of
Ghana
Legon
E-mail: fmensah@ug.edu.gh
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The availability of useful data is the most basic and critical factor in establishing a Geographic Information System (GIS). To know what is available requires that GIS users document their digital spatial data holdings and publish this documentation.
Though some institutions in Ghana have been documenting existing data sets they hold, this is done in an uncoordinated and disparate manner. This means large amounts of shareable data are being generated without adequate documentation or documented in a disparate manner. Without proper documentation the data becomes less valuable to the user.
Access to relevant and timely data is facilitated by the provision of meta-data or information that show who has what data and the characteristics of the data.
Realising the need to document its spatial data set holdings The Remote Sensing Applications Unit (RSAU) has created meta-data for the land cover and land use coverages produced under the Ghana Environmental Resource Management Project, with CorpsMet95, a free standalone intuitive FGDC compliant meta-data creation tool, that runs on Windows 95.
The increased demand for spatial data in Ghana requires the development of meta-data standards based on the RSAU example. The purpose of these standards will be, to provide a common set of terminology and definitions for documentation related to data content, quality, condition, and other data characteristics and to facilitate data sharing in Ghana.
This paper presents considerations for developing a national meta data standards for Ghana.