Technical assessment of GeoSUR and comparison with INSPIRE experience in the context of an environmental vulnerability analysis

The use of spatial information has become an important resource for decision support making at national and regional levels. In this respect, several private and public organizations are continuously collecting and producing geospatial data. However, there are still problems that affect the usage of spatial information. As a response to these problems, several spatial data sharing initiatives have been implemented at national, regional and global level. This is also the case of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) and the Integrated Geospatial Information Network for South America (GeoSUR), both created in 2007. GeoSUR works together with the PAIGH, the Geocentric Reference System for the Americas (SIRGAS) and the Permanent Committee on Geospatial Data Infrastructure for the Americas (PC-IDEA) to consolidate the Spatial Data Infrastructure of the Americas. In this context, the role of GeoSUR is to provide the distribution platform for the SDI and develop geoservices and applications based on institutional spatial databases. This research performs a technical assessment of GeoSUR to identify the extent to which the spatial resources provided by the network area accessible, applicable and usable for decision making processes at regional (multinational) level. In order to do so, this study is conducted in the context of a real case study that implements Spatial Multicriteria Evaluation to assess the environmental vulnerability of the Amazon IIRSA region. Results show strengths at finding spatial resources, and regarding the accessibility to regional datasets in GeoSUR. However several obstacles still limit accessibility, applicability and usability of spatial data to perform regional analysis. In this respect, elements considered by INSPIRE such as common implementing rules and technical guidelines are identified as useful to tackle these obstacles and make the spatial services and datasets of the participant institutions compatible to perform regional analysis.The use of spatial information has become an important resource for decision making. In this respect, several private and public organizations are continuously collecting and producing geospatial data. However, there are still problems that limit the access and usage of spatial information for all people requiring it. As a response to these problems, several initiatives to share and reuse spatial data have been created. The Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) and the Integrated Geospatial Information Network for South America (GeoSUR) -both created in 2007- are examples of such initiatives. This study aims to identify to which extent the technical characteristics of the spatial resources available in GeoSUR website allow to support decisions at multinational level in Latin America. In order to do so, an evaluation of how sensitive is the natural environment to degradation is conducted as a case study to select the resources to be assessed. Results show that is relatively easy to discover spatial resources in GeoSUR, but is difficult to download them. Considering INSPIRE as a model in spatial data sharing, it is concluded that some elements from INSPIRE can be gathered and adapted by GeoSUR to improve the characteristics of the spatial data offered

EU gazetteer evaluation

This JRC technical report summarises the ELISE (European Location Interoperability Solutions for e-Government) activities in support to the development of an EU gazetteer. Most Member States have their own national gazetteer service so, if an EU gazetteer service is to be justified, there needs to be sufficient demand for pan-European applications or sufficient added value beyond existing national gazetteers. The ELISE Action of the ISA2 Programme carried out a survey in conjunction with EuroGeographics in 2018, aimed at understanding the demand-side and supply-side perspectives related to pan-European gazetteer data and services. The results clearly showed that there is demand for an EU gazetteer to support multi-national applications or complement existing national gazetteers, for purposes such as emergency response, searching for datasets, news items, or tourism / cultural heritage sites, validating foreign addresses, etc. This report further investigates two datasets on the pan-European level: Geographical names and Addresses as the most relevant datasets for the EU gazetteer. In the report we also analyse authoritative vs. volunteered spatial datasets. The results of the analysis showed that both data sources, official and volunteered, are complementary and mutually enhanced results can be obtained by combining the two. In addition, "Cultural Heritage Testbed" application has been developed with the aim to identify data, functionality gaps and improvements needed in different gazetteer solutions. The findings and possible applications were discussed with several existing use cases, with cross-border and pan-European coverage. Overall findings in this report can be used to justify the relevance and importance of Geographical names and Addresses datasets in the context of defining future high value datasets at an EU level.JRC.B.6-Digital Econom

Advanced Regional Spatial Data Infrastructures in Europe

This report presents the findings of the workshop on Advanced Regional Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) organised by the European Commission Joint Research Centre in May 2008. The objectives of the workshop were to review the state of progress, analyse the different organisational models established with local and national stakeholders, and assess the social and economic impacts of the regional SDIs. Eleven regional/sub-national SDIs in Europe are presented in the report: Lombardy, and Piedmont (Italy), Catalonia and Navarra (Spain), Wallonia and Flanders (Belgium), North-Rhine Westfalia and Bavaria (Germany), Northern Ireland (UK), Brittany (France), and Vysocina (Czech Republic). These experiences are set in the context of the broader European framework provided by the INSPIRE Directive, the national State of Play studies, and international experiences in the USA and Australia. A key finding of the report is that these regions are indeed leading actors in the development of SDIs in Europe, adopting state-of-the art technologies, standards, and models and often setting the pace through example for others to follow. Crucially important is their role in coordinating and organising developments at the local level through a large array of partnerships and organisational models. This organisational work is challenging because it involves a very large number of stakeholders operating at the local level, and requires long-term political, organisational, and personal commitment. However, the evidence available at the present time indicates that it is at the local level that the largest social and economic benefits of an SDI can be found, supporting operational day-to-day applications affecting millions of citizens and local businesses. To achieve these benefits there is no alternative but to engage locally, and invest in building and maintaining relationships and trust. From this perspective, the main lesson of the European experiences, supported by those in the USA and Australia, is that Spatial Data Infrastructures are foremost social networks of people and organisations, in which technology and data play a supportive role. The technology is cheap, data is expensive, but social relations are invaluable.JRC.H.6-Spatial data infrastructure

HARMO-DATA Project \u2013 cross border spatial data harmonization using INSPIRE model

HARMO-DATA is an ongoing project, funded by EU in the framework of the INTERREG V-A Italy-Slovenia 2014-2020 Programme. It involves different stakeholders, target groups and end-users in three regions: Friuli-Venezia-Giulia (Italy), Veneto (Italy) and Slovenia. The main purpose of this project is to develop common solutions for more efficient cross-border spatial data management \u2013 by harmonizing the existing spatial data, implementing a cross-border spatial data platform, and developing a common protocol for the harmonization of territorial data. It will provide an instrument to define the specific obligations and rights of the involved parts \u2013 in terms of data harmonization, exchange, use and maintenance. Five pilot case studies were identified by the project partners \u2013 in cooperation with public and private end-users, and additional stakeholders. The core use cases of the project relate to spatial data search, view and download, and the harmonization model for spatial datasets applies the INSPIRE data specifications. A joined common spatial data platform was established as an extension of the existing search-view-download platforms (metadata systems), upgraded and improved to better enable open data access by users from both Italy and Slovenia. The common spatial HARMO-DATA data platform, as well as, a joint protocol for cross-border spatial data harmonization, have been formalized in an official bilateral agreement

Problems of Designing Geoportal Interfaces

The manuscript is devoted to analysis of the problem of designing graphical geoportal interfaces. The support points for the problem solutions are formulated and rationale of each of them is given. The emphasis was placed on the following orientations: to a flexible process of interface development, the need to introduce adaptability, progressive development, the motivated abandonment of geospatial content management systems and the use of third-party libraries where necessary, problem-solving and achieving goals. The lists of basic functional and qualitative requirements for graphical geoportal interfaces are given. In the last segment, the authors share their experience in the development of geoportal solutions

Spatial Data Harmonisation in Regional Context in Accordance with INSPIRE Implementing Rules

Spatial data seamless exchange and interoperable usage has become a necessity in efficient data management and competitive positioning in the European Union. Conceptual and technical framework for the spatial data and services interoperability is specified within the EU INSPIRE Directive. The Directive provides flexible and modular structure, giving the opportunity for customisation of the data specifications and usage. From the data publisher level to the European spatial data infrastructure, this opened the question of disharmony of the spatial data structure and sharing. Arisen challenges in data harmonisation process are thus subject of interest for different formalisation approaches. This study approaches the spatial data harmonisation process focusing on the area of Western Balkans, the region of Europe with countries that have similar interest for implementation of the INSPIRE Directive. With the main aim to propose the improvement to regional data harmonisation process, the study is focused on geology as the spatial theme. The study (1) analyses the INSPIRE data harmonisation process, (2) assesses critical factors of the process in the region and (3) tests the implementation of the INSPIRE data model harmonised in accordance with user needs. Results of the analysis present the structure and formalisation concepts of the INSPIRE data model, its extensibility, means for securing interoperability and standardised approach in defining data model elements. Critical factors of the harmonisation process are assessed through semi-structured questionnaire answered by competent representatives of the Western Balkans countries. The results show that, on a regional level, spatial data managers have made progress towards compliance and are familiar with the Directive. However, they lack a coordinated approach and implementation guidance. Aside from the low capacities, due to the current state of the data structures, harmonisation is a highly complex process and a goal that is difficult to reach. The outcomes of the INSPIRE defined harmonisation process and user needs are implemented on a practical example, a INSPIRE Theme Geology dataset from a Western Balkans region stakeholder. The user needs and data model structure characteristics of the regional geology dataset were integrated in the formal description of the source and transformed to target INSPIRE data model. The concept required structuring the source model to meet both INSPIRE and local requirements. The study general aim was reached by implementing the INSPIRE data harmonisation with fulfilling the main objectives – creating market-oriented, interoperable and accessible dataset, meeting national legal requirements towards the geological data management and increasing efficiency of data usage. Further application of the developed approach is seen as the implementation methodology for other INSPIRE themes and other geographical regions.Spatial data seamless usage and exchange has become a necessity in management of natural resources, environmental risk assessment, infrastructural planning and various other industrial domains. Framework for spatial data seamless usage is specified within the EU INSPIRE Directive on the continent-wide level. The Directive enables customisation of the data specifications and usage. However, high-level specification raised the issue of disharmony of the spatial data structure and sharing on regional level. Challenges in data harmonisation process therefore became subject of interest for different research approaches. This study approaches the spatial data harmonisation process focusing on the area of Western Balkans, the region of Europe with countries that have similar interest for implementation of the INSPIRE Directive. With the main aim to propose the improvement to regional data harmonisation process, the study is focused on geology as the spatial theme. The study assesses the regional needs and, in that light, develops the example of geological spatial data harmonisation. The needs and the critical factors of the harmonisation process are assessed through a questionnaire answered by competent representatives of the Western Balkans countries. It was found that spatial data managers in the region have made progress towards compliance and are familiar with the Directive. However, they lack a coordinated approach and implementation guidance. Moreover, the current state of the datasets structure makes harmonisation a complex process and a goal that is difficult to reach. Geology dataset from a Western Balkans region stakeholder was used as a practical example for testing the harmonisation process in accordance with user needs and INSPIRE requirements. The result was harmonised INSPIRE conformant spatial dataset, with validated seamless sharing and usage possibilities of the spatial dataset on both local and EU-wide level. The study showed the possibility of applying the INSPIRE data harmonisation, with fulfilling the main objectives of (1) creating market-oriented, interoperable and accessible dataset, (2) meeting national legal requirements towards the geological data management and (3) increasing efficiency of data usage. Further application of the presented approach is seen as the implementation methodology for other spatial themes and different geographical regions

Accessing meteorological data in INSPIRE

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.In the information age, information is of vital importance to the economic and social development of a country. Meteorological data, is multidimensional, continually evolving, highly spatial and highly temporal in nature. It is of great importance to a wide range of stakeholders including national agencies, private weather services, defense, transportation, aviation, national infrastructures, financial institutions and the general public. Members of the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) have vast amounts of data. However, this data is stored in many different formats based on various conceptual models (e.g. BUFR, GRIB, NetCDF, HDF). INSPIRE is a European Union initiative to create interoperability between spatial datasets among various communities. The main goal of this project is to suggest the most appropriate INSPIRE Download Service to access meteorological data. This project uses BUFR data and tries to access it through Climate Science Modeling Language (CSML), which is a data model and software framework for accessing meteorological data and retrieve it through standard geospatial web services. Based on the testing, suitable INSPIRE Download Service will be suggested. This helps to bridge the gaps between the geospatial, meteorological communities, and policy makers

Orchestrating standard web services to produce thematic maps in a geoportal of a spatial data infrastructure

Cartography is the science and art of making maps and thematic cartography is a subsection that deals with the production of thematic maps. A thematic map portrays the distribution of features, incidents or classifications related to a specific topic. With the rapidly increasing volumes of data, thematic maps allow users to efficiently analyse data and identify trends quicker. A spatial data infrastructure (SDI) focuses on making data available and ensures data interoperability through a geoportal and associated web services for discovery, display, editing, and analysis. Implementations of web service standards by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), and the ISO/TC211, Geographic information/Geomatics enable the display, query and custom visualisation of spatial data in a geoportal. In the past, sophisticated cartographic methods have been mainly available on desktop applications, but with the advances in web mapping technology these methods have become increasingly popular on the Web. Currently, producing thematic maps using web services is a manual process that requires quite a lot of custom programming. The orchestrations of standard web services automate the process to produce thematic maps in a geoportal. It is preferable to use standard web services as opposed to customised programming; the standards provide flexibility, interoperability, and standard protocols, to name a few benefits. The goal of this research was to determine how standard OGC web services could be orchestrated to produce thematic maps within the geoportal of an SDI. To achieve this goal, an orchestrated thematic web service, named ThematicWS, was constructed from existing implementations of individual standard OGC web services, which are monolithic and interchangeable. The thematic cartographic process for producing choropleth and proportional symbol maps was investigated to model the process and obtain a set of steps. Experiments were performed to determine which existing web service standards could be used in the process. ThematicWS was developed using existing implementations of the following standards: WFS to retrieve the attribute data, WPS for the wrapping of custom functionalities (statistical processing and SLD generation), and a WMS to produce the thematic map image. The 52° North and ZOO project frameworks’ orchestration capabilities were evaluated for to determine the suitability for producing thematic maps. The evaluation showed that orchestration is possible in both frameworks. However, there are limitations in both frameworks for automatic orchestration such as the lack of semantic information and poor usability of the framework. The use of WPS services to wrap custom functionalities and to provide a standard interface has proved to be useful for the orchestration of standard web services. ThematicWS was successfully implemented based on standard web service implementations using both workflow scripting and workflow modelling. The orchestrated ThematicWS can be called and consumed by a geoportal of an SDI to produce thematic maps according to user defined parameters.Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2013.Geography, Geoinformatics and MeteorologyUnrestricte