ESDI European Spatial Data Infrastructure

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ESDIEuropean Spatial Data Infrastructure
Presentation to WGISS10 pre-meeting
workshop Canberra, May, 2000
Wyn Cudlip BNSC/DERA wcudlip_at_scs.dera.gov.uk
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Overview

• Main European initiative is EUROGI
• Also a number of specific EC funded projects

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EUROGI

• European umbrella organisation for GI.
• Set up by the EC DGXIII in November 1993.
• European Foundation with headquarters in The
  Netherlands.
• EUROGI is an association of associations with one
  national member from each country (18 so far)
• Pan-European organisations can also be associate
  members (but no voting rights) (1 so far).
• Members pay annual fee to cover Secretariat and
  Executive Committee.
• Http//www.eurogi.org/

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EUROGI Objectives

• Implement European geographic Information
  Infrastructure (EGII)
• Raise awareness of value of GI
• Encourage greater use of GI data through
• improved availability and access
• removal of legal and economic restraints
• promote the use of standards
• Represent Europe in GSDI
• Help develop strong national GI organisations
  especially in Central and Eastern Europe.

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GI2000

• EuroGI are trying to set up an activity called
  GI2000
• To create a policy framework for ESDI
• To set-up a high level working group to
  co-ordinate national activities
• Started in 1994 to lobby the European Commission
  (EC)
• In 1995 drafted a EGI Policy Consultation
  Document
• By 1999, was about to be endorsed by the EC - but
  then
• all the commissioners resigned
• new commissioners have failed to put GI2000 on
  their agenda for immediate action

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European Countries with National Initiatives

• Denmark DAiSI
• Finland National Geographic Information
  Infrastructure
• France AFIGEO - White Paper on French GI
• Germany DDGI
• Hungary HUNAGI - Hungary sets national spatial
  data strategy
• Ireland IRLOGI
• Italy AM/FM Italia
• Netherlands Ravi
• Portugal SNIG
• Spain AESIG
• Switzerland SOGI
• United Kingdom National Geospatial Data Framework

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NGDF in the UK

• Led by Ordnance Survey but many other
  organisations involved
• Aims to improve knowledge and access to
  information
• Create a NGDF Gateway to provide a central point
  of access over the Internet to a wide variety of
  information (metadata) about spatially related
  data owned by public and private sector
  organisations.
• improve consistency of data
• Establish a UK Standard Geographic Base. The
  UKSGB will provide a single, easy to use and
  definite source of information about commonly
  used geographic units and the key datasets that
  support these units.
• encourage the use of standards
• http//www.ngdf.org.uk/

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Specific EC Projects DISGIS

• A DIStributed interoperable framework for GIS
• EC Espirit project, 1996-1999
• DISGIS Interoperability Reference Model based on
  ISO RM-ODP
• ODP Methodology using UML and XML
• demonstrated a portable/interoperable feature
  layer that can be placed on top of different
  geodata servers.

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CommonGIS

• Common access to geographically referenced data
• EC Espirit project started in November 1998
• Aims to facilitate dissemination and exploitation
  of geo-data to/by broad cross-section of public
• emphasis of access to statistical data
• Developing improved user interface
• enhancing browser with JAVA applets

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ETeMII

• European Territorial Management Information
  Infrastructure
• EC 5th framework accompanying measure
• to support the creation of the
• European Geographic Information Infrastructure
• Main goals
• Reference Datasets
• Metadata
• Standards Interoperability
• http//www.ec-gis.org/etemii/

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Conclusions

• European activities are still divided along
  national lines - but co-ordinated through EUROGI.
• Have been some attempts to create an European
  policy framework - without success so far.
• A number of specific European projects are
  working towards a standard spatial data framework