Mapping out an interest in environmental sustainability for school pupils in Italy

“A successful path to basic school education also includes maps. Nowadays, when attention to the environment and sustainability in the use of resources is so widespread, knowledge of the territory is fundamental for a correct use of resources and, above all, for a healthy relationship between man and environment.”

Major General Pietro Tornabene Italian Military Geographic Institute

School pupils in Italy are benefitting from new maps that facilitate their understanding of the environment and local region.

The cartographic project led by the Italian Military Geographic Institute has created a 1:350 000 scale map for each of the twenty Italian regions. The aim is to represent the regional territory in an intuitive way. In doing so, the maps provide a valuable tool for facilitating an understanding of the environment for even the youngest school pupils.

The map shows the main, relevant natural and anthropic aspects that are useful for highlighting some general characteristics of the represented territory. These aspects can be grouped into the following topics: Altimetry, Hydrography, Borders, Transport, Inhabited areas, Settlements, Protected areas, Toponymy. Elevation is represented by hypsometric colours, contour lines and elevation points. Addition of a shading enhances the effect of the relief.

The main source of geographic data is EuroGeographics 1:250 000 scale EuroRegionalMap geographic database. Other data sources are used for the subsequent integration and control steps.

Benefits

• Demonstrates the practical uses and value of geospatial data in an easy-to-understand format.
• Encourages an interest and understanding in the environment, and the place that people have within in.
• Enables in-depth knowledge of the territory that is fundamental to sustainability and the correct use of resources.
• Ultimately promotes a healthy relationship between man and environment founded on respect for the natural world.

Designing and delivering a high-speed broadband network for 1.1 million people in rural Ireland

"Ordnance Survey Ireland’s (OSi’s) national spatial data framework, Prime2 is underpinning almost all aspects of one of the most ambitious deployments of broadband infrastructure in the world. Undertaking a project on this scale without accurate, reliable geospatial data would be nigh on impossible."

Colin Bray Chief Executive Officer and Chief Survey Officer, Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi)

Within just seven years, National Broadband Ireland (NBI) has to design and build a state-of-the-art, full-fibre network for the 1.1 million people in rural Ireland who need improved access to the Internet. The network will connect 537,596 rural properties, including over 54,000 farms and 679 schools, across every region and island in the country.

NBI needs to be able to understand not only where the properties are that need to be connected, but also where there is existing infrastructure (like poles) that can be reused and where new assets need to be located. It needs to know where land is privately owned, where surveys are taking place, where fibre-to-the-premise has been installed so far and much more besides.

NBI primarily relies on OSi’s national spatial data framework, Prime2. Used by designers on desktops and engineers in the field, it provides everyone at NBI with access to the same authoritative mapping data, including OSi’s open data on municipal district boundaries.

Benefits

Enables a more cost-efficient network design process.

• Allows NBI’s infrastructure designers to create their initial network plans at the desktop due to the comprehensive detail in the Prime2 data.

• Saves time and improves the overall efficiency of the design phase as the accuracy of these plans means that engineers are less likely to need to make design changes when they visit sites.

Improves project planning and site safety.

• Enables NBI to more accurately identify which poles are within which municipal areas and submit planning requests to the correct local authority using Prime2 and OSi’s open source boundary data.

• Enables NBI to easily see which roads are public and recognise the road category, so that it can work with local authorities to put the most appropriate safety measures in place for employees working near busy highways.

Enables effective management of build costs.

• Provides insights to accurately ascertain how much cable it needs per section, calculate the value of assets on private property and better manage the total cost of the build phase.

Facilitates well-informed decision- making across the project.

• Enables employees in the office,

  working from home or in the field to easily access the geospatial information they need to make decisions.

Supporting urban and spatial planning in Hungary with online geospatial system

“E-TÉR is the most complex online geospatial system we have developed so far!”

József Kolossa DLA CEO of Lechner Knowledge Center

The Lechner Knowledge Center’s new framework to support urban and spatial planning is the most complex online geospatial system ever to be developed in Hungary. The Electronic Spatial and Urban Planning Support System (E-TÉR) brings together the entire process of creating spatial and urban plans on a central platform. It provides complete digital support – from planning and negotiation to applicable plans.

The development of the three modules (Information, Reconciliation, Planner) of the E-TÉR web application is part of the vision for innovative renewal of the construction system. The E-TÉR system is supported by the European Union, co-financed by the European Social Fund under the auspices of the KÖFOP-1.0.0-VEKOP-15-2016-00037 project ‘Building a 3D-based data infrastructure’.

Benefits

• Enables online planning and consultation with interactive maps for towns and municipalities, regional and urban planning experts.
• Provides planners with access to geospatial and other databases as a starting point and reference point, ensuring that the entire hierarchy of national, priority regional, county, and urban plans are interlinked, and sectoral decisions are taken into account.
• Enables everyone to access maps and attachments of national and priority regional spatial plans, the module's web map interface also provides access to county spatial plans and, in the future, will also include settlement plans superimposed on these.
• Consultation on the web serves the official communication of the administrative bodies involved in the coordination of regional and urban plans in social and legal terms.
• Helps decision-makers and the public by providing easy access to territorial and municipal regulatory information, and also a clear overview of the most important requirements for land use on the map application.
• Supports creation of plans by providing vector maps of settlement and spatial plans, as well as a web interface for planning.

Enabling direct 24/7 access to Hellenic Cadastre maps and data

“Providing access to cadastral data is one of the major goals that the Hellenic Cadastre has set to achieve. The development of a new set of services that enables citizens and professionals to access directly cadastral data on a 24/7 basis, constitutes a major step towards that direction. Such a capability not only helps citizens and professionals to satisfy their everyday needs as far as cadastral needs are concerned, but also opens-up use of cadastral data in a wide range of tasks and applications.”

Professor Dimitrios Stathakis, President of the Board of Directors, Hellenic Cadastre

The Hellenic Cadastre has developed a new set of web- based services that enable professionals and individuals to get online access to cadastral data and carry out typical cadastral transactions. Such transactions involve overviewing cadastral data, ordering certificates, and carrying out land transactions. Access to data and services is available, online, on a 24/7 basis, through the Hellenic central e-government portal (https://maps.gov.gr/ and https://ktimatologio.gov.gr/Professionals/Account/Login).

The services have been well-received with significant numbers of users accessing the data, which has helped alleviate congestion in the cadastral offices, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic surge in 2021.

The services were developed almost exclusively by the Agency’s IT Department and incorporated into the governmental e-portal in close cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Governance. The new services are based on the ITC infrastructure previously developed by the Hellenic Cadastre as part of a wider plan to open-up cadastral data and services to the public. They were presented to the Prime Minister by the Minister of Digital Governance in April 2021 and attracted widespread media and public attention.

Benefits

• Provides online, 24/7, direct access to cadastral data and services to all those who have a legitimate interest in the cadastral data.
• Enables easy access through a well-known focal e-governmental portal.
• Eliminates the need for individuals to visit cadastral offices.
• Avoids congestion in the cadastral offices.
• Delivers a faster service to those interested in land transactions.
• Provides a speedier resolution of cadastral registration problems.
• Improves support for planning and developmental activities.

Heavy rain hazard maps enable preventive measures in Germany

“Extreme weather conditions caused by global climate change have become increasingly frequent phenomena of our everyday life. In July 2021, the impact of these climatic changes manifested themselves by intense rain causing a flood disaster in the border region of Belgium and Germany. By establishing a nationwide uniform basis for heavy rain hazard maps in Germany, the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) is making an important contribution to risk management. As the first region mapped, North Rhine-Westphalia marks the beginning of the BKG project planned to be expanded to other federal states.”

Professor Paul Becker, President, Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG), Germany

Heavy rain hazard information maps are minimising the risk of human loss and preventing damage in Germany.

The aim of the project being delivered by the Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) is to create a standardised, public, freely accessible, and easy-to-use heavy rainfall hazard information map. By integrating geospatial data such as a digital terrain model, meteorological data provided by the German National Meteorological Service (DWD) and land use data, heavy rain hazard simulations are produced for two scenarios.

The first is a rare event that is not expected to take place more than once every hundred years is based on DWD regionalised long-term meteorological data, the second is an extreme scenario assuming a rainfall intensity of 90 mm/h. The map shows the hydro numerically computed water levels and flow velocities for each of scenarios.

Benefits

• Informs the population, public decision-makers and emergency services about potential flooded areas in case of a heavy rain event.
• Provides important information for future construction projects and supports a building policy adapted to climate change.
• Enables precise planning of preventive measures by showing where infrastructure is most vulnerable using a spatial grid resolution of 1 metre.
• Establishes the first nationwide basis for heavy rain hazard maps.
• Supplies municipalities with
  a basis for heavy rainfall risk management and can serve as a reference dataset for municipal mapping.
• Provides a freely accessible and easy-to-use heavy rainfall hazard information map on a central platform.
• Promotes cross-sectoral cooperation and exchange of expertise across public agencies.

Implementation of ‘Ground Movement Cadastres’ in Germany – a significant contribution for (post) mining monitoring

“In Germany, hard coal mining was terminated in the last decade. To achieve EU and national climate goals, open-cast lignite mining will be terminated during this decade. Accompanying this process, the Surveying and Mapping Authorities monitor vertical height changes. Integrated approaches combining levelling and radar interferometry significantly improve this task.”

Jens Riecken, Chair of Working Group Spatial Reference of the Working Committee of the Surveying Authorities of the Laender of the Federal Republic of Germany (AdV)

Radar data provided free-of-charge from the Copernicus programme’s Sentinel-1A and 1B satellites is key to post-mining monitoring in Germany.

This open data policy motivated several surveying and mapping authorities to use radar observation to establish ‘Ground Movement Cadastres’. This official product uses terrestrial levelling data for calibration and validation for a multi-level quality assurance process and takes into account data protection standards.

Thus, radar interferometry becomes a new observation technique in the field of geodetic reference, enabling cost-effective and precise completion of legal tasks.

Benefits

• Provides very good alignment of levelling and radar interferometry with regards to vertical ground movements and simultaneously significant data compression. 
• Enables detection of new uplift areas outside the levelling lines, and confirmation of stable areas.
• Provides a complete process chain based on official reference data, reliability through multiple determinations (calibration and validation).
• Delivers an official product of the surveying and mapping administration with free access for everybody, taking into account data protection standards.
• Enables a more economical execution of legal tasks using remote sensing, high social and environmental importance and perception.

Multifunctional interactive map provides widespread access geospatial data in Georgia

“Maps.gov.ge allows citizens and professionals to use it for different purposes: To find property, address, cadastral data, title, orthophoto plans, topographic maps, Points of Interest, and other data. It facilitates easy access and promotes using geospatial data for better decision making.”

Oleg Tortladze, Chairman, National Agency of Public Registry
 
Geospatial data in Georgia is now easily and widely accessible thanks to a new multifunctional interactive map released by the National Agency of Public Registry (NAPR) under the Ministry of Justice.

Available at https://maps.gov.ge, it provides geospatial information produced by NAPR and other authorities and is compatible with tablet and mobile devices.

The map was developed in-house by NAPR’s IT team in close cooperation with the Geodesy and Geoinformation Department. The initial source was maps.napr.gov.ge, which was developed 15 years ago by NAPR, with the current portal – www.maps.gov.ge – having been significantly improved over time in terms of speed, functionality, and content.

Development of the mobile application of the maps started in December 2021 with the support of the Norwegian project ‘Maps for Sustainable Development in Georgia’. Refinement and enrichment of the data is ongoing with the aim of providing truly national coverage and making as much geospatial information of Georgia as possible widely available for everyone.

Currently, the map includes cadastral data, addresses, orthophotos and other core geospatial data. The next step will see the digital base maps developed within the Norwegian Project Maps for Sustainable Development in Georgia.

Currently, data is provided in Georgian, however in the near future, the map will be also fully available in English.

Benefits

• Provides high-quality, authoritative data users.
• Meets the demands of different groups, including ordinary and professional users.
• Provides easy access to authoritative geospatial data for government institutions, private sector, and citizens.
• Facilitates searches by location to find cadastral data along with immovable property title and use other geospatial data.
• Encourages development of innovation services and helps businesses and other users to better leverage existing resources and make more informed decisions.

Data APIs are key to location-based knowledge in Finland

“Questions of ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’ cannot be answered in different ecosystem’s digital services without the use of geospatial data, positioning, and geospatial technologies. Geospatial and positioning data are the base of location-based knowledge which feed different technologies merged into the ecosystem’s digital services. Rapid climate change and the challenge to save the diversity of nature requires changes to the geospatial knowledge infrastructure. In the future, we must answer the question “what is going to happen, when, where, how and why”?”

Arvo Kokkonen, Director General, National Land Survey of Finland
 
By embracing data Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Finland is delivering fast, effective and interoperable ways for using geospatial data in different geospatial technologies and methods.

Since implementation started in 2004, the National Land Survey of Finland (NLS) has delivered 39 different Data API-services through 33 development projects. There are three categories – Public Data APIs, Companion Data APIs, and Internal Data APIs – that comprise:

• 22 Data API-services, including 123 products for geospatial data which are mostly Open Data Services.
• 17 Data API-services including 174 products for Land Register and Cadastral Data, which are chargeable except for the cadastral index map.

In 2020, the most popular Geospatial Data API, Raster Map Data API-service (WMTS), transmitted 17 billion raster map tiles (256x256 raster map tile pieces) to customer map service applications (535 raster map tiles/seconds 365/24/7/24).

Benefits

• Enables customers to directly access the most updated data in their own production applications and information services and create new customer experiences, products, services, and business models.
• Removes need for customers to store huge amounts of geospatial data into their own datastores, when data expires regularly.
• Fits perfectly into all kinds of services in mobile devices.
• Provides an effective and economic way to share geospatial data 24/7.
• Forms an important part of an organisation's data architecture when the same Geospatial Data APIs, which are implemented for customers, are also used in the organisation's internal production applications and information services.
• Provides solution that is supplier and technology independent.
• Increases speed and efficiency and enables interoperability, in implementing digital service chains with other ecosystem actors.
• Supports technical interoperability through OGC-standards.

Delivering 3D open data for Estonia

“It is essential that we keep searching for ways to model our world in the best and most intuitive way. Since we live in three-dimensional world, the possibility to see and use digital 3D models for every building in our country as open data will mark a great leap forward.”

Tambet Tiits, Director General, Estonian Land Board
 
The delivery of 3D open data is bringing a new perspective to geospatial information provided by the Estonian Land Board.

In accordance with the Land Board’s mission to provide open geospatial data for society, the first 3D dataset covering the whole country has been produced using LOD2 models of buildings.

3D shapes for buildings were produced fully automatically by combining aerial laser scanning point cloud and footprints from topographic database. The geometry was later refined and enriched with attributes, such as building height and type, and links to key state registries, including the topographic database, address register, land cadastre and register of buildings, in the post-processing phase.

The use and value of the new datasets is demonstrated via a prototype 3D application. More research is planned to create a new presentation and services platform for the seamless integration of 2D and 3D data. This continuing research and development project aims to produce additional 3D datasets in the coming years to form a solid basis for creating realistic digital twins.

Benefits

• Available as open data to everyone.
• Enables more people to benefit from geodata by moving from traditional 2D maps to intuitive 3D apps.
• Improves public sector decision-making by providing better data.
• delivers cost savings for using mass-produced 3D data. For example, new 3D models of buildings are already actively used in planning and construction sectors.
• Provides a solid foundation for the production of more 3D datasets which will create even more opportunities for users in the public and private sectors.

New portal provides data foundation for water management and climate adaptation in Denmark

“As providers of geospatial information, we support climate initiatives directly with data infrastructures and tools. In Denmark, we expect to see more flooding with excessive rain and high groundwater levels in the future. By providing better tools to assess where and how to act, the new data portal – HIPdata.dk – will support those who work professionally with water management.”

Kristian Møller, Director General, Agency for Data Supply and Efficiency (SDFE)
 
A new Danish portal anchored in the Agency for Data Supply and Efficiency (SDFE) is providing a data foundation for climate adaptation by enabling access to information and knowledge about water.

Created in a collaboration between the state, municipalities and regions under the Joint Public Digitalisation Strategy's initiative on Terrain, Climate and Water, the Hydrological Information and Prognosis System (HIP) is a common public geographical infrastructure based on open data services for the compilation and distribution of national, up to date terrain, climate and water data.

It creates coherence between existing data and model predictions of hydrological conditions to support public
and private sector companies dealing with the increased water masses due to changing climatic conditions. The initiative is based on the Basic Data Program's principles for data sharing with on-going adjustments and improvements based on input from users.

The HIPdata.dk portal provides access to a large number of data and model simulations of relevance for water management, including nationwide advanced model calculations of terrestrial groundwater in a 100 metre grid. With machine learning, views have even been developed to the 10 metre grid for historical calculations. Projections have also been made up to the year 2100 and indicate where there may be challenges with high groundwater in the future.

Benefits

• Supports municipal planners, utilities and private companies with better access to near surface hydrological data.
• Provides information to manage flood risks from numerous sources (coast, torrential rain, streams and groundwater).
• Enables climate-robust risk assessment to avoid soil pollution spreading to groundwater and other sensitive water bodies. Maps showing the depth of shallow groundwater are also used to give correct permits for raw material extraction and groundwater lowering, providing knowledge on the local groundwater table.
• Provides information for infrastructure planning and protection of railways and roads against flooding, as well as for the preparation of flood/emergency maps.
• Streamlines existing production and management of water and supports the innovation of data-driven products and services.
• Ensures efficient public use of data, better accessibility and coordinated open and common data infrastructure, enabling authorities, business and citizens to streamline their work with water management and coordinate efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
• Supports economic growth and provides the foundation for a good decision-making for climate adaptation and infrastructure investments.