New report identifies key components of authoritative geospatial data

Authoritative geospatial data is one of the basic building blocks for digital transformation and can be defined by seven characteristics that foster its trust across borders and between users, says a new report.

Researchers and practitioners in national mapping, cadastres and land registries (NMCAs) asked EuroGeographics, EuroSDR and KU Leuven what they believe makes their geospatial data authoritative. By identifying common characteristics, the aim was to gain a better and more comprehensive understanding of the definition, nature, governance and future of authoritative data and the links to spatial data quality in Europe. The research found that agreed rules of creation and use, a legal aspect, accountability, quality management, certification, traceability, and maintenance, were all recurring themes. 

Report co-author Mick Cory, Secretary General and Executive Director of EuroGeographics which represents European NMCAs said: “Our members are recognised as the official sources of national geospatial information and whilst their data is routinely described as authoritative, it was not fully clear how the term is applied and interpreted across Europe.”

"Official, authoritative data is important because it supports a range of legal, fiscal, security and other public administrative purposes​. For example, cadastral authorities and land registries fulfil an essential role providing official, detailed, secure and reliable information on property rights and registration.”

“In many countries, the process is enshrined in law with a public body given authority for the cadastral task. This makes the data authoritative according to our research which defines it as: Data that is provided by a public body (or authority) which has an official mandate to provide it, that is based on a set of criteria to ensure known quality, and that is required to be used and reused by the public sector and society as a whole.”

Mr Cory continued: “The importance of authoritative data has long been recognised at a national level and is increasingly recognised internationally, in particular in addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Other sources can supplement, but not replace, official data of known quality and reliability​.”

Co-author, Joep Crompvoets, KU Leuven and Secretary General of EuroSDR, which is the European Spatial Data Research network linking NMCAs with Research Institutes and Universities in Europe, added: “NMCAs told us that they valued being able to label their information as authoritative, not only because users give it greater credit but also because it helps secure government investment to ensure it is updated, supported and used by public services. They also underlined that there is a need for organisations within the public sector to take up a central role in the governance of authoritative data.”

“Our results demonstrate that there is a need for a systematic and harmonised approach towards authoritative data and that more effort should be put in making it available and recognisable by other public organisations as well as private actors.”

The full report is available here.

EuroGeographics is an international not-for-profit organisation (AISBL/ IVZW under Belgian Law. BCE registration:  833 607 112) and the membership association for the European National Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registry Authorities. It currently brings together members from 46 countries, covering the whole of geographical Europe.

EuroSDR is a not-for-profit organisation linking National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies with Research Institutes and Universities in Europe for the purpose of applied research in spatial data provision, management and delivery.
Find out more about EuroSDR.

Colin Bray re-elected President of EuroGeographics

Colin Bray, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Survey Officer, Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) has been re-elected President of EuroGeographics.

Mr Bray was re-elected by the Heads of Europe’s National Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registry Authorities at their membership association’s 2019 General Assembly.

Members also voted Sanja Zekušić from the State Geodetic Administration, Croatia and re-elected Amalia Velasco Martín-Varés, Spanish Directorate General for Cadastre to EuroGeographics Management Board. As a result it now comprises:

• President Colin Bray, Ordnance Survey Ireland
• Vice President Kristian Møller, Danish Agency for Data Supply and Efficiency
• Treasurer David Henderson, Ordnance Survey, Great Britain
• Andreas Hadjiraftis, Department of Lands and Surveys of Cyprus
• Sylvain Latarget, National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information, France
• Martin Lenk, Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy, Germany
• Martin Salzmann, The Netherlands’ Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency
• Amalia Velasco Martín-Varés, Spanish Directorate General for Cadastre
• Sanja Zekušić, State Geodetic Administration, Croatia

Mr Bray said his focus would continue to be working with the Management Board, members and head office to ensure EuroGeographics can meet the challenges of  a rapidly changing operating environment, thereby achieving its vision of a society empowered by the use of geospatial information from official national sources.

He added: “EuroGeographics and its members have a crucial role in ensuring that Europe has access to authoritative, standards based, intelligence–rich, sustainable pan-European geospatial reference data.”

“As members of EuroGeographics, our strength lies in the ability to cooperate and to share our data, our experience and our knowledge for the wider public good. Collectively we are able to influence more widely, achieve greater visibility and develop more opportunities than we could as individual organisations. Working together we are stronger and achieve more than working apart.”

Leaders and senior representatives from 48 member organisations from 39 countries attended the annual General Assembly hosted by Ordnance Survey Great Britain with support from HM Land Registry and Registers of Scotland.

Delegates were welcomed to Manchester by Steve Blair, Chief Executive Officer, Ordnance Survey and David Henderson, Managing Director of OSGB. The agenda included speakers from DG Connect, European Space Agency, United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management initiative (UN-GGIM), the UK’s Geospatial Commission, Manchester City Council, European Environment Agency, Hexagon Geosystems, Google and the International Cartographic Society.

EuroGeographics announces expanded coverage of pan-European topographic mapping

Data from Ukraine is the latest addition to pan-European multi-themed topographic mapping created using harmonised geospatial information from official sources.

As a result, EuroRegionalMap (ERM 2019), produced by EuroGeographics, the membership association for European National Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authorities, now covers 51 European countries and territories (according to ISO country code). The 1:250 000 scale dataset enables cross-border mapping and analysis and detailed pan-European cartographic visualisation.

Angela Baker, Sales, Marketing and Channel Manager, EuroGeographicscommented: “Our unique production process facilitates access to harmonised geospatial data from official national sources, reflecting EuroGeographics’ position as a collaborative network of members in a unique Association. We believe in a society empowered by the use of thistrusted information and,by working together to deliver pan-European data, members aredemonstrating not only what can be achieved through Europe-wide cooperation but also the benefits for the wider public good.”

“Thirty-six members across Europe have worked together to deliver ERM 2019 which includes updated information for boundaries, transport, population and vegetation, and new data from French overseas territories. In addition, the new release contains calculated INSPIRE-ID for countries with no ID and a number of quality improvements.”

“As part of our annual data update, we havealso harmonised and consolidated metadata and lineage information for both ERM 2019 and our official boundary data, EuroBoundaryMap (EBM 2019).”

EBM 2019 is available at 1:100 000 scale and covers 55 European countries and territories (according to ISO country code and Kosovo). It contains geometry, names and codes of administrative and statistical units, and links to the updated statistical LAU- and NUTS-codes for all local administrative units of the EU Member States.

As well as ERM 2019 and EBM 2019, EuroGeographics offers pan-European open data and a digital elevation model. All data is harmonised to standard specificationsso users can be confident that the information provided is consistent, comparable and easily shared.

Germany’s Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) manages production of EuroBoundaryMap and EuroRegionalMap whilst the National Institute of Geographic and Forest Information (IGN France) supports the production of EuroGlobalMap (EGM 2019) open data.

Secure, reliable information from official national sources essential to modern state

Trusted authoritative sources of spatial information are fundamental requirements of a modern state, says EuroGeographics, the membership Association for European National Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authorities (NMCAs).

The Ninth Session of the United Nations global geospatial information management (UN-GGIM) committee of experts held in New York recently heard how official data from its members underpins secure and reliable land registration, as well as quicker, more effective responses to emergencies.

Mick Cory, Secretary General and Executive Director of the international not-for-profit organisation, welcomed the Framework for Effective Land Administration and in particular its alignment with the Integrated Geospatial Information Framework.

He commented: “According to a recent UN report, around 70 per cent of the global population do not enjoy secure land and property rights. Urgent action is therefore needed to document, record and recognise people’s many different relationships to land and help create a more equitable world.

“More than half of our members focus on property rights and registration. By responding to the changing needs of society with relevant, timely and trusted data, they are making a key contribution to the public good. Indeed, many also work internationally using their expertise to help establish more certain and precise land registration across the world.”

“We support the proposal for global consultation to enable constructive responses to be prepared from all interested stakeholders, including EuroGeographics’ members through our Cadastre and Land Registry Knowledge Exchange Network, avaluable forum for sharing best practice.”

Mr Cory also highlighted the important role of authoritative data sources in planning, responding to and recovering from disasters during discussions on theUN-GGIM Strategic Framework on Geospatial Information and Services for Disasters Assessment Survey. 

He said: “This role needs to be clearly stated, recognised and funded by national governments as part of national implementation plans. Such authoritative data should be supplemented where necessary from other sources, but authoritative, core reference geospatial data sets are a fundamental requirement for risk reduction and management in cases of disaster, and should be a core public task for national mapping bodies.”

“Geospatial information providers should engage with the disaster risk reduction and management community, so that baseline datasets are accessible, usable and interoperable.”

EuroGeographics also reconfirmed its active support for the integrated global geospatial information framework and stressed the importance of developing a common approach to country level action plans to avoid duplication of effort.

Mr Cory encouraged further engagement and collaboration, not only between the key international partners, but other international and national aid agencies active in the geospatial domain and offered to further facilitate access to EuroGeographics members through its extensive programme of activities for sharing expertise and knowledge.

He also noted the potential for using the framework and implementation guide as a means of benchmarking and strengthening more mature national and regional geospatial arrangements, not just for low-middle income and developing states, and encouraged Member States to volunteer to do this to validate such potential.

EuroGeographics and its members look forward to responding to the global consultation on theintegrated global geospatial information framework.

3rd International Workshop on Spatial Data Quality call for papers

Malta is hosting an International workshop on spatial data quality which will see producers, users, academia and software suppliers gather in Valletta on 28 and 29 January 2020.

Abstracts and papers are now invited for the two-day event organised by EuroGeographics and EuroSDR in conjunction with Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) Technical Committee (TC) 211 Geographic Information (ISO TC211), and the International Cartographic Association (ICA).

“Technology is driving the geospatial information industry forward at an ever-growing rate with increasing recognition that quality is of paramount importance,” says Chair of EuroGeographics Quality Knowledge Exchange Network, Jonathan Holmes.

“As well as embracing new capture and quality assurance methods, we must also meet user expectations that data will be readily available, accurate, trustworthy and free. This presents new challenges for National Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authorities who are the official sources of authoritative geospatial information.”

“Traditional methods of checking quality are now regarded as too expensive and the focus has shifted onto ways of ensuring that quality assurance is built into a method or process from the very beginning. In addition, many users know little about how the data is produced so we must find ways to communicate the trust, quality, provenance, and relevance of our content to all potential users – not just those in the professional community.”

“Previous events held in 2015 and 2017 provided valuable and innovative contributions to the ongoing debate on spatial data quality. We hope the 2020 workshop will prove just as successful and help to provide solutions to these issues.”

Papers are invited on all topics related to spatial data quality, including (but not limited to):

 • Quality evaluation of spatial data

• Quality certification and accreditation of spatial data

• Use of international metadata and quality standards

• Quality issues in spatial data infrastructures (e.g. national, INSPIRE)

• Communication/visualization of spatial data quality

• Spatial data usability/quality from the users perspective

• Impact of data quality on decision making

• Spatial data quality vs scales/resolution

• Applications of spatial data quality

• Quality of geospatial services

• Research trends in spatial data quality

• Practical implementation of spatial data quality assessment

• Quality Standards

• Software for measuring quality

• Quality of 3rd party data, crowdsourced/OSM etc.

• Authoritative data

Content must be submitted via this link by 1 October 2019.

Abstracts should be at least two pages long but no more than 3 to 4 pages whilst complete papers should be around 10 to 12 pages.

 All submissions will be independently reviewed by the programme committee members who will notify authors of their decision by 29 November 2019.

More information is available online here.

Programme Committee:

• Jonathan Holmes (Chair EuroGeographics – Quality KEN)

• Carol Agius (EuroGeographics)

• Tamás Palya (EuroGeographics Quality KEN)

• Karin Mertens (EuroGeographics Quality KEN)

• Antti Jakobsson (Maanmittauslaitos Finland)

• Bart De Lathouwer (OGC)

• Ray Patrucco (OS Great Britain)

• Joep Crompvoets (EuroSDR)

• Agneta Engberg (ISO TC211)

• Serena Coetzee (ICA)

• Franz-Josef Behr (ICA)