GIS

Views sought on the implementation of the INSPIRE

The European Commission, Directorate- General Environment, is inviting comments on the implementation of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) Directive (2007/2/EC).

The consultation is being held seven years after the Directive came into force to assess whether actions being taken to establish a spatial information infrastructure are still on course to meet the Directive’s objectives. Views are sought from stakeholders including INSPIRE national contact points, regional and local public authorities who produce or use spatial data and services, the academic sector, the private sector and European citizens.

The questionnaire covers issues such as user or producer experiences of spatial data and services; the use of EU, national and regional geo-portals as gateways to spatial data and services; co-ordination efforts by the EU and national governments to implement INSPIRE; and evaluation of its costefficiency. Other questions relate to the major challenges, benefits and drawbacks of INSPIRE and its positive or negative effects on environmental and other policies such as eGovernment.

3D National Topographic Model for Singapore

In an attempt to make exchange and utilization of topographic information among agencies easier, the Singapore Land Authority is heading a governmentbacked program to build up a 3D national topographic model! The initiative will include data acquisition both on ground and in the air. The SLA is trying to create a more efficient 3D topographic database that will allow better maintenance to keep all 3D data updated all the time.

The model will be highly helpful in meeting needs such as flight path planning, flood risk modeling and environment and coastal protection! A key dataset produced from this project will be the National Digital Elevation Model (DEM). Already, SLA has received many requests from Agencies on this for their planning, operational and developmental needs

ERC funds IIASA crowdsourcing project

The European Research Council has awarded a highly competitive Consolidator Grant to Steffen Fritz, leader and creator of IIASA’s citizen science project, Geo-Wiki. The €1.4 million grant will build upon work conducted as part of IIASA’s Geo-Wiki project, an interactive online project which involves citizen scientists in global land cover research. It will take the team’s research from the computer to the real world, building a global network of citizen scientists to provide on-theground data such as photographs and land-cover and land-use classifications.

Previous work by the Geo-Wiki team has produced improved cropland maps based on crowdsourced data from volunteers who classify land cover data from high-resolution satellite imagery. Previous research from the team shows that in fact, non-experts can be just as good as experts in performing some of these tasks, such as recognizing human impact on a landscape. www.iiasa.ac.at

Donation for prevention of violent, road-traffic injuries

The Jamaica National Building Society Foundation has boosted the progress of the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) Data Mapping Project in the sum of $6.8 million.

The project, which is in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, the Violence Prevention Alliance and Mona GeoInformatics, will, among other things, seek to chart and analyse the burden of violence and motor vehiclerelated injuries on hospital services across the island, with emphasis on the UHWI. http://jamaica-gleaner.com

CIO and Amity Univ MoU

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between Central Informatics Organisation (CIO) from the Kingdom of Bahrain and Amity University from India. The MoU will encompass many promising benefits which will reflect positively on the CIO in particular and the Kingdom in general. The MoU also comprehends the CIO as a distinguished partner in the region and supporting many of the organisational programmes especially training programmes, building technical capacity and other benefits. The MoU also demonstrates the influence of the Kingdom of Bahrain represented by the CIO in the GIS field which complimented many regional and international organizations desire to cooperate with the organisation.

Japanese public and private sectors to help set up geographical database

A central government ministry in Japan is preparing to compile a hodgepodge database of infrastructure locations, flows of people and other geographical information for improved disaster management measures, such as where to send disaster victims and how to transport relief supplies. The database, to be set up by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, will be compiled from information provided by local governments and private-sector companies. The ministry also plans to make the database available to the public to encourage the development of new business ventures. The ministry, which allocated 1.4 billion yen in the fiscal 2014 draft budget to help build the system, plans to start operating it fully in 2016. http://ajw.asahi.com

Marine Mapping Program in Ireland

Ireland’s Minister for Natural Resources, Fergus O’Dowd, has set out details of upcoming projects in the National Marine Mapping Programme (INFOMAR), and pledged Government commitment of €15m ($21m) for the next five years, for the continuation of what he called “the most valuable resource for marine research and development in Ireland and beyond”. Covering some 125,000 square kilometers of underwater territory, the INFOMAR project is producing new mapping and integrated products covering the Irish maritime space. It provides seabed surveys, which are used in all activities from planning for offshore renewable energy projects to ensuring shipping lanes are safely charted. www.maritime-executive.com

KCSC in Spatial Information Market Vietnam

The Korea Cadastral Survey Corporation (KCSC) will export its spatial information technology to Vietnam. It will establish a comprehensive land information management system. The US$3.5 million project is a part of the official development aid of the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) in Vietnam, and is scheduled to be completed in 2015. The corporation is going to move ahead with the project on a public-private cooperation basis in conjunction with the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements and some small to mid-sized enterprises. www.businesskorea.co.kr

SuperGIS Desktop 3.2

Supergeo Technologies has announced the release of SuperGIS Desktop 3.2, the newest desktop GIS software. It integrates abundant GIS tools, helping GIS users from various domains develop a professional platform to effectively geoprocess and analyze, display, edit, manage, and query spatial data. www.supergeotek.com

SGI conducts survey at Indo-Myanmar border

To settle the existing border dispute at the Manipur sector of the Indo-Myanmar border, Surveyor General of India (SGI) conducted a survey. An official team of the SGI currently camping at Moreh, the border town of Manipur at the border with Myanmar has been conducting the survey. The team is conducting the inspection with the help of satellite imagery. www.nagalandpost.com