GIS

Amendment in surveying, mapping law in China

The top legislature is considering amending the Surveying and Mapping Law to improve the management and sharing of China’s geological data, according to a statement. The amended draft was submitted to legislators for its first reading at the bimonthly session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee.

The law was formulated in 1992 and amended for the first time ten years later.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Land and Resources, the current rules on surveying and mapping are out of date, as technological advances have changed the way in which people interact with and access data.

Problems have arisen as a result of this new situation, including insufficient application and sharing of surveying and mapping results, as well as security risks due to satellite navigation and positioning reference stations, which make the need to amend the law all the more pressing, according to the statement.

According to the revised draft, the source and destination of geological information must be better managed, adding that measures should be taken to better integrate the various sources of geological data and improve the way in which it is shared and used. www.shanghaidaily.com

Ordnance Survey creates new data layer of hedges

373, 919km of England’s farmland hedges have been accurately mapped to create a new digital dataset, OS Landscape Features Layer, which will be used by the Rural Payments Agency (RPA). The new dataset will play an important role in the Rural Payments Agency’s administration of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP)

The CAP Regulations require effective administrative controls to be established, and for hedges declared as Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) Ecological Focus Areas
(EFAs), this means creating a control layer of mapped hedges against which subsidy claims can be checked. The aim of the project was to automate the identification and mapping of hedges in a repeatable business process using imagery and height data products, and producing consistent results that are far more effective than costly manual data capture.

The new system enables hedges to be identified and classified from high resolution aerial imagery and height information where OS digital mapping already shows field boundaries. The new technology is now fully embedded into the Ordnance Survey process with seamless updates being made on a daily basis. www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk

UN Member States participate in 3rd Plenary of UN-GGIM: Europe

More than 100 delegates representing 31 countries gathered in Budapest, Hungary recently for the 3rd Plenary of UN-GGIM: Europe. In addition, Member States approved the 2017 to 2020 work plan and requests for observer status from the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association (GSDI) and specialist IT consultancy, ConsultingWhere. Delegates also approved the appointment of Janusz Dygaszewicz from the Central Statistical Office, Poland to the UNGGIM: Europe Executive Committee.

Chair of UN-GGIM: Europe Executive Committee, Bengt Kjellson from Sweden said: “Our aim is to build on existing frameworks in Europe by avoiding duplication of effort and encouraging data interoperability, harmonisation and sharing to optimise the overall management of geospatial information. http://un-ggim-europe.org

EuroGeographics and Kadaster renew agreement

EuroGeographics has renewed its Service Level Agreement with The Netherlands’ Cadastre, Land Registry and Mapping Agency (Kadaster) to provide secretariat services for UN-GGIM: Europe. In addition to ensuring that relevant organisations in the European UN Member States and European Institutions are well informed about its activities, EuroGeographics also organises the annual plenary as well as Executive Committee and Working Group Meetings. www.un-ggim-europe.org

Supergeo partnership with GPS Lands Indonesia

Supergeo Technologies Inc has announced the partnership with PT. GPS Lands Indosolutions in Indonesia. Being an authorized distributor of Trimble for years, GPS Lands Indosolutions has rich experiences in serving, training, and supporting customers to accomplish various surveying works. http://www.supergeotek.com

East View launches MapVault

East View Geospatial (EVG) has launched MapVault™, a web-based subscription service providing access to a global collection of raster mapping. The scope of the collection that EVG offers is a first for the field of mapping. Subscribers to MapVault gain immediate access to hundreds of maps from global scale series, ranging from aeronautical charts produced by the US Government to locally-produced topographic maps covering specific countries around the world, such as Colombia, Botswana, Syria and Russia. www.eastview.com

Siemens and Bentley Systems advance strategic alliance

Siemens and Bentley Systems have announced that they have formalized a strategic alliance agreement to drive new business value by accelerating digitalization to advance infrastructure project delivery and asset performance in complementary business areas. Siemens and Bentley Systems will initially invest at least Euro 50 million in developing joint solutions to enlarge their respective offerings for infrastructure and industry to the benefit of the end-customers. This work will uniquely leverage new cloud services for a connected data environment to converge respective digital engineering models from both companies. www.bentley.com

dpSpatial 7.8 by Digpro

Digpro, the major innovator in the field of Geographic IT, has launched its latest version of dpSpatial. Version 7.8 contains about 80 general improvements in the base platform. With its base platform dpSpatial, Digpro reaches longer than similar platforms when it comes to fl exibility, integration and transparency in the public sector, both in traditional map production and new service-based methods for data exchange. www.digpro.com

Police to combat crime using GIS

The Fiji Police Force recently launched their GIS tool which would allow Police to store and analyse critical crime data and would assist them in putting in place targeted strategies to combat crime. The GIS Project would assist Police in instant crime analysis, development techniques, active enforcement, monitoring the emerging pattern and accountability programme for the managers. The project will be piloted first at the Samabula Police Station and later implemented at other Police Station Divisions around the country. http://fijisun.com.fj

No local mapping data in South Korea

South Korea has refused to use local mapping data offered by Google and held security reasons responsible for such decision. The refusal came following the Alphabet Inc.’s unit’s request to the nation to utilise its global maps service.

Google is known for handling its map services at centers outside South Korea and it wanted the nation to share its data with it. The verdict of refusal has, therefore, imposed restrictions on the use of the map services by people living in the nation. The nation’s government said that it would permit Google to use its mapping data if it would promise not to disclose information about the military facilities across the nation via its satellite maps. It requested the company to blur those parts for security reasons if they really desired South Korea to use the mapping services. www.gamenguide.com

India moots registry to vet geospatial data

The government is developing a national data registry that will require all agencies— state, private and academic — that collect and store geospatial data to share it with the registry. The registry will also serve as a source of “authenticated” information — meaning officials at the Survey of India would vet it for accuracy and see whether it contains information that contravenes national security.

Officials of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), the nodal coordinating agency, said the purpose of such a registry was to create a “catalogue” that would “prevent duplication” of data sets and help users locate the right agencies to source information. The registry will be a ‘meta-data’ repository: it will not actually be a source of geospatial data but will only inform about the nature of the data a service provider has. Thus, everyone from restaurant-locationservice providers to hospital-location aggregators will have to comply with the directive, and the government may bring in legislation. The DST is soliciting vendors capable of developing such a database. http://www.thehindu.com

BRICS States agreed to Create Joint System of earth remote sensing

BRICS states agreed to create a joint satellite constellation for Earth remote sensing, Director General of the Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos Igor Komarov said. Roscosmos said that representatives of the space agencies of BRICS member states discussed elaborating a document on sharing data obtained by the orbital groups of Earth remote sensing satellites and signed a memorandum on cooperation in space exploration for peaceful purposes at the meeting in the Chinese city of Zhuhai. https://sputniknews.com