Geospatial Information Standards
What is Geospatial Information?
Any information that defines, or is associated with, a specific location relative to the Earth is geospatial information . Common examples of geospatial information include maps and charts.
Contemporary geospatial information within government is frequently encountered in digital form, such as satellite imagery or aerial photography, locations referenced by property address, or positioning devices such as GPS.
Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) participates in the development of open geospatial data standards. LINZ coordinate and support the New Zealand geospatial information standards that provide government with consistent models, to improve interoperability of geospatial data.
Why is Geospatial Information important?
As geospatial information is costly to collect and to maintain, it makes sense that agencies share the information they have collected. For this to take place, a common reference system must be applied. It is important that the same geographic reference may be converted for any system. Open geospatial standards and specifications are critical if the information is to be readily accessible and interoperable throughout government. Having a consistent model for presenting this data is central to making geospatial information available and useful.
What are the international standards related to this?
The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has defined a suite of geographic information standards (ISO TC 211).
Engineering specifications originating from the Open Geospatial Consortium also enable consistent software interfaces and programming.
Australia New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC) has adapted the ISO standards for metadata to describe geospatial information.
The New Zealand national standard for geospatial metadata is AS/SNZ ISO 19115:2005. More information on infrastructure standards developed by ANZLIC are available at their web site.
How does it apply to New Zealand Government?
Today, geospatial information is far advanced from the relative restraints and limitations of traditional maps. Digital geospatial information is now applied throughout government. More sophisticated and useful than a traditional map, digital geospatial information includes location and spatial relativity. This enables more flexible query and presentation capability in geographic information systems. Digital maps and visualisation query tools add a critical dimension to understanding a problem, defining options, and improved decision-making.
Typical government applications requiring geospatial information include:
- property administration & regulation
- planning and zoning
- economic development
- emergency services & civil defence
- law enforcement, such as incident reporting
- environmental monitoring
- national security, intelligence & border control
- utilities and asset management
- administration and demographics
- health geomatics
What resources are available?
New Zealand has recently revised and published its geospatial reference system, called the New Zealand Geodetic 2000. This is published and managed by Land Information New Zealand.
Several data framework standards have been developed, using international geospatial information and data management standards as a starting point, and incorporating the unique features of the New Zealand geography.
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The New Zealand Government Geospatial Metadata Standard ( NZGMS ) was developed in 2003 to facilitate minimal, consistent cataloguing of the characteristics of official geospatial datasets, so that ultimately these metadata will be able to be used for discovery of these datasets. Note that this standard is specific to Government, providing minimum guidelines for government data custodians.
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The Emergency Services and Government Administration framework ( ESA) Core location Data Specification) was designed in 2001 to unambiguously define all the commonly needed location features, their relationships, and the minimum data characteristics needed to facilitate locating and verifying locations anywhere in New Zealand.
