The Copernicus Masters innovation competition (previously known as GMES Masters) was initiated 2011 by the European Space Agency (ESA), the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), and T-Systems with endorsement of the European Commission. It is also supported by European Space Imaging GmbH and Astrium Services. In 2013, the BMW Group Research and Technology and GEO magazine have joined the competition as new supporting partners. The Copernicus Masters invites researchers, developers, entrepreneurs, and students to submit ideas for innovative, market-oriented applications based on the use of GMES based Earth observation data between 1 June and 15 September 2013.

All information is also available at the competition website www.copernicus-masters.com.

Founded in 2004, OSM has grown from a local project to a wirldwide map with widespread use and high quality data. In preparation for the annual State of the Map conference in Birmingham in September, the guys at MapBox have produced a really brilliant report on the progress that has been made with OSM since 2004.

If you have a few minutes it’s well worth checking this out: OpenStreetMap Data Report 2013

IMGS Projects & Software

Dublin City Council CRM

Our role
We developed Location Publisher CRM to allow public users to report issues/incidents and pin point the location on a Location Publisher based map. The system then sends the report directly to the back office, which then deploys the correct units/people to the correct location. The system will allow the internal CRM users within Dublin City Council to pin point the location of the report on a map when taking a call. The solution will also allow Dublin City Council to generate reports for future planning and allocation of resources.

Software

• IMGS Location Publisher CRM
• Spatial Report Generation
• Oracle

Waterford City Council – Incident Capture

Our role

IMGS’ Location Publisher Mobile was configured and deployed to capture incidents (such as graffiti) via mobile devices (iPhone, Android, Tablet device etc.) We also assisted in the creation of the mobile forms that accompany Location Publisher Mobile.

Software

• IMGS Location Publisher Mobile
• Intergraph GeoMedia database

Waterford County Council – Location Publisher

Our role
Location Publisher provides an easy to use portal for citizens to view local authority information including the location and status of planning applications. The process is simple; planning proposals are entered into the Waterford County Council planning system, FME scripts, checks the system on a daily basis for planning information updates. FME then extracts, transforms and uploads this planning information to Location Publisher, which can then be viewed online by citizens.

Software

• IMGS Location Publisher
• FME

For more information on IMGS, please visit http://www.imgs.ie/ or contact Amanda Donegan adonegan@imgs.ie

The Irish Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government, Mr. Phil Hogan, gave the opening address. In his very informative speech he briefly outlined the role of Geographic Information (GI) in many different departments of the Irish government. He detailed the vital role it will play in the future implementation of water charges in Ireland, along with the many existing roles it already plays in various sections. The minister stated that the “GI aspect is business critical”.  He focussed on the fact that there is a growing need to be more cost effective in this current economic climate, and that “GI has been seen as an area for assisting in saving money”. Bruce McCormack, the EUROGI President, agreed with the Minister with regard to the role of GI in light of the financial crisis, saying that “in every crisis there is an opportunity”.

Professor Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency, talked about a ‘synergy around the world’ in which there is a renaissance of thinking and people are beginning to realise that “GIS is so fundamental”. She discussed the fact that it is now much easier to bring datasets together, which is vitally important, as, for example, approximately 70% of all water in Europe is transboundary. The importance of the quality of INSPIRE compliant data was another topic which she addressed in detail and was one which struck a cord with many attendees.

“We can unleash tremendous value if we change our thinking”, were the words of Dean Angelides (ESRI) in his talk addressing the role of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) for creating business benefits. He described GIS as a platform for changing the world and asked “when do we break out and take the next step?” The audience were questioned about how GIS can be integrated with new technologies and were also reminded that there are literally thousands of companies and organisations that could be using GIS but currently do not.

A number of interesting parallel sessions took place, in which Irish and European case studies, open data and the EU location framework were discussed by various speakers. In a talk entitled ‘Common GIS for the nature conservation in the GiantMountains (Karkonosze)’, issues which arose as a result of integrating spatial datasets from the CzechRepublic and Poland were discussed. This was of particular interest to Irish attendees as they have very often found themselves in a similar position, when integrating datasets acquired from the Republic and Northern   Ireland. Fredrik Davidsson from Sweden presented a fascinating account of how Geo-mapping was used to identify caries risk in children and adolescents. The Swedish government didn’t have a good decision support system prior to the project. However, now they can use the maps produced to allocate tax money according to the risk level. This project is a good example of how GIS can be used to visualise huge amounts of data and help experts make more informed decisions.

Many intriguing discussions took place around the EU location framework and although it is in its early days yet, it promises to but location in a better place.  Nick Illsley, who worked as a railway man for years, discussed the importance of location in public services. Illsley said that when the first railway from Manchester to Liverpool was laid down in the 1800’s there was suddenly a need for a national definition of time. The railway managed to bring location, time and people all together. Fast forward a couple of hundred years and a National Journey planner was required to assist people in moving from one part of the country to another. The many challenges that were faced in creating the planner were addressed in this presentation. In total the journey planner for the UK contains 30 million points of origin and the need for good data standards and protocol were discussed.

In the Irish case studies stream, Karen Whooley gave a fantastic account of ‘Scoilnet Maps’. She played a video in which primary school children were interacting with Scoilnet Maps through a digital white board. The short clip effectively communicated the message that Scoilnet maps plays a vital role in bringing geography to life in Irish Schools.

The Down Survey of Ireland, which took place from 1656 to 1658, was the most thorough survey of Ireland at that time, and very few copies of the original maps exist. Seamus Lawless, of TrinityCollege, presented the attendees with a glimpse into the method used to collect and make digital copies of these maps. The mid 1600’s was a transformative period in Irish history and the map below (Figure 2) shows the distribution of landholdings by religion, as derived from the Down Survey Maps

The difference between datasets from varying sources was discussed by Rob Ovington in his talk on the ‘Myplan’ project. Challenges were encountered in trying to integrate datasets from different local authorities, as each one has its own method of collecting and presenting data. Indeed interoperability was a recurring theme in the conference and one which INSPRIE will address in the future.

A stimulating panel discussion took place in the afternoon of day one, around the theme of identifying tasks needed to exploit existing GI.  One of the main consensuses was that we need to continue with open data policy. Saha Ulgen, of the UN SDI, informed the audience that the UN GI working group had met recently and held discussions around the theme ‘free the data’. Geraldine McBride, also spoke about this saying it is critical to make things open, as it drives business opportunities.

Prof. Mauro Salvemini opened the conference on day two and welcomed everyone. Prof. Mike Goodchild then gave an absolutely fantastic lecture on emerging trends and their implications for governance.  It is true to say that citizen GIS has been on the minds of all GIS professionals for some time now. As development and access to geospatial technologies is constantly on the rise, so too is VGI -Volunteer Geographic Information. Goodchild however, presented us with a number of things that the general public will never be able to map, such as the cadastre and soil maps. Politics and maps were also discussed, with Goodchild showing us two different results for a map displaying the administrative boundary of a country, depending on which country the online search is conducted in. He highlighted the fact that science is a social construction, not the truth, and mentioned that Brian Harvey produced a fantastic book on this matter in 2001 entitled ‘The New Nature of Maps’. Place vs. Space was also looked at in detail, with Goodchild distinguishing place as being a name but space as being exact co-ordinates. Very interestingly the possibility of a ‘Place-Based’ GIS was mentioned.

The former president of SAP, Geraldine McBride, spoke about the business side of location services. She feels that all businesses are currently at an inflection point, things are moving in a new direction and what we are seeing is the emergence of an ‘experience economy’. She emphasised the importance of creating a personal experience for consumers and also highlighted that social networking sites, such as Facebook, are key in influencing consumer decisions.

The theme of change was continued in the next speech by Ed Parsons, of Google, in his talk ‘The location based tidal wave’. GI is vital to many different areas and in fact a large number of companies couldn’t exist without it, for example ZIPCAR.  Parsons posed the question: What is the economic impact of geo-services?  A study has found that geo-services are valued at €200 Billion and saves €17 Billion is time and fuel every year. Along with that 152 lives are saved per year due to GI. Parsons also agreed with McBride and said that it is so important to provide very personal services to users, and predicted that in the next generation mobile phones will be like personal assistants. He also discussed the ‘Internet of Things (IoT)’ and how, in the future, many household objects will actually be connected to the internet and have an I.P address. The president of the OGC – Mark Reichardt discussed emerging trends, particularly in relation to standards and said that standards will have to be developed for the Internet of Things.

Another set of parallel sessions on day two provided attendees with a fantastic choice of presentations, around the themes of technology, open data, crowd sourcing and mobile linked data. Gamma’s Richard Cantwell discussed the shift from map to digital in his talk ‘Reset the default – How open data is changing the GI landscape’. Various sources of geo-data were examined. Things such as military maps and administrative boundaries were identified as being things which will never be mapped by citizens. Ronan Farrell discussed the ‘dublinked’ project. It is a co-operation between four local authorities and acts as an information point. Again, the recurring theme of data quality was discussed in his presentation.

Two very interesting panel discussions took place in the afternoon.Emerging opportunities and actions needed were the topics addressed. Goodchild pointed out that it can be very hard to predict future trends, stating that, for example, his book in 1991 failed to mention the internet once. McBride suggested that we are at a tipping point and augmented reality is becoming more and more popular, which in turn raises the question of cyber security. Old business models are being broken down and new ones are being created, she said. Parsons feels that future trends will see sensors doing most of the talking on the internet. There are now more mobile phones than landlines, and the development of more apps will continue to take place. After all panel sessions a questions and answers session took place between the audience and the speakers, and many different and interesting viewpoints were expressed by audience members who represented all kinds of companies and organisations.

In conclusion, the conference was a very informative and enjoyable one in which many current topics such as INSPIRE, open data, future trends, citizen GIS, data quality and the EU Location framework, among many others, were discussed and debated in great detail.

The ISDI Metadata Profile is designed to encourage the sharing of spatial data in the Irish public sector and the wider Geographic information community to a common open standard. The ISDI Metadata also facilitates the authoring of INSPIRE compliant descriptive metadata for the following types of spatial data resources:  Spatial datasets, Spatial Dataset  Series and Spatial Data Services.  The Version 1.2 release includes an XML Encoding Guidance document to ensure consistent implementations of the ISO 19139 standard And INSPIRE Metadata Implementing Rules across Irish public sector spatial metadata catalogues.

The ISDI Metadata Profile version 1.2 is currently being deployed through existing Irish Public sector spatial data sharing initiatives such as The Irish Spatial Data Exchange (ISDE) and the upcoming OSI INSPIRE Geoportal IE web portal (launching in June).    If you have any queries on the ISDI Metadata Profile or would like to implement an ISDI metadata catalogue for your organisation please contact the ISDI Metadata Working Group at inspire@environ.ie for further advice.

INSPIRE/ISDI Technical Sub-Committee

Department of Environment, Community and Local Government

Most policy makers, decision makers and planners will agree that the availability of widespread quality baseline data over different time periods would greatly facilitate the planning and targeting of scarce resources, in a manner that would deliver essential services to cater for strong urban centres while also sustaining rural communities.  General consensus would imply that the availability of such data would greatly assist local authorities, state agencies, development agencies and communities with the reviews of their different county, town plans and strategies.  The purpose of such an exercise would be to bring about a more optimum distribution of services through evidence based regional planning, while targeting key vulnerable populations and also enhancing the quality of life of persons who live and work in the cross border area.

However, difficulties arise when an information gap exists, where data is not yet available in one central location, may not yet be captured or may not be in a format that allows for ease of comparison within local district council areas or at a more macro scale.  The SPACEial NW project sets out to address these difficulties by harnessing the power of GIS.

The SPACEial NW Approach

Evidence over the last two decades would suggest that the populations of the NWRCBA are migrating towards the larger settlements within the region with levels of urbanisation in Derry LDC at 90%, Strabane LDC at 51%, Limavady LDC at 56%, Magherafelt LDC at 41% and Donegal LA at 32%.  From a planning perspective, this presents the dilemma of managing such growth in sustainable fashion while also addressing decline in rural communities.   To assist with this process, the SPACEial NW project examines changing population patterns within the region and seeks to understand these dynamics and the factors which are driving them.

By using a combination of GIS and Remote Sensing technologies and Statistics, the project will identify changes in the rates and levels of urbanisation in the 34 key urban centres (with population over 1000) in the region.  The project goes one step further by examining the actual change in the physical boundary of the Derry/Londonderry – Letterkenny Gateway, using both remote sensing and GIS techniques, to determine if the designation resulted in exponential growth in its physical form or in its capacity to induce growth in other parts of the North West Region.

This project also sets out to identify and capture the key determinants of growth in the urban areas and by mapping those, this will enable a better understanding of what is happening and what is driving change i.e. is it the result of key capital investment; the impact of  EU or Cross Border funding;  the impact of area, county or town plans; the existence of natural growth nodes, the provision of economic, social, cultural and recreational infrastructure; the provision of essential local authority infrastructure?

The SPACEial NW project by using predictive analysis will examine the impact that the above variables have on the changing levels of urbanisation in the NWRCBA over the 2000 – 2010 and more importantly the impact that such factors could have on settlement patterns in the future.

The SPACEial NW Project Summary

The project will develop a model that will assist and inform in a long term systematic way, the planning and development of the entire North West Cross Border region, to ensure the long term sustainability of its communities by:

• Greatly enhancing access to spatial datasets to ensure more evidence based planning
• Providing comparable spatial data for the North West Region Cross Border Area to enable joint initiatives to benefit the entire region
• Enhancing the ability of decision and policy makers to use GI in making their decisions and in planning services
• Presenting a clear vision or projection of urban and rural growth and decline in the NW Region Cross Border area in the future
• Developing an urban rural growth model for the NWRCBA using remote sensing to determine the variation in urban boundaries from  2000-2010
• Developing a website, mapping viewer and mobile app that will place usable cross border spatial data captured through the project at decision makers fingertips to allow for more informed evidence based planning
• Capturing, mapping and  analyzing comparable data held by CSO and NISRA from 2000 and post 2011
• Locating funding into the North West through different EU programmes and identifying areas where funding would greatly assist in sustaining communities and alleviating poverty and deprivation.

In short SPACEial NW is a 3 year, crossborder GIS research project, funded by Interreg IVA, which uses GIS to access and improve the quality of comparable spatial data and information to assist with planning, policymaking and service delivery in the North West Region Cross Border Area for many years to come.  The project promoter is the North West Region Cross Border Group, with partners including Donegal County Council, Strabane District Council, Derry City Council, Magherafelt District Council and Limavady Borough Council.

Additional information is available by contacting:

Rosita Mahony

GIS & Research Co-ordinator

SPACEial NW

Donegal County Council

spaceialnw@gmail.com

Twitter: @SPACEialNW

LinkedIn: spaceialnw project

www.spaceialnw.eu (coming soon)

Results are available at the ED level across the country and provide average prices for Detached, Semi-D, Terraced, Apartments/Flats and Bungalows. The mapping system is using the ArcGIS Javascript Viewer and provides a basic thematic for each housing type and a useful pop-up window with the results. MapGenie from OSi sits in the background to provide geographical context.

Regardless of opinion on the merits of bringing in a property tax in the current economic climate, this really is an excellent example of using GI and GIS technology in the public sector in Ireland. Well done to the Revenue for developing a really good system based on the very poor underlying house price dataset at their disposal. This will only get more accurate as new data and sales prices start to come in. A great first effort in finally getting to grips with house price data in Ireland.

You can view the results here: https://lpt.revenue.ie/lpt-web/valuation-guide/index.htm

Justin Gleeson

VP IRLOGI

INSPIRE Protected Sites Pilot – publishing to the EU INSPIRE Portal

In 2012 the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, and the Marine Institute initiated a joint INSPIRE Data publishing pilot.  The aim of the INSPIRE pilot project was to assess the effort involved in transforming spatial data under the administration of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht,  the Marine Institute, the Geological survey and Local Authorities into the INSPIRE ‘Protected Sites’ Data Specification and to represent and maintain the data on the internet as INSPIRE ‘Network Services’ (INSPIRE Discovery, View and Download services) .

The project was also used to test publishing connections with the EU Geoportal (using the open source ISDE GeoNetwork metadata catalogue solution and associated ISDI Metadata Profile). The metadata records for the Irish Protected Sites data are now available on the EU Geoportal Discovery service    

An example of a Local Authority RPS dataset metadata published on the EU INSPIRE Geoportal.

Pilot Recommendations

The INSPIRE Pilot Project recommended the following broad actions for INSPIRE delivery in Ireland:

1. Publish INSPIRE Spatial Data Through Shared Services
2. Create INSPIRE Theme Delivery Plans
3. Publish Local Authority INSPIRE Data at National Level
4. Publish INSPIRE Data as Open Data
5. Publish INSPIRE Data as Linked Data
6. Evaluate INSPIRE Publishing Software
7. Align work of ISDI/INSPIRE Committee with DEPR Spatial Information Working Group and Irish Open Data projects

OSI Geoportal IE  - The INSPIRE portal for Ireland

A major development to come out of the recommendations is the upcoming OSI Geoportal IE web portal which will be launched in Summer 2013.   A DECLG/OSI INSPIRE Managed Service will also provide INSPIRE data transformation guidance and INSPIRE publication services for Irish public bodies.  The OSI Geoportal IE website will be the front-end for INSPIRE data access in Ireland and will broker online access to copyrighted resources through a Geo-Rights Management solution.  It will also feature an online ISDI Metadata Profile editor that will allow registered users to reference their data resources directly on the Geoportal IE catalogue.

INSPIRE Protected Sites View Service on the OSI Geoportal IE map viewer.

INSPIRE data as Open Data

Irish INSPIRE data is being published using open GIS standards published by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), i.e. WMS, WFS, CSW and GML.

All Irish INSPIRE data and metadata resources that are freely available for re-use (with government attribution) are being released through the EU Geoportal under terms of the Irish PSI Licence.

Want to find out more about INSPIRE?

Please refer to the following online resources:

DECLG Guidelines for Implementing the INSPIRE regulations in Public Bodies

INSPIRE Directive website

Or if you have any additional queries or comments please email inspire@environ.ie

Gareth John

INSPIRE Technical sub-committee

Department of Environment, Community and Local Government

Since then we have seen many public sector organisations really embrace the power of geographic information for many of their business process and organisational initiatives.

For example in the last year the Department of Environment’s MyPlan  was launched and has continued to grow in status.  We have seen the Department of Education embed geographic information into their on-going Education Surveys. And the Minister of State launched an economic study in into the value of geographic information and associated systems to the Irish Economy.

We even read how one member of the public, through Letters to Editor at the Irish Times asked why Geographic Information Systems were not being used to their fullest potential by Government (in the context of the National Children’s Hospital).

This month (February) Bord Gais has just begun a procurement process for the provision of Geographical Information Systems and Services to support our new Irish Water entity.  Last week we heard how the Revenue Commissioners are to use aerial photography to help with the issue of property taxation and this week we now read how Local Authorities are to use electronic mapping to track down septic tank evaders.

Furthermore the Taoiseach agreed to the EUROGI (European Umbrella Body for Geographic Information) Eye on Earth and imaGIne conferences that are being held at the Dublin Convention Centre in March, to be categorised as EU Presidency Events, further emphasising the value that he sees in our industry.

So it certainly seems as though our Government is following through on its promise to “evaluate the potential for exploiting digital mapping and GIS technologies in ways that are affordable, sustainable and of relevance to the customer bases of their services” (Action Point 27) and that they are ensuring that “Public bodies will identify data sets they hold that contain location based data and will make these details available  to  other  public  bodies  where appropriate to reduce duplication and to facilitate  greater  area-based targeting of public services” (Action Point 28).

If you agree, I’d love to hear where you have recently experienced similar examples of Government embracing Geographic Information and associated solutions?

Paul Synnott, ESRI Ireland

See the ESRI-Ireland blog for more, click here