Project Humboldt, European Union

Paving the Way for European Spatial Data Infrastructure

The Challenge:

Whether it’s providing protection from natural disasters or establishing administrative boundaries, accurate and usable geospatial information is crucial for decision makers.
As administrative boundaries play a less important role in the face of complex international relationships or natural phenomena, a seamless exchange of geospatial information is crucial in making better decisions. However, geospatial data is often provided in different formats and systems. For example, the continued development of the European Union (EU) and its 27 member states brings together a wealth of geospatial information. Without data harmonization, international cooperation to support monitoring and planning is difficult. The information is often not accessible, and if it is accessible, various system platforms and even language and semantic differences can create more barriers. To support its policies and environmental objectives, as well as citizen security and economic growth, the EU is focusing on making digital spatial information more easily accessible and usable. The creation of the European Spatial Data Infrastructure (ESDI) is at the core of these endeavors.

The Project Objectives:

Conform geospatial data to the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) standards and major European initiatives
Harmonize data to improve decision making in security and environment applications
Provide users with access to accurate, current, and reliable data

The Solution:

With the INSPIRE directive as the driving legal force, the EU is seeking means to promote the creation of the ESDI. One approach is to enable and support cooperation among research firms, various industries, academia, and geospatial data users to pave the way for implementing the ESDI by developing best-practice examples. Intergraph® is leveraging this pan-European cooperation and is now engaged in the HUMBOLDT research project to explore advanced solutions and define operational processes in applying spatial data infrastructures. Data harmonization is the primary issue addressed by the project. The HUMBOLDT project manages key parts of the ESDI implementation process, with the primary goal of enabling organizations to document, publish, and integrate their geospatial information. Common HUMBOLDT data models include land cover and vegetation, water resources, ocean and marine environments, atmosphere, risk management, and security. These data models will be based on the upcoming INSPIRE data specifications. The project relies on a technical infrastructure that is based on standards and services, and that provides the means to harmonize multiple spatial information sources and fuse them into an application-specific information source.

Intergraph, with more than 20 partners from 14 European countries, investigated how data and service providers, as well as users such as regional planners, will profit economically from the ESDI. Part of this state-of-the-art analysis included existing processes and tools for data harmonization. Now Intergraph and the two consortia are establishing the steps needed to achieve interoperability for data and metadata. A software framework and diverse tools will support the development and integration of standardized geospatial information, including data models, formats, quality, availability, services, and languages. HUMBOLDT plans to develop, validate, and provide open and flexible software frameworks.

Intergraph serves almost every EU member state, offering its expertise and experience as the leading provider of geographic information systems (GIS). Intergraph continues to contribute to establishing the ESDI by providing software components and expertise in the area of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI). The software components include Intergraph’s GeoMedia® product family as well as the SDI Basic and SDI Pro technologies. Other core competencies of Intergraph include metadata technology and catalogue services.

Future Plans:

An essential element of the HUMBOLDT project is the development of scenarios in which different components of the framework are applied and tested under realistic conditions. Intergraph is involved with two of the scenarios. The European Risk Atlas scenario collects and combines existing data concerning risks and vulnerabilities, including severe weather phenomena that cause natural hazards such as floods. The objective is to support risk management in a cross-border flood event by making integrated data sources easily available. The Border Security scenario aims to enable effective border control and security on the EU external border by providing the tools to analyze hot spots of illegal trespassing. Integrating new sensor technology is a further challenge in this scenario.

Download file

Right Hand Column