9th General Assembly of EuroGeographics

02 October 2009, 4:34am

Developing the location framework for Europe is the main goal for the National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies in the coming years.

The 9th General Assembly of EuroGeographics, the association and united voice for Europe's national mapping and cadastral agencies, took place in Vilnius, the European Capital of Culture in 2009. It was hosted by the National Land Service under the Ministry of Agriculture and State Enterprise Centre of Registers in Lithuania. 120 participants, representing 52 members from 43 European countries, were joined by keynote speakers from the European Commission's Eurostat and GMES Bureau.

The title of this year's event was "˜Developing a location framework for Europe". National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies (NMCA) will play a major role in providing the location framework for INSPIRE, GMES and other European initiatives by enabling decentralised access to harmonised core geographic datasets from all European countries.

The view that builds a common standard for NMCA products and services, championed by EuroGeographics in the ESDIN project, was echoed by the vast majority of attendees. It was also recognised that partnership and close co-operation between EuroGeographics Members, their Head Office and end users are critical in yielding the benefits of this approach. To further emphasise the need for joint working, partnership agreements in the form of MOUs were signed with EULIS and PSMA Australia.

At the end of a very successful three-day conference, the outgoing President of EuroGeographics, Magnus Gudmundsson, who has held the position for the last 2 years, summarised thus: "Our biggest achievement in underpinning the location framework for Europe is through the creation of our pan-European products: EuroBoundaryMap, EuroGlobalMap, EuroRegionalMap and EuroDEM, but we have to respond to current expectations by developing services to eventually replace our products. The first step along this path has been the creation of the EuroGeoNames web-service, which was successfully completed in January 2009."

Dorine Burmanje, the EuroGeographics incoming President, added: "˜It is our responsibility to provide core geographic datasets for Europe which can be relied on for essential decision making, emergency planning, and sustainable development activities across Europe. Every Member of EuroGeographics can provide their geographic information so this vision is achieved and National Mapping and Cadastral Agency data has a fundamental role in the location framework for Europe in the future,"

EuroGeographics' key achievements in the last year include:

Greater engagement with key stakeholders

The priority areas for engagement focused on INSPIRE, GMES and PSI. To improve the effectiveness of EuroGeographics' engagement, an office was opened in Brussels, the heart of the European Commission. Active communication continued with the European Environment Agency, Eurostat and the GMES Bureau. A joint working group was also established with the GMES Bureau in order to better understand their requirements. An INSPIRE compliant "European Geographic Reference Information Layer" (EGRIL) was also proposed for GMES core services. National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies provided key experts to INSPIRE drafting teams working on data specifications, data policy and services.

EuroGeographics provided input into the assessment of the Public Sector Information Directive (PSI). In May 2009 the European Commission published the results of the review.

EuroGeographics was actively involved in the co-ordination of the GSDI 11/ INSPIRE conference held in Rotterdam in June 2009. EuroGeographics hosted several workshop sessions, chaired a plenary session and had a presence on the exhibition show floor. This allowed active engagement to take place with key partners, users and experts from the global geographic information community.

Improving communication with Members, partners and users

The new EuroGeographics website was launched in spring 2009, enabling easier access to the site's information and opening it up to other interested communities.

The web page on the ESDIN project (European Spatial Data Infrastructure Network), co-funded by the European Commission, have been further developed and renewed, and a platform for discussion between experts, best practice networks and reference groups has been established.

In June 2009 the EuroGeoForum web site was introduced. It provides a place to share experiences on implementing the location framework of Europe and will support the involvement of experts from a variety of geo-spatial communities, through blogs and discussion groups.

ESDIN project successfully advanced to its second year of implementation.

Reference groups have been established for key themes within ESDIN, allowing the project to engage with a wide range of stakeholders. Participating in the INSPIRE testing and providing comments to the INSPIRE Drafting Team on Annex 1 theme draft Implementation Rules have been this year's highlights.

Underpinning the co-operation of experts across Europe: Knowledge Exchange Networks

EuroGeographics is running Knowledge Exchange Networks on business interoperability, data policy, quality and cadastre & land registry. They provide a unique opportunity, not only for Members but also for other organisations, to share best practices across Europe. A key achievement last year was work on quality assurance in data supply processes, leading to an accepted project in Standardization work (ISO 19158)

First step from products towards services - EuroGeoNames webservice

The successfully completed eContentplus EuroGeoNames project has been praised by the assessors and is now in the implementation phase. 11 countries have already connected their National Gazetteers making this the most comprehensive source for official place names and their variants for Europe. At the General Assembly many more Members have committed to include their data.

"The pan-European products, created by the members of Eurogeographics, are an important background for many of our statistics and analysis. There is a long tradition of our close cooperation", stated Daniele Rizzi from Eurostat, "and we have to continue in this trend by achieving a full coverage of Europe and improving the data quality based on users' requirements".

For further information about EuroGeographics, please contact Executive Director, Dave Lovell, on +33 (0)1 64 153 265, +33 676 396 241 (mobile) or email dave.lovell@eurogeographics.org

EuroGeographics

Geo: International