Geo-technologies have enjoyed relatively stable growth year after year. This growth has been reflected in the growing markets and applications being developed in the wireless and telecoms technology sectors. Users of geo-spatial data products and services range from children to the retired, from small local businesses to large international corporations. Societal trends toward increased wireless connectivity and distributed web based services are also propelling geo-technology market forward. The most recent group to embark upon integration and use of geo-technology, are governments. Several governments have launched European e-government initiatives.
For geo-technology professionals, the quest has always been to construct 2-D, 3-D and 4-D digital mapping products for a multitude of functions and to distribute them to millions of people. Computing technology has enabled that possibility, and the days of the lone cartographer are increasingly changing as organisations become inter-connected through web services. It is the geo-spatial industry that loads the internet to the highest degree in terms of amounts of data, requirement for visualisation capabilities, increased network speeds and demand for higher interoperability. While visualisation seeks to render an image over the internet, geo-technology seeks to not only render the image but also provide database access and query functionality at the same time – and geo-spatial databases are very large.
At the moment many people are curious about geo-spatial data and services. Most are still familiar with the option of purchasing a hardcopy map and trying to figure out where they are or where they are going - or, maybe where they shouldn’t be. There is something very telltale when you can watch a 7 year old handle a SMS, look at a map being delivered via satellite and watch them casually show their friend seated next to them. Are they looking at the map, the technology or simply pushing buttons? Undoubtedly, the connection to hardcopy mapping has been broken and forever more ‘digital is the way to go’ – the seed has been planted.
At the same time, many European research institutes and governments are struggling to overcome the barriers of spatial data access and sharing amongst themselves. The policies for such sharing will only come after e-government matures and individual citizens begin to acquire local information and become more familiar with e-government delivery of services – the seed has yet to be planted sufficiently.
One interesting aspect between geo-spatial technology and e-government initiatives is that much of Europe is currently being monitored with these technologies. Satellite images are being stored, though some are sold. Maps are being constructed with higher and higher resolution for all parts of Europe while work continues on the, develop of pan-European research modelling in the areas of atmospheric sciences, soils, hydrology and sociology among other areas.
I suspect that in the not to distant future that the 7-year olds of the world will become the first to embrace the significance of pan-European spatial data models. They will ask questions such as "how is the weather over Europe this week as compared to last week?" or "what is the quickest way home right now given the traffic conditions so I can get my homework done and watch television?" In many respects, the technologies are already in place and available to provide the answers. The difficulty has been to link the technologies to the questions we want answers for. E-government from a geo-spatial perspective will become not only a series of technology and telecommunication connections but will emerge as the medium to provide solutions for where, when, how and why we live as we do – instantly.
Jeff Thurston, a Canadian, lives in Berlin, Germany and is Director of his company Vector One Consulting. He holds an MSc. in GIS (geographical information systems) and has written internationally for several publications. His work has appeared in GeoWorld, GeoEurope, Geoinformatics, GIS India and online previously at GISCafe.com. Jeff specializes in the area of integrated geo-technology - how spatial technologies and e-services come together. He comments upon the GI marketplace, assessing the growth, policies and application opportunites of the geo-information industry related to public and private sectors.
Quelle: europemedia
