Important development trends
Report no. 30 to the Storting (2002-2003) Norway Digital has been the strategic foundation for developments in the geospatial area in recent years. This report has guided the public efforts and priorities regarding the collection, management and disclosure of geospatial information in Norway.
However, a great deal has changed since the report was submitted to the Storting, in terms of the needs, technology and societal challenges. The focus on the needs of the users and actual usage has increased. Digital solutions are increasingly being used. The importance of geospatial information in society has increased significantly as a result of these developments. At the same time, general pressure on the public sector’s solution of problems has increased. Requirements for a more efficient flow of data are thus greater now. Access to geospatial information is of critical importance to many enterprises and functions in society.
In 2007, the European Union adopted the INSPIRE Directive establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community. This directive sets out requirements for cooperation and shared solutions for digital services and the sharing of data. The Spatial Data Act implements the INSPIRE Directive into Norwegian law.
The increased digitalisation in many areas of society provides new opportunities for collation, analysis and knowledge production – not to mention sharing, collaboration and interaction between actors. In the private sector, geospatial information provides opportunities for more efficient operation, digital innovation and business development. Software solutions and services based on geospatial information represent a significant export potential for our knowledge-based industries. Global technology and content companies have at the same time become major actors in the field, offering many location-based services to the public.
The United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) emphasises the importance of a good geospatial knowledge base, in order to achieve sustainable development goals, among other things. The United Nations has established guidelines for how the member states should develop geospatial information, including management solutions and infrastructures. The current strategy agrees essentially with the United Nations initiative in this area.
In the future, geospatial information will interact with new technologies, such as Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), sensor technologies, big data and learning computers. Technologically, we will be seeing a number of new opportunities for the automation and smart use of geospatial information – and the developments here are rapid. We must at the same time be prepared to meet new challenges, in the area of information security, for example. Automation of work processes based on geospatial information will entail, among other things, stricter data integrity requirements and the availability of both data and functionality. We will become more vulnerable, the more dependent we become on continuous access to data. The geospatial data infrastructure must therefore safeguard important information security requirements.
The user threshold is often high for good utilisation of geospatial information. A special effort must be made to meet the needs of the users for services and provide easy access in an efficient way. Shared solutions and open interfaces that allow third-party suppliers to develop user-friendly services that collect data from the infrastructure are important.
Requirement for electronic access to public geospatial information
The INSPIRE Directive (2007/2/EC) requires that the EU Member States make national geospatial information available electronically. The Directive has been incorporated into the EEA Agreement and also applies to Norway. The directive is a framework directive, in which the more detailed requirements are found in separate implementing directives that have been implemented into Norwegian law in regulations pursuant to the Spatial Data Act (Spatial Data Regulations). This includes, for example, requirements:
- to make geospatial information available electronically with standardised online services for searching, viewing and downloading
- to ensure that geospatial data and related services can interact with other data and services
- to document geospatial data and related services
The Directive is based on the following principles:
- The European infrastructure shall build on the national geospatial data infrastructures of the individual states
- The national infrastructures shall facilitate
- geospatial data being stored, made available and maintained at the most appropriate administrative level
- that geospatial data from various sources across Europe can be combined in a uniform manner and shared among many users and areas of application
- that geospatial data collected at one regulatory level can be made available to authorities at other levels
- that geospatial data is made available on the basis of conditions that do not unreasonably limit widespread use of such data
- It shall be easy to find geospatial data, assess whether the data is suitable for the intended purpose and ascertain the conditions that apply to use of the data.
Norway already has a digital geospatial data infrastructure. It consists of large amounts of data, collected by many actors from various sectors over a long period of time, and of tools, shared solutions, directory services, agreements and routines that have been established to manage, locate, distribute and use geospatial information efficiently. However, there is still a ways to go before the infrastructure can be said to meet the needs of all the important areas of society.
The amount of digital information in society is growing. Geospatial information is no exception. A number of actors in society are using a great deal of resources to collect, maintain and analyse geospatial information.5 Municipal and central government mapping and surveying activities amount to more than NOK 2 billion. The private geomatics industry reported revenues of more than NOK 2.4 billion around the year 2000. Companies that are primarily aimed at special types of mapping, for example, geological and geophysical mapping, were excluded from this number. Members of the trade association for geomatics companies reported revenues of NOK 5.0 billion in 2017, but this number also includes services outside the geomatics area.
Good quality geospatial information is a core part of the knowledge base for many processes in society
This also implies that the use of geospatial information will be part of the solution for handling the societal challenges of our time:
- Internationalisation. The Internet, cross-border cooperation and trade contribute to increased globalisation and entail new requirements for adapting the flow of data and cross-border digital services – and this applies to geospatial information as well.
- The geopolitical situation. The number of exercises is increasing in Norwegian areas. Both military and civilian national experts must be able to interact during certain events. The utilisation of geospatial information is of key importance here.
- Emergency planning. New threats and vulnerabilities arise. The requirements for good emergency planning for serious incidents are increasing, and the ability to handle crisis situations is becoming increasingly important. Updated geospatial information is an important tool for the assessment of threat situations and the ability to act quickly and appropriately.
- Climate change and other environmental challenges. Climate change may increasingly cause landslides, flooding and other weather-induced natural disasters. The prerequisites for food production and food safety are gradually changing. Geospatial information is an important element of work with adaptation to climate change and other environmental challenges, including land-use planning by the municipalities.
- New business activities. Fisheries, aquaculture, tourism and renewable biological resources are becoming increasingly important to the Norwegian economy. Innovation Norway points to bioeconomics, clean energy, the Blue Economy, creative industries and tourism, health and welfare and smart communities as areas of opportunity for Norwegian restructuring. Geospatial information and knowledge about the properties and value of the resources plays a key role in several of these areas.
- An efficient public sector. Public administration ties up a great deal of resources in society. There is a need to perform tasks more efficiently, through digitalisation and more efficient ways of working. The geospatial data infrastructure contributes directly to improving the efficiency of the public sector. The municipal sector is both a producer and user of geospatial information. Shared solutions enable the county authorities, municipalities and central government agencies to take advantage of economies of scale through cooperation. Maintaining and developing a well-functioning infrastructure for the data that is needed will at the same time be costly.
- Urbanisation. Public services in the cities of the future will be based on advanced three-dimensional data above and below ground, and sensors and cameras that monitor traffic, energy consumption and other environmental factors. Smart cities are characterised by efficient urban planning, a better knowledge base in the building sector, optimisation of traffic and energy consumption, and more dynamic dimensioning of tenders. Geospatial information is the key to this.
- Sustainable development goals. In the autumn of 2015, the UN Member States adopted 17 sustainable development goals towards 2030. The sustainable development goals look at the environment, economics and social development in context. They apply to all countries and are a roadmap for global efforts in the area of sustainable development.