EuroGeographics Highlights Role of Geospatial Information in European Data Strategy

In the context of the European Data Strategy, EuroGeographics has highlighted that high-value, authoritative geospatial datadata is a fundamental building block for digital transformation.

High-value, authoritative geospatial data from official national sources has a significant role to play in the European Data Strategy. EuroGeographics, the not-for-profit membership association for Europe’s National Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registry Authorities, has highlighted that such data is ubiquitous across all the dataspaces and one of the basic building blocks for digital transformation.

Mick Cory, secretary general and executive director of EuroGeographics said: “The value of data lies in its use and re-use. Making their information available for use and re-use by others is at the core of our members’ public task and they are committed to this principle.”

Geospatial information underpins other dataspaces

“Geospatial is one of the five High Value Datasets themes expected to be available free of charge in machine-readable format via suitable APIs. With sustainable funding, our members can ensure a continued supply, indeed an increase, in the provision of high value authoritative geospatial data for use and re-use.”

“Their authoritative information can underpin and be used across all the dataspaces set out in the Strategy. For example, public administration relies on trusted authoritative sources to inform policy, transport needs authoritative geospatial datasets for cross-border requirements, and NMCA data forms an important component of the land parcel identification system, which supports the common agricultural policy. Furthermore, Cadastre and land registry data provide a basis for property tax in many countries, helping to combat national and international fraud and tax evasion.”

Mick Cory continues: “Technical and policy duplication hinders progress, is costly and should be avoided. A horizontal, cross-sectorial governance framework for data, regardless of data theme or sector of origin, is therefore an appropriate step forward to the alignment of the different actions.”

“Within EuroGeographics, our way of working is built upon the success of our enduring collaborative effort with our members to avoid gaps, eradicate duplications and contradictions, and avoid missed opportunities. We warmly welcome the important development of this overarching data strategy and we look forward to contributing to its success by using our experience in facilitating cross border data sharing and re-use of geospatial public sector data.” 

The EuroGeographics full information paper is available here.