| |
Overview |
|
| |
One of the major components of the NSDI is the
establishment of a Geospatial Clearinghouse/Portal. This portal
forms the gateway through which the country’s fundamental
geospatial datasets can be discovered and utilized. The clearinghouse
will seamlessly integrate spatial datasets from several land
and land related agencies and will also form a centralized repository
for the country’s fundamental geospatial datasets which
includes road and river networks, land use, cadastre as well
as administrative boundaries. |
|
| |
Current
Status |
|
Technology |
| With help from the United
States Geological Survey (USGS), the Global Spatial Data
Infrastructure (GSDI) and Spatial Innovision Ltd, several
hardware and software components of the clearinghouse
have already been established and are currently being
utilized by government organizations including the Office
of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management to publish
spatial information to the internet. Full
Story |
|
The portal utilizes two
independent but interoperable types of technology . This
includes ESRI's ArcGIS 9.2 Server technology which allows
for the efficient storage, management and publishing of
geospaital information to the internet and the FAO's Geonetowk,
an opensource catalog application to manage spatially
referenced resources through the web. It provides powerful
metadata editing and search functions as well as an embedded
interactive web map viewer |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Architecture |
|
SDI
Application Projects |
| The architecture
of the Geospatial clearinghouse is an ideal example of
a SDI approach to data sharing. Land and land related
agencies will be linked via local and wide area networks.
Each agency will have local autonomy over its datasets.
These datasets will either be published to the internet
as web services (WMS/WFS/KML) or replicated
from a centralized data warehouse. The web services will
be integrated via the web portal that will be housed at
the National Spatial Data Centre. The portal will allow
for spatial datasets to be discovered,, seamlessly integrated
and consumed by various stakeholders for the purposes
of environmental planning, development approval, disaster
management etc. |
|
The portal will make geospatial
datasets readily accessible which paves the way for data
to be more effectively and efficiently utilized. The Ministry
has undertaken two major projects that will rely on Spatial
Data Infrastructure technology. These are
Facilitating
Disaster Management Using a SDI Approach and
Improving
Disease and Pest Management using Spatial Data Infrastructure
Technology
Both these projects will solve several environmental
and agricultural challenges being experienced in Jamaica.
more importantly the projects will demonstrate how valuable
spatial data is and can become when it is made available
and accessible.
|
|
|
| |
|
|