blog

It’s All About Engagement

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:08:00 +1300

As I become more integrated into the work programme of the New Zealand Geospatial Office (NZGO), and with my role as Geospatial Custodian, I'm increasingly aware of the importance of engagement. As the term 'engagement' is thrown about quite freely, I think it warrants some clarification.

In its most elemental form, engagement is the communication between parties. But in practice it is much more than that. Engagement involves an understanding between those parties, or a sincere attempt at achieving a level of understanding.

As someone conveying information, you engage with your audience when your message applies on some level and is accepted as sincere, if not always fully understood or completely accepted. When engaging others, your message extends beyond your individual context to permeate the contexts of the other parties. Ownership of the message then becomes truly dynamic as it is shared between all of the participants. This flow of ownership creates a momentum that can lead to exciting exchanges and the discovery of new solutions as the interaction takes on a life of its own.

The role of the NZGO, in simple terms, is to promote and champion the New Zealand Geospatial Strategy. Effective promotion relies on regular and effective engagement. As Geospatial Custodian, directing the work programme of the NZGO, a large part of my daily routine involves engagement - a favourite component of my job!

Through engagement I am able to spread the message of the value of well-planned geospatial implementations. Just as importantly, though, I get the opportunity to listen and to learn. Through engagement I come to understand how geospatial technologies and approaches are being applied to many business situations, as well as the problems practitioners face. I learn about the exciting and seemingly endless opportunities in New Zealand, as well as the difficulties hindering even broader success. I increasingly appreciate the value of engagement for the strategies, policies and work programmes arising from the efforts of the NZGO.

Much of our work in the NZGO of late has focused on developing a roadmap for a New Zealand Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). Because SDI is a concept not fully understood by many in the geospatial community, engagement has proven to be an indispensible tool for advancing this work. Be it written documentation, emails, workshops, blog entries (see David Swann's three-part series), or the numerous conversations between NZGO staff and various geospatial data providers and users. In our efforts to spread the word about SDI, we have learned a lot. This has helped us hone our message and direct our efforts to more closely match the realities of the current geospatial sector in New Zealand.

As I continue to interact with members of the geospatial community, I appreciate that being someone new to this community is part of the dynamic of my engagement. I hope my perspective helps inform these exchanges as I also expand the understanding and knowledge I need to promote effective geospatial strategies for New Zealand.

As always, and in the spirit of engagement, I welcome your thoughts and comments below or at ksweeney@linz.govt.nz.

Kevin Sweeney

Geospatial Custodian
New Zealand Geospatial Office

LUDB: New Zealand Land Use Database Envirolink Tools Project

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:11:00 +1300

The New Zealand Land Use Database project is a two-year Envirolink Tools project running from January 2010 to December 2011.

The Regional Council Land Monitoring Forum and Landcare Research are working together on the project, which aims to develop a national land-use database consisting of:

Land Information Engine - for collecting, synthesising, generating, reporting and storing land-use information
Classification - for consistently representing land use across multiple scales
Geospatial Land Use Layer - for quantifying and analysing land-use trends.

The need

New Zealand currently lacks nationally consistent land-use information, and this was confirmed through recent surveys* identifying a critical need for better information. The information from these surveys will enable improved policy and planning development and resource management. Regional councils, in particular, highlighted a need for nationally consistent, coordinated, and regularly updated land-use information to help fulfil their statutory requirements under the Resource Management Act.

Pressing information needs requiring better land-use information include:

better reporting of land use and land-use change
identifying the key drivers of land-use change
tracking intensification or urban expansion.

Benefits

Provide a consistent framework for environmental reporting on land use and land-use change within New Zealand.
Facilitate resource management information across jurisdictional boundaries and spatial scales.
Start to put in place coordinated processes for ongoing, consistent collection and dissemination of land-use information.

Land Use Database in context

The Land Use Database tool represents the next step in the evolution of land-use information for New Zealand. A recent review** identified four previous attempts within New Zealand to develop a land-use classification. The most recent was a land-use layer (LUNZ) that focused on primary production uses for the CLUES project***. The project is currently being updated.

Further several purpose-built land-use classifications and datasets, databases and associated geospatial data layers are being developed:

water quality (CLUES)
groundwater (IRAP)
integrated spatially-explicit decision support systems (Creating Futures)
integrated catchment management (Motueka ICM)
rural land use change (LURNZ)
resource management (Environment Canterbury)
Land Use and Carbon Analysis System (LUCAS).

This project will start to bring those efforts together and provide a sound framework for ongoing land-use information collection, analysis, monitoring, and reporting.

More information

For more information about the LUDB project, contact:

Dr Daniel Rutledge
Senior Scientist and Project Leader
Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research
Hamilton

Phone: 07 859 3727
Email: rutledged@landcareresearch.co.nz

*Surveys organised by Statistics New Zealand and the Regional Council Land Monitoring Forum.

**Rutledge, Price, Briggs, Cowell. 2009: Geospatial Land Use Classification for New Zealand: Review and Recommendations. Statistics New Zealand OS Research Series 5.

***MAF and the Ministry for the Environment have been working with NIWA on the Catchment Land Use for Environmental Sustainability (CLUES) project.

Collating New Zealand’s LiDAR Data

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:26:00 +1300

Over the last five to six years local and central government agencies have increasingly turned to remote sensing technologies such as Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) to obtain data about ground elevations.

In brief, LiDAR is very similar to RADAR (Radio Direction And Ranging) except that light waves - or more precisely, a laser - are used rather than radio waves. Typically the laser sensor is mounted on a plane (or satellite) and flown over the target area. The sensor emits a light beam and records the returned signals. The differences in each signal's return time, signal strength, and x, y, z co-ordinates are captured for later data processing.

Processed data from the return signals can be used to create Digital Elevation Models (DEM). These models provide a highly detailed and accurate picture of the height and shape of the land.

While LiDAR is currently the most commonly-used remote sensing tool, other light bands such as infra-red and multi-spectral are also available.

The data can be used in a range of projects, such as:

determining the extent of floodplains
monitoring coastal erosion
predicting areas sensitive to sea level rise
investigating the relationship between building insulation and heat loss
carbon accounting through identifying the type of vegetation cover
monitoring air quality.

The New Zealand Geospatial Office (NZGO) has started a project to collate a catalogue of all LiDAR data held by local and central government. We expect the catalogue will:

improve the discovery of the data
raise awareness about the wealth of data that has been collected
support re-use of the data (once collected, the data can be used over and over in different projects and by different people)
create opportunities for agencies to cooperate over new data purchases, and to improve compliance with technical guidelines and standards.

Next steps...

We are currently looking to publish a description (metadata) of the LiDAR data held throughout New Zealand, including the extent of LiDAR coverage.

The LiDAR inventory list is available from the NZGO and can be requested by contacting me on either my mobile (027-2499328) or via email (sbensberg@linz.govt.nz). Alternatively, you can contact us through this website.

We'd love to hear from you if you have any LiDAR data that could be included.

Stephen Bensberg

Project Manager Remote Sensing
New Zealand Geospatial Office

Showcasing Geospatial Information at the Rugby World Cup

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:54:00 +1300

Around 15 creative thinkers from government and the private sector got together on Wednesday to explore opportunities around New Zealand's hosting of the Rugby World Cup (RWC) in 2011.

The aim of the workshop was to stimulate big picture ideas and creative thinking on how we can showcase the power and potential of geospatial information and technology at the RWC. We also thought about how innovative organisations and individuals could create value using spatial information and technology in and around this event.

Our facilitators were Rumi Shivaz, a Wellington-based innovation consultant and Cyriel Koteleven, a creativity and innovation consultant based in Belgium. Cyriel took us through a number of exercises designed to get us out of our normal thinking patterns. It was an informal and fun experience and the group came up with some interesting ideas.

Our next blogs on this topic will share the ideas and outline how you can participate in discussions aimed at turning some of them into action.

Adam Cooper

Senior Analyst
New Zealand Geospatial Office

When Location Information Goes Social

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 14:02:00 +1300

Last week I was interested to hear a prediction made by one of the 24 international speakers at Webstock - a conference held in Wellington on all things web - on what the 'next big thing' in web will be.

Kevin Rose, founder of the popular news aggregation website Digg, was at Webstock to deliver 10 tips for new web entrepreneurs. During question time Kevin was asked, 'What's the next big thing in web?' and his response - location-based services.

The United States-based social location service Foursquare was mentioned more than once during the conference. Foursquare allows people to use their mobile to 'check-in' to a place they go to, such as a restaurant, announcing their whereabouts to friends. By doing this, people earn points and badges. If someone checks-in enough times to a certain place, they can even become 'mayor' of that place.

For some businesses, Foursquare is a useful tool in building customer loyalty. The mayor of their restaurant may, for example, be awarded discounts.

However, there are also significant risks in being too free with announcing information such as one's personal whereabouts. Stuff.co.nz has published an article about a website called Please Rob Me, which is designed to expose the risk of people announcing where they currently are - or, more to the point, where they are not (ie at home) - based on information they willingly release through sites like Foursquare. The website acts as a satirical warning about over-sharing personal information through the web.

Clearly, location information can be used to create some interesting social web services that many find engaging and fun. But there is also a strong need to properly educate people around the risks of releasing personal information through the internet.

So, do web-based social location services offer enough tools and information to help manage the potential risks raised by a site like Please Rob Me? What could be done to help people more safely share personal location information? Or do you think that everything that can be done is being done already? Post your comments below.

Anthony Lapwood

Communications Coordinator
Land Information New Zealand

SDI: How We Get There

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:54:00 +1300

In previous blog posts, I've covered what Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is and what some of the impacts will be for agencies wanting to participate in it. Now, let's take a look at what we've been doing to establish SDI, how it might function, and what a roadmap for a healthy SDI looks like.

This is the third of three posts introducing SDI in New Zealand. To catch up on my previous SDI updates, see:

What has the NZGO been doing?

The New Zealand Geospatial Office (NZGO) has been working to coordinate initial SDI implementation, mainly across the natural resources sector. As this initial work has progressed, we are now clearer that we already have many of the components of SDI - we're referring to this as 'the SDI we didn't know we had'.

We have many government organisations providing services of geospatial information (but not always using open standards).
We have some government organisations that are consuming services of geospatial information.
Conspicuously absent are the catalogue portals that make the discovery of data so easy.

This informs us that our efforts need to focus on establishing geoportals. LINZ has been working with Ministry of Research, Science and Technology, and the Department of Internal Affairs to build a demonstration geoportal that links to the DIA's data.govt.nz initiative. We're hoping to launch the prototype shortly. In addition, the Department of Conservation will be standing up a geoportal in the middle of 2010 as an extension of their internal SDI initiatives.

Will there be one New Zealand government geoportal?

One of the elegant aspects of SDI is that catalogue nodes (geoportals) can harvest metadata from one another. So if metadata gets posted onto any one catalogue node, all other nodes can harvest that metadata. This allows each organisation to establish geoportals that meet their own business, architectural and technical needs.

What is clearly needed is one geoportal that contains everything. The model for this is the United States 'Geospatial One Stop' at www.geodata.gov. It is important to appreciate that this is not the 'only geoportal' for the whole US: most states, most federal agencies and most cities will have their own focused geoportals. So if we were to use this as the model, we should aspire to create www.geodata.govt.nz as a national geoportal but encourage the establishment of focused geoportals in central government agencies, regional councils and territorial local authorities.

What does the SDI roadmap look like?

We're becoming clearer about the nature of the SDI roadmap. As we see embryonic SDI emerge in the coming weeks, I'm confident we will see a rapid, if slightly chaotic, growth in adoption. It's important we appreciate this chaos as a desirable aspect of early SDI since it represents a release of pent-up demand.

We cannot approach SDI like a normal program of work where we design, then develop and then build. Remember that SDI is not a system! We can only establish SDI using the data and systems we already have... and then evolve forward to gradually improve data, improve connections between systems and develop better geoportals.

Once underway, we can connect emerging SDI to other streams of work that will gradually define a more orderly direction for SDI:

There will be a need for legislative development that will eventually establish a mandated framework for SDI in New Zealand. As with any legislative process, this will take several years to develop. By running this in parallel with emerging SDI, legislation will be informed by real experience and will eventually direct SDI development.
Out of the legislative development will emerge the governance framework for SDI - the steering committee and working groups. Pending formal governance arrangements, it is recommended that the formation of domain and functional user groups be encouraged.
The New Zealand Geospatial Office will provide guidelines for agencies that will explain how best to connect existing systems and programmes of work into emerging SDI. Current thinking is that these connections will be low risk, low cost and easy to accomplish. This will include the recommended standards that will need to be implemented.
Work will continue on fundamental data set identification. This work will benefit significantly from emerging SDI since it will expose data sets to much broader communities of stakeholders. It is very important to appreciate that defining 'fundamental' can only be done from the perspective of the use of data; one organisation's junk is another organisation's fundamental data. What SDI enables is a gradual rationalisation and improvement in government geospatial information.
SDI relies on geospatial expertise. It is this expertise that makes sure that data provision is 'fit for purpose' and that data consumption is appropriate. Work will continue on geospatial capacity building.

That's the last in this series of posts introducing SDI and the current thinking around implementing it in New Zealand. We'll have more to say as this work develops, so stay tuned.

What do you think of the work we've done so far? Do you think we're on track? Or is there anything you think we might have missed or need to consider?

Share your ideas below or contact us.

David Swann

CRCSI Position Opens

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:41:00 +1300

Event Date: 18 February 2010

Recruitment is underway for the new position of Director CRCSI New Zealand.

CRCSI, otherwise known as the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information, is a collaborative joint venture based in Australia. It works with industry, government and the education and science sectors to produce business outcomes and benefits for participants involved in the spatial sector.

Last August, it received AU$32 million from the Australian Government to further invest in spatial research, development and education in the areas of health, energy provision, agriculture, defence and security, and urban development, and will involve creating infrastructure to benefit both New Zealand and Australia.

The exciting new role of Director CRCSI New Zealand has been established within LINZ on behalf of the geospatial information community. It will create a presence for CRCSI in New Zealand, and grow New Zealand collaborative ventures into and beyond the initial CRCSI Australia base.

This dedicated, fulltime position will work across New Zealand's business, government and education sectors to broker knowledge, negotiate projects, manage relationships and opportunities, and build the New Zealand node.

To learn more about the Director CRCSI New Zealand role go to the New Zealand Government Jobs Online website. Applications close 1 March 2010.

Kevin Sweeney

Geospatial Custodian
New Zealand Geospatial Office

Back to News.

SDI: What it Means for Agencies

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:56:00 +1300

In this post, I want to talk about some of the effects that implementing a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) will have for agencies. Specifically, the costs and value of SDI to an agency, and the standards needed for an agency to participate in it.

This is the second of three posts introducing SDI in New Zealand. To catch up on my previous SDI update, see:

SDI: An Introduction

How much will SDI cost my agency? What value will it have?

Within any one agency, the incremental cost to extend an existing system or program of work to participate in SDI will typically be fairly low. But it is important to appreciate that the incremental value to any one system is not huge: SDI is not a panacea that suddenly creates huge value to a program. The real benefit of SDI is in the aggregation across government; small individual benefits aggregating to create significant advantage to New Zealand as a whole.

What standards will my agency need to implement to participate in SDI?

SDI is all about establishing standardised connections between systems, rather than defining how to build systems. So an agency can build systems according to their own business needs, supplier relationships and internal standards. It's how those systems interact with external systems that matters.

If an agency's systems are to contribute to SDI, they need at a minimum to provide web services using Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)standards (they may choose to provide a range of other Web 2.0 services such as KML and REST as well). The minimum requirement is to provide a Web Mapping Service (WMS). A Web Feature Service (WFS) will provide much greater capability for consumers and should be regarded as 'highly desirable'.
Those services have to be discoverable so should be accompanied by ANZLIC profile of ISO 19139 metadata. There are over 40 fields in this profile and the more that can be populated, the more useful that metadata will be. Twelve fields should be regarded as mandatory.
If an agency's systems are to benefit from SDI, they will need to be able to query metadata portals - ideally using Catalogue Services for Web (CS-W) - and will need to be able to consume OGC services (WMS at a minimum, WFS ideally).
That's all! SDI resembles the Internet in many respects in that the underlying standards are relatively easy to implement and yet create real benefits.

This post doesn't cover all the benefits or impacts that implementing SDI will have for a participating agency. They'll be different for every organisation, depending on existing systems and business needs, etc. These are just some of the main points each agency will need to be aware of.

What do you see as some of the other gains and impacts for your agency in participating in SDI? Share your thoughts below or contact us.

Coming up, I'll give an outline of some the current thinking and work going on around implementing SDI, and what the roadmap for it might look like.

David Swann

GPS System Slashes Collection Costs

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 08:22:00 +1300

Every minute Fonterra saves when collecting milk reaps the company an extra $2 million a year.

Fonterra, the world's leading exporter of dairy products, uses a GPS-based dispatch system to manage its collections, and the benefits of this are already apparent. In the year to July 2009, the system reportedly helped the cooperative save 3c per kilogram of milksolids in collection costs. Translated into dollar terms, that's a reduction in collection costs of $2 million a year.

Fonterra collects from up to 10,500 farms each day, transporting milk to more than 20 production facilities around the country. Fonterra is facing an uphill battle to improve milk collection costs in the face of independent processors luring large suppliers away. It started seeking savings to its milk collection costs in 2004, by using rail transport in some regions, increasing tanker load capacity, speeding up collection times, and rolling out its new 'Genesis' tanker dispatch system, which includes drawing up a daily milk collection schedule at Fonterra's Hamilton office.

The GPS-based Genesis system allows the milk to be picked up at the right time 99.5 percent of the time. GPS is installed in all tankers and their locations are transmitted every three minutes to the control room. Drivers also have radio telephone contact with controllers.

Read more about Fonterra's use of geospatial information in the Spatial Information in the New Zealand Economy report.

John Forne

Analyst
New Zealand Geospatial Office

Back to News.

Help LINZ Improve its Bulk Data

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:47:00 +1300

At Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), we're keen to unlock the value of our geospatial data. As part of this, we've created an online questionnaire that asks how we can improve our survey and title bulk data products and services.

LINZ has been providing its survey and title data in bulk format for around ten years. Some bulk data customers use the data internally, while others rework it into new products to provide.

Information gathered from the questionnaire will help us better understand what users of the data need in order to get the most out of it, and how we can therefore support the development of New Zealand's geospatial sector and contribute more to the economy.

Register for the questionnaire and let us know what you think of our bulk survey and title data products and services - it shouldn't take longer than 15 minutes to complete.

The questionnaire will be open until midnight on 5 March 2010.

Results are being gathered and analysed by independent research company Research New Zealand, who work in strict accordance with the Code of Practice of the Market Research Society of New Zealand (MRSNZ) and the Privacy Act 1993. Findings from the questionnaire will be reported to LINZ in a way that will ensure respondents aren't personally identified.

If you have any questions about the research, please contact either Liam Hickey or Emily Calvert at Research New Zealand on 0800 500 168.

Kerri Osborne

Manager Customers
Land Information New Zealand

Back to News.

SDI: An Introduction

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:47:00 +1300

This is the first in a series of three blog posts introducing what I've been doing with the New Zealand Geospatial Office (NZGO) to start work on a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for New Zealand. First up, in this post I give a brief explanation of what SDI is and how it fits in the current New Zealand context.

For a preface to my involvement with this work, see the announcement made by Adam Cooper in early December about getting SDI underway.

So, what is SDI?

SDI can be thought of as a geospatial extension to the broader Internet. It provides a federated environment in which geospatial users can search for, discover and consume data from a wide range of providers. It is not a single government system. We can create authoritative government and agency portals within the broader SDI; these crystallise some degree of order out of the rather more free-wheeling SDI.

SDI comprises three roles:

users of data
providers of data
catalogues of data.

Looking at experiences in other countries, we can realistically expect SDI in New Zealand to eventually have many thousands of data sets with dozens of catalogues.

In the same way that an agency can't implement 'the Internet' (they can use Internet standards as they build an Intranet), an agency can't implement 'SDI' (they can use SDI standards as they build an Enterprise GIS to create their own subset of SDI).

Why is SDI important for New Zealand?

Geospatial information is increasingly important to the New Zealand economy yet one of the key characteristics of geospatial information is that it's expensive to produce. This tells us that we need to use and re-use this precious resource more efficiently and effectively. This is a key outcome of SDI.

SDI might be easier than we thought...

New Zealand is several years behind other nations in implementing SDI. It appears we have benefited from that delay in that all the standards needed to create SDI are now safely embedded in almost all geospatial technology, whether vendor products or open source. If we had embarked on SDI 10 years ago, the standards were emerging, risky and expensive to implement. Today, the standards are mature, widely accepted and already built into the geospatial products that we're already using.

I hope you find this introduction to SDI useful, whether you consider yourself an SDI expert or more of a novice! My next post will cover a couple of the gains and impacts for an agency wishing to participate in SDI in New Zealand.

What do you think some of the benefits SDI can offer? What do you see as some of the major difficulties of implementing SDI? Do you have any experience or opinions of other SDIs?

Post your thoughts below or contact us.

David Swann

Geospatial Community & New Beginnings

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:34:00 +1300

As I'm writing this, I've just returned from my first viewing of the film Avatar. Beyond the amazing effects and the crafted storytelling that shape this groundbreaking film, I was struck during the closing credits by the sheer number of people who came together as a unit to produce such an innovative and entertaining piece of work.

Many of the people behind the film were of course based here in New Zealand, at Weta in Wellington and other locations. I could sense the pride that passed through the audience as they saw their home town and country displayed prominently as the source of this wonderful movie.

That in turn got me thinking about the state of the New Zealand geospatial industry. Though only here about a month so far, I am already encouraged by the talent, understanding and potential that exist among the geospatial professionals with whom I've had the pleasure to meet. There is a palpable sense, too, that as a group we have turned a corner and are all in some way making a fresh start. It is that potential energy, that feeling we are poised on the brink of accomplishment that inspires me and convinces me we are well positioned to achieve great things and grow our community along the way.

A key element in the development of a community involves a set of common ideas or prospects around which members of that group can rally. The New Zealand Geospatial Office (NZGO) has in its current portfolio a large and varied list of initiatives, projects and partnering opportunities any one of which I would argue pass that test.

We have plenty of core prospects with which to establish a common vision. Foundational work is already underway to establish a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), and to implement a robust set of standards to facilitate the coordinated development of so-called fundamental datasets. We will explore the possibilities of a network of catalogues to share our valuable information, supporting research to help define our aspirational state and promote the establishment of capability building opportunities throughout the education system. Clear benefits for New Zealand's economy can be realised with the implementation of increased geospatial work, as the economic benefits report commissioned in 2009 and referenced elsewhere on this website attests. But beyond those practical advantages, there are equally important benefits for the development of our profession and the maturation of our community.

There are challenges to be sure but they are not new ones, and they are not insurmountable. A refrain I've heard from time to time as I or others in the NZGO talk about the initiatives to expand the application of geospatial approaches and technologies and move things forward, is, "We've tried this before, and it didn't work." While it is important to acknowledge and understand those hesitancies, my answer is also, "No, we have not tried this before." I can make such a statement because many of those with whom I work and with whom I've discussed our plans were not in fact here 'before'. And as anyone who has been involved with successful initiatives will tell you, it is ultimately the people championing those initiatives that make things happen.

Those of us who have the belief that things can improve regardless of what may have occurred in the past or despite the challenges that exist must seize the leadership position and inspire others, with our own passion, to join in. Not because they are mandated but because they are inspired. It will take our example and the convincing of others, perhaps especially those not in the geospatial ranks, to bring our ideas to fruition. In the end it is the passion with which we convey our message, not the numbers or cost-benefit analyses or the technical demos, that will convince those positioned or with the resources to assist us to come along.

Much as the local film industry has become a source of pride for Kiwis, so too can their geospatial profession. As we here in the NZGO and elsewhere take those first steps to move the New Zealand geospatial sector to the next stage of its evolution, I hope you will join us.

Kevin Sweeney

Geospatial Custodian
New Zealand Geospatial Office

Back to News.

Developing New Zealand's Skills & Capacity to use Geospatial Information

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:08:00 +1300

Event Date: 12 February 2010

A lack of skills and capacity is a barrier to New Zealand more fully realising the value of geospatial information.

I have been working to understand the nature of this barrier and to develop options for government to address this barrier. I concluded that:

there is a problem due to a lack of skills and capacity
that there is a role for both government and industry to address the problem
that there are three main areas for government to intervene.

At their last meeting on 3 February 2010, the Geospatial Executive Group agreed to the New Zealand Geospatial Office driving and coordinating action in the following three areas:

Intervention	Example
Influencing labour market strategy	Land Information New Zealand could engage with the Department of Labour, the Ministry of Education and the Spatial Industry Business Association to get the labour market strategy to address the lack of skills and capacity relating to geospatial information Statistics New Zealand could consider including the geospatial industry in the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification. The Classification provides the main framework for gathering information about various industrial sectors. Reviewing the Classification could ensure information about the geospatial industry is gathered on a regular and ongoing basis Land Information New Zealand will publish material outlining options for developing skills and capacity needed to use/develop geospatial information on the New Zealand Geospatial Strategy website. Land Information New Zealand will work with training providers and the Spatial Industry Business Association to gather more information to monitor, inform, and guide the development of courses that are demanded by employers and are critical to the success of the growing geospatial industry.
Improving the skills and capacity of government employees	Land Information New Zealand is working with the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute, a body supporting professionals in the geospatial sector, to assist staff in gaining professional certification. Land Information New Zealand will contribute to pay staff membership of the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute and for professional certification fees. Land Information New Zealand will recognise the achievements of individuals, teams and organisations in the geospatial industry through nominations for the Asia Pacific Spatial Excellence Awards. Land Information New Zealand will become a sustaining partner of the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute. The Department of Conservation and Land Information New Zealand are developing a proposal for a course to give training in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) - initially for Department of Conservation staff but with potential to be used as a basis for similar courses across the wider central and local government sectors. Under enterprise licence agreement with Eagle Technology (providing Land Information New Zealand with GIS software), there is opportunity to provide regular training to users of GIS within Land Information New Zealand.
Supporting emerging initiatives in the education system	Land Information New Zealand is a member of the working group for an initiative being led by Eagle Technology to develop a web-based learning portal to make Geographic Information Systems widely accessible to all primary and secondary schools. Universities of Canterbury, Otago, Victoria and Auckland are developing a shared Master-level programme in Geographic Information Systems, starting in 2011. Land Information New Zealand is actively supporting this initiative and there may be opportunities for other Geospatial Executive Group members to do likewise.

The Geospatial Steering Committee that will be established by March 2010 will have a key role in overseeing these actions.

If you are interested in getting involved or would like to comment - please let me know!

John Forne

Analyst
New Zealand Geospatial Office

Back to News.

Locating Graves is Now a Mouse-click Away

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:19:00 +1300

The Rotorua District Council has launched a new online service that allows people to search by name for an individual cemetery or crematorium record, with results including the exact location of burial.

So far, the council has loaded more than 32,000 individual records from the five public cemeteries it administers (Rotorua, Kauae, Reporoa, Mamaku and Ngakuru), with some records dating as far back as 1882.

Over recent years, council staff have been systematically photographing all headstones in the council's cemeteries and plotting the location of each grave using GPS. Typical search results on the website will reveal a photo of the headstone, the grave's exact location, a map, full name of the deceased, age, and other associated information.

Before going live, the new service was tested by more than 600 active genealogists and other regular users of cemetery records in New Zealand and overseas.

The council's corporate services director, Jean-Paul Gaston said he expected many people to find the new service a valuable enhancement of the council's website. He pointed out that on a national basis, cemetery records on council websites were consistently amongst the most accessed sections of online information.

Not all records are available through the website yet, although the remainder are expected to be completed over the next year. The council also plans to talk to Ngati Whakaue about the inclusion of photographs for graves located within Kauae Cemetery as these are yet to be included online.

This website demonstrates how geospatial information can have multi and varied uses and contributions to society. Putting information like this in a publicly accessible form, such as online, can lead to even further uses yet to be identified. Lets see where this takes us!

See the council's website to view the cemetery and crematorium records.

What do you think of this service? Would you use it? Or how might you develop it further? Let us know what you think...

John Forne

Analyst
New Zeland Geospatial Office

Back to News.

LINZ Chief Executive Talks Geospatial

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:30:00 +1300

Earlier this week, I was interviewed by Kathryn Ryan on Radio New Zealand. It was a good opportunity to spread the word about geospatial information, what it is and the benefits its use can lead to.

We covered some good ground, including the new national map series Land Information New Zealand launched in September last year, and the digital data underlying it; freeing up access to data; and a practical example of increasing productivity - taking geospatial information out on the farm.

It was nice being able to discuss a subject I am passionate about. As I say in the interview, I believe the strength of geospatial information is its ability to link together disparate pieces of information, through a location base. And that it's the availability of data that gives it its real power and provides the most exciting possibilities.

The interview was on the Nine to Noon programme, as part of a series of talks with people in various jobs who also do something interesting on the side. In my case, that's fronting the rock covers band Livewire.

Have a listen to the interview on the Radio New Zealand website.

Colin MacDonald

Chief Executive
Land Information New Zealand

Back to News.

Kevin Sweeney, Geospatial Custodian: On the Job

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:11:00 +1300

I'm happy to announce that I have arrived in Wellington and have assumed my new role as Geospatial Custodian with Land Information New Zealand.

Though only on the job for a week so far, I am already impressed with the dedicated staff here at LINZ and with the scope of active programmes encompassed within the New Zealand Geospatial Office. With so many interesting initiatives in the works, my challenge is really just one of prioritising - not a bad position to be in!

Since my arrival, I've had the opportunity to explore a good portion of this beautiful city and prepare for my family's arrival later this month. And this past weekend Wellington was even kind enough to provide me a firsthand lesson in the realities of its changeable weather!

My thanks to those who have provided comments on this site. Our hope is to make the New Zealand Geospatial Strategy blog an active resource for sharing information, thoughts, and opinions within the entire New Zealand geospatial community and your participation supports that goal.

More news and updates to follow as I get settled in my position, but in the meantime feel free to contact me with any thoughts or questions at: ksweeney@linz.govt.nz. I'm keen to network and hear what is going on in the local geospatial community so your input is most welcome.

Kevin Sweeney

Geospatial Custodian
New Zealand Geospatial Office

Back to News.

Geospatial Technology Assists Haitian Relief Efforts

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:53:00 +1300

Aid organisations have been using geospatial technology to disseminate disaster relief and information following earthquake devastation in Haiti.

Project Ushahidi maps messages sent by people in Haiti using their mobile phones or the internet to inform about structural risks, lack of water and food, aftershocks, and missing persons.

In a large-scale crowdsourcing effort, about 10,000 Haitians have volunteered to translate messages from Creole into English and ask for more information if needed. Other volunteers and experts try to verify the information and put it into the map.

Aid organisations on the ground are using this information to meet specific needs reported by quake survivors.

In an effort to reduce misinformation, the founders of Ushahidi are also working on a verification system to independently confirm that information coming in is corroborated and accurate.

While the map has been useful in making information about the disaster more visible to those inside and outside of the affected area, good access to the internet is not widespread in Haiti. More traditional media, such as radio, is also being used to advertise the map to Haitians without internet access.

Aid organisations are also reliant on other technologies and information streams, such as satellite phones, with the map acting as a valuable data supplement.

For more information on Project Ushahidi and how location information is being conveyed via the internet in Haiti, see the following BBC articles:

Satellite data providers have also responded quickly to aid organisations' need for recent images of Haiti.

Google updated its imagery on 13 January to reflect the devastation. This rapid turn-around was made possible by its new arrangement with GeoEye. Images are available as KML files for Google Earth, and can also be viewed using Google Maps.

DigitalGlobe has also been collecting satellite imagery of the earthquake zone under its Crisis Events Service. DigitalGlobe hope to have 23 collection opportunities over the second half of January, with three satellites in service.

DigitalGlobe is offering the data of Haiti for free until 28 January.

What do you think of the geospatial technology being used to help Haiti? Have I missed anything in this post?

John Forne

Analyst
New Zealand Geospatial Office

Back to News.

Hello from Kevin Sweeney, Geospatial Custodian

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:47:00 +1300

Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) Geospatial Custodian Kevin Sweeney blogs from Atlanta, Georgia, where he's currently packing his belongings ahead of relocation to Wellington in late-January 2010.

The opportunity to put my experience to work and assume a leadership role in the implementation of a national level geospatial strategy represents a dream job for me.

Even from my admittedly limited exposure so far to the activities of LINZ and NZGO, I'm impressed with what has been accomplished and convinced that New Zealand has much to offer the global geospatial community.

I think what is often referred to as the relative 'isolation' of New Zealand represents a unique and affirmative force for the development of a successful geospatial industry.

Within a relatively small community, advancement of initiatives is in fact facilitated.

The development, implementation and marketing of a national geospatial strategy stand as a clear example of the New Zealand advantage.

I think the development of a successful, productive and mutually beneficial partnership between LINZ and the broader New Zealand geospatial community represents a significant challenge, but also opens up a wealth of opportunities for advancing the geospatial strategy.

Public, private and academic/research sectors all maintain unique perspectives on geospatial development and together they can enact outcomes with a profoundly positive impact for New Zealanders.

I see education as a critical component of the success of any initiative as comprehensive as the geospatial strategy.

A constituency aware of, and educated in, the concepts and the value of geospatial solutions for economic growth and many other important issues (such as green development) will be that much more supportive of the strategy's goals.

The focus within LINZ on a collaborative approach to strategic planning and consensus building has been very evident to me, and is in close alignment with what my own experience has taught me is the most productive path to success.

As an outsider, I realise there is greater pressure to prove my worth to those within the tight knit New Zealand geospatial community.

I look forward to establishing positive relationships and hope my experience and background within the geospatial arena of a different country can bring a fresh perspective and move the geospatial strategy forward.

Kevin Sweeney

Back to News.

What do you think of Kevin's post?

Post your comments below.

New Hydrographic Geospatial Standard to be Adopted by New Zealand

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:10:00 +1300

Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) - New Zealand's Hydrographic Office - will be adopting a new active hydrographic geospatial standard for marine data and information. The new standard, IHO S-100, will enable future development of advanced navigation products and services and will also provide the platform for using and integrating official hydrographic data with other geospatial data.

S-100 has been issued by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and will replace the current standard for producing Electronic Navigational Charts (ENCs), IHO S-57. Where S-57 was only focused on ENCs, S-100 is a standard that promotes the usability of hydrographic data across the whole geospatial industry, which fits well with LINZ's strategic direction for geospatial delivery.

The primary goal for S-100 is to be able to support a greater variety of hydrographic related digital data sources, products and customers (eg raster data, 3D and time varying data) - as well as new applications like high-density bathymetry or marine GIS that go beyond the scope of traditional hydrography. Another improvement will be the encapsulation of ENC data where users or data producers can decide what data structure is used for the exchange of ENC data.

S-100 is based on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 19100 series of geographic standards that specify the methods, tools and services for:

data management
acquiring, processing, analyzing, accessing and presenting data
transferring data in digital electronic form between different users, system and locations.

The advantage of developing a standard that is based on ISO 19100 is the compatibility with a range of other ISO geospatial standards. However, alignment with ISO 19100 will require a new structure and a new set of terms used to describe the components.

Adopting S-100 will have a number of benefits:

using ISO-developed components and terminology will help ensure that S100 and future extensions are in the mainstream of the geospatial information industry
new components of S-100 will not be developed in isolation from the rest of the spatial information technology
any new requirements can be incorporated within the established framework of ISO based standards
S-100 will be interoperable with other ISO standards and profiles
S-100 hydrographic data will be available to all, not only hydrographic offices and ECDIS equipment
S-100 will facilitate the ability of Hydrographic Offices to use other sources of geospatial data.

S-100 has now been adopted as an active standard by the IHO. In time all national Hydrographic Offices around the world will use the standard for the production of official products for safety of navigation and it will provide the necessary framework for a Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (MSDI) for New Zealand.

The introduction of S-100 will not have any adverse impact on the production of New Zealand ENC's and ECDIS that rely on the S-57 standard. For the foreseeable future LINZ will continue the production of official ENCs using the S-57 standard.

The timing of LINZ's adoption of S-100 will depend upon the new standard being implemented in the ENC production software, which will occur when work on the new S-101 ENC product specification is complete.

Verena Borsos
Data Analyst (Hydrographic)
Land Information New Zealand

Back to News.

What do you think of Verena's post?

Post your comments below.

David Swann to Help Get SDI Underway

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:22:00 +1300

The New Zealand Geospatial Office (NZGO) welcomes David Swann, who will be working with us over the next few months.

David will be working part time between now and April next year to oversee the first iteration of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) that can act as a catalyst for future SDI developments.

David's work will initially focus on the natural resources sector and aims to build on work already underway within Land Information New Zealand, the Department of Conservation, the Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

In addition, David will develop a roadmap aligning the first iteration of the SDI with other work being undertaken under the New Zealand Geospatial Strategy and as part of LINZ's outcome for federated geospatial information. The roadmap will also set out what needs to be done to develop full national SDI.

David has a strong GIS and management background and has recently been working in the private sector. He and his family have just relocated from Auckland to Wellington.

David's work over these coming months will require a great deal of collaboration and we know he's looking forward to working with a range of people across different organisations.

David can be contacted at dswann@linz.govt.nz.

Adam Cooper
Acting Geospatial Custodian
New Zealand Geospatial Office

Back to News.

What do you think of Adam's post?

Post your comments below.