Look out – here comes UKMap!
UKMap is a brand new, highly detailed and feature rich mapping database. Its convenient design offers users a flexible choice of integrated map layers within a single geographic information source. Based on 1:1,000 scale topographic mapping, UKMap accurately locates buildings, garages, property boundaries, roads, trees and a multitude of other features.

European Satellite NavigationCompetition 2009
The Sixth European Satellite Navigation Competition (ENSC) was launched at the Science Museum in London on 28th April 2009. Attendees heard updates on the Galileo project and details of this year’s competition and special topic prizes.

Remember the database? Now look at the ROI
Although it is by no means the first database to do so, MySQL has finally implemented the Open Geospatial Consortium’s (OGC) spatial standards. This means that serious “heavy lifting” type analysis often considered core to conventional GIS can now be done at the level of the database.

Improving Data Flow at UKHO
The UK Hydrographic Office, responsible for producing critical navigational charts and electronic navigational information to mariners manages large quantities of constantly updated geospatial and bathymetric information. Hazel Vallance and Peter Schwartsberg explain the major project to streamline workflow and data management to ensure up to date, accurate information is available to all seafarers who need it.

Image Integration: A High-Productivity Approach to Managing Digital Photography
Surveyors today employ a variety of ways for documenting their field surveys. measurements and descriptions are recorded in electronic data collectors. Audio recorders can be used to record comments and parol evidence from property owners and other stakeholders. Field books contain sketches and detailed notes.

Watch Your Language
If we as surveyors sometimes find the language of deeds murky, imagine the misunderstandings among laypeople—many attorneys included.

The Unlicensed Land Surveyor
When is locating someone's property corners or boundary lines not considered the practice of land surveying? Unfortunately, this question has become a gray area in the surveying profession, and some licensing boards are seemingly unable to control the actions of unlicensed individuals doing surveying.

GIS Data Integration with the GCDB
In April 2000 by the Western Governors Association adopted the Bureau of Land Management's Geographic Coordinate Database (GCDB) as the preferred representation of the Public Lands Survey System (PLSS) for GIS applications.

Climate Change: Are You Ready?
Is the industry ready for climate change? The climate is changing, whether we are ready or not. The spatial industry, it seems, is not.

The Wisdom of Crowds
Victoria’s Notification and Editing System empowers users and eliminates black holes. The Victorian government launched the first version of the Notification and Editing System in July 2008. NES 1.0 serves up a view of the most current version of VicMap. For the first time, users can work from an identical map base using no more than a standard web browser.

CORS Advances
Networked RTK is no longer a pipe dream in NSW and Victoria. Both the Department of Sustainability and Environment in Melbourne and the Department of Lands in New South Wales are taking steps to move their positioning networks from experimental to production status this year.

Where citizen is the czar
Common man is the ultimate client in a government. While governments in India provide policy guidelines and monitor implementation of services, it is a challenge to create a standardised dataset that meets the demands of various needs...

A coordinate(d) hub
Local authorities in UK have a statutory responsibility to create all addresses. However, those authorities did not hold a unified list of addresses until NLPG rationalised databases across the authority...

Share to Synergise
Sharing land information is not new to Singapore. What started as Land Data Hub (LDH) in 1980s culminated in to LandNet to enable Singapore’s vision of integrated government...

Governing it right
Under National e-Governance Plan, it is mandatory to incorporate latest technologies in government programmes. Here’s how AIILSG is using GIS to improve governance in the purview of ULBs...

Adding 3rd dimension
The advantage of 3D in high definition is its ability to understand a city, its areas, its functioning and its dynamics as they are on the ground. This article talks about the power of 3D interactive in decision-making and in territory governance...

Technology on cross hairs
In the last decade, applications of digital terrain models (DTM) and digital surface models (DSM) have rapidly increased. DTMs are routinely used in engineering applications and environmental studies...

Navigate to reign
Governance, in its simplest sense, refers to how an organisation, including a nation, is run. It includes all the processes, systems and controls that are used to safeguard and grow assets...

Pulling in Wideband
New-generation GNSS signals can be combined to offer the use of dual-frequency techniques for the general public.

Innovation: GPS L5 First Light
Great excitement surrounds the activation of a new transmitter from a satellite — an occasion dubbed first light. We describe the equipment and procedures used to capture and analyze SVN49's signals and give an assessment of their characteristics.

The System: GPS Health in Question
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued on May 7 an alarming report on GPS, characterizing ongoing modernization efforts as shaky. The agency appears to single out the Block IIF program as the weak link between current stability and ensured future capability, calling into doubt “whether the Air Force will be able to acquire new satellites in time to maintain current GPS service without interruption.

Finding a Firm Footing
San Francisco-based Bechtel Corp., a global engineering, construction and project management company, in a joint venture with Jacobs Engineering Group, headquartered in Pasadena, Calif., is designing and constructing PAR’s expansion--the largest U.S. refinery expansion project ever for Bechtel.

Traversing the Law: Florida’s illegal standards
Florida is not alone in this situation. Many of the surveying standards that I have had an opportunity to review, though they may be authorized by law, are against what the law actually says, especially on the subject of boundaries.

From the Ground Up: Capturing the tides
Projects with tidal requirements are now frequent, and the numbers continue to increase each year. The diversity of these projects is considerable, and the demands are often arduous.

BIM: Steppingstone in Disaster Management
Disaster management in urban areas suffers from lack of accurate and real-time information, barriers to sharing of information, and insufficient collaboration. Building Information Modelling is seen as a promising enabler of information interoperability in the built environment, and several areas of disaster management will in the near future benefit from BIM.

GPS Pirates
The Gulf of Aden is currently one of the world's most dangerous shipping routes. Pirates originating from Somalia, or rather that part of the country called Puntland, launch frequent attacks on commercial vessels bound for the Suez Canal or the Indian Ocean.

One Click, One Day, One Map
In the event of a major crisis, accurate and detailed maps are one of the first things called for by organisers of relief operations and coordinate field teams. EXPRESSMaps is a new service which will provide a range of detailed maps at a scale of 1:50,000, within six to twenty-four hours of being requested.

Geospatial technology serving the public
Intergraph web technology helps improve rural economic and social conditions in Bulgaria with support to the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS).

SDI for the Island of LA Palma, Spain
The Spatial Data Infrastructure of the Island of La Palma involves collaboration, training and information dissemination, to provide better services, citizen communication, exploitation of data and wide public participation.

Small islands spatial data infrastructure
Karen Richardson looks at the value of GIS and SDI for small island nations and communities around the globe. The applications are numerous – as are the measurable benefits.

EuroGeoNames – A Prototype Inspire Service
Providing a pilot system to manage and access geographical place names across Europe was the focus of the EU-funded EuroGeoNames project, which completed its pilot work in February this year. A sustainable development effort is now underway, managed by EuroGeographics.

Uganda Wetland Spatial Analysis Aims to Mitigate Poverty
Is poverty reduction related to wetlands management? Perhaps. A new report from the World Resources Institute and partners suggests that better management can aid the entire country. And now, decision makers have something they've not had before: effective maps.

Using Location Technology to Respond to Piracy
The world learned in the Maersk Alabama pirate attack that huge, slow transport ships can be at the mercy of small agile craft with ill intent. Can geospatial technologies help? Are there guidelines in place for tracking such vessels? Can lessons learned from crime on land be applied on the open waters? We tap Blue Sky Network, a company involved in marine, land and air tracking for some answers.

Space Optimization: Operational Efficiencies for Facilities Management
Space optimization is an issue that is on the minds of many large organizations as they struggle to contain and even cut operational costs in the current economic environment. This article by Steven Pierce and Bill Knecht of Johnston McLamb describes a methodology the company is using to help one of the largest enterprises in the country.

GIS for a Changing Health Landscape
URISA hosted its second GIS in Public Health event in Providence, RI in early June, and attendance matched that of the event two years ago, much to everyone's delight. There were visitors from many countries including the Far East and former Soviet republics. Key topics included global infectious disease challenges, sharing public health data and how to develop mapping applications for the health care industry. Adena Schutzberg attended and offers this report.

GPS System, Challenges in Sustaining & Upgrading: Challenges Yes, Panic No
A recent Government Accounting Office (GAO) report on the future of the GPS constellation stated: "It is uncertain whether the Air Force will be able to acquire new satellites in time to maintain current GPS service without interruption. If not, some military operations and some civilian users could be adversely affected. In recent years, the Air Force has struggled to successfully build GPS satellites within cost and schedule goals." In this editorial, SiRF Technology founder Kanwar Chadha offers a more rationale assessment of the situation.

Cadastral System Better Manages Real Estate Parcels in Istanbul
The Istanbul Water and Sewerage Administration (ISKI) provides potable water to a city with a population of more than 11 million. ISKI manages all types of groundwater and surface water resources to provide a domestic potable water supply, which it distributes to demand centers within the city, and conducts studies necessary to design and build new facilities and carry out the maintenance and repairs to existing facilities.

Leveraging Opportunities in Difficult Times: Merging Application Development with Projects
The 2007 Oregon Legislative Assembly passed House Bill 3337 requiring the Cities of Springfield and Eugene to establish separate Urban Growth Boundaries (UGBs) by December 31, 2009. Facing budget cuts, staff reductions and ever-increasing demands for geospatial services, the City of Springfield, Oregon, automated complex procedures while supporting citywide urban analysis, and accomplished the task ahead of time and under budget.

Planning Principles and Design Elements of Multi Modal Transport System in Delhi
Delhi, an emerging global city and capital of the largest democracy, is in processing of developing state of the art transport infrastructure. It needs coordinated and integrated approach amongst several agencies involved with urban services and development along with a participatory planning process at local level.

Environmental Due Diligence: A New Perspective - Old Problem
Determining where potentially contaminated land is can be tricky as the source of contamination may no longer exist. It is well accepted that most contamination arises from past land use and only a reliable and consistent historical record of the land use is of any value for investigations.