Page 2 of 3
Previous | Next

UN Millennium Development Goals:Relevance for Geospatial community

FACING TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT
Technology development is the major driving force in changing the face of the spatial information world. The GPS technologies for measuring have revolutionised the traditional surveying discipline and the high resolution satellite imagery tends to revolutionise the mapping discipline. The database technologies for storage of large data sets and the GIS technologies for data management, analysis and manipulation arguably have had the greatest impact on the spatial information environment. And in the future the communication technologies such as the WWW and the Internet will become the focus of attention for viewing and using spatial data. This technological development is considered further below with a special focus on the Geospatial Reference System.

Goals

• Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
• Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
• Goal 5: Improve maternal health
• Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
• Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

The Geospatial Reference System (GRS) defines how latitudes, longitudes and heights are measured and enables accurate location of features anywhere on earth. Traditionally, a national GRS has been realized through the geodetic network, which involves placement of Permanent Survey Marks and carrying out surveys to generate accurate latitudes, longitudes and heights for those marks.


Fig. 1 A Global Land Management Perspective.

A global trend during the last decade has seen Continuously Operating Reference Stations (CORS) using Global Satellite Navigation Systems (GNSS) technology complementing and/or replacing Permanent Survey Marks as a means of realizing and delivering the GRS. This point at some strategic directions for the development of GRS:

GRS will be more widely used
The growth in the use of Global Satellite Navigation Systems (GNSS) in many applications and increasing requirement for accuracy means that future users of the Geospatial Reference System will be much more diverse than the traditional users in Surveying and Mapping applications. The use of GNSS in asset management applications is also growing. These new classes of users will require new and innovative approaches to the delivery of the Geospatial Reference System.

GRS will be more collaborative
Such a collaborative approach with include more attention to standards development, institutional framework and capacity building issues. This

will require more collaboration with manufacturers, suppliers, users and researchers. There will also be a continued and growing need for intrastate, interstate and international collaboration on standards, best practice and compatible infrastructure.