map for the Elephant Family charity. Their annual Elephant Parade highlights the crisis faced by the endangered Asian elephant, and the map showed elephant locations across the city of London on OS Street View. This guide helped visitors locate the 250 large and colourful elephant statues around the capital.
Through increasing the number of people with access to GI, the potential for it to be used to benefit individuals, businesses and Great Britain increase. The announcement was made in August 2010 that public sector organisations in England and Wales will have access to Ordnance Survey mapping data under a single agreement for the first time from April 2011. Local and central Government organisations, as well as NHS® organisations, will now benefit from this new agreement, known as the Public Sector Mapping Agreement (PSMA) for England and Wales. It includes over 750 organisations, with provision for thousands more, and will result in significant cost savings for the public sector and greater data sharing.
The PSMA provides a set of core datasets from Ordnance Survey, including OS MasterMap Topography and Integrated Transport Network Layers as well as almost the complete range of digital mid- to small-scale maps, including OS VectorMap Local. The new PSMA is expected to deliver significant efficiency savings and improvements in public service delivery for the benefit of individuals and businesses in England and Wales. By introducing a new licensing framework, the agreement will enable more collaborative working with delivery partners and allow public-sector organisations to reuse the data for core, non-commercial public- sector activities. It will also enable sharing of the data – and derived data – with other third parties for specific purposes to support delivery of the member’s public- sector activity: for example, contractors, schools, ‘third- sector’ charities and the public. This will open the way for more organisations to produce mapping to benefit the environment.
One key example of GI and the environment is flooding, and Government organisations have already embraced the power of GI in assisting in emergency situations, such as the Cumbria floods. The future aim is to ensure that critical datasets, from geological and tide data to topographic information, can work together allowing a huge range of organisations to benefit. From local Government to insurance companies, being able to access information quickly makes it easier for a rapid response when it is needed the most. This in turn can help with flood modelling and forecasting as well as planning and reconstruction after a flood.
Of course, there are many other environmental challenges we all face where GI can be of use. Over the last three years, Ordnance Survey’s research department has been doing some pioneering work on mapping in 3D. While 3D maps aren’t new, our goal is to create a
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seamless database that incorporates a detailed terrain model of our most accurate mapping data. The pilot 3D map could prove to be a valuable and intelligent resource that can be used by business and Government. The resulting map featured Bournemouth and was created using a combination of aerial and terrestrial LiDar, aerial photography and more traditional surveying techniques. It has the potential to be used for architecture and planning but also identifying roof spaces for solar panels or visualising shadows between buildings and so on.
The power of geography and its relationship with the environment has never been more easily seen. GI is increasingly underpinning environmental policy and we often say, “everything happens somewhere”, to demonstrate the all-encompassing nature of GI. The focus on renewable energy is beginning to further illustrate the benefits of combining GI with the environment, in identifying suitable sites for wind farms for example. Through the PSMA, OS OpenData, OS OpenSpace and GeoVation, GI is being brought to a wider audience and more people are using it to help tackle the environmental challenges we all face. GI can help us deal with a changing world or could help our leaders to make better decisions for our future based on the best available GI.
© Alamy
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