Available, Accessible & Shared Geospatial Information: Championing The New Zealand Geospatial Strategy

LINZ will lead and facilitate the implementation of the New Zealand Geospatial Strategy through:

Strengthening governance arrangements...

The New Zealand Geospatial Office (NZGO) sits within LINZ and is the coordinating body for implementing the Strategy. The NZGO works with a wide range of agencies to communicate and coordinate geospatial activities across sectors.

To galvanise the actions needed to implement the strategy, the NZGO maintains committee structures that provide executive level support, direction, oversight, communication and resources.

...facilitating the development of a New Zealand spatial data infrastructure...

We aim to influence other agencies by demonstrating the efficiencies they will gain from participating in the Strategy. This involves promoting and facilitating a spatial data infrastructure (SDI)²⁶ as the overall framework for focusing on business outcomes, such as productivity gains, for agencies that take part.

Compared to the past when it proved a barrier, technology can now help provide a bottom-up approach for delivering an SDI. This means that rather than needing to be centrally controlled, an SDI can occur more naturally by building on work that has already been done, and by agencies agreeing to common standards. To support that natural development, we need to communicate a compelling business rationale and implementation guidelines to agencies.

To do so we will:

• communicate the vision for an SDI, with an emphasis on business outcomes
• communicate the relevant standards and ensure they are clearly maintained in e-GIF²⁷
• show stakeholders how to participate in the SDI as contributors and users, and support them as needed, and
• assess whether any legislative development is needed to support spatial data infrastructure.

...identifying efficiencies in data management...

As agencies apply a more standardised approach to publishing spatial information through the SDI, we will support their work by helping them to understand the range of datasets available and encouraging rationalisation of overlapping data sets.

Where data gaps are identified, we will work collaboratively to identify how to fill these gaps. We will also help government agencies to identify how they can work together to acquire data in a more efficient way.

...coordinating research and capability building initiatives

We will also work with geospatial industry leaders, academia and the economic development sector to address capability issues and position the private sector for growth. This includes establishing a strong presence in New Zealand for the Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information (CRCSI).

CRCSI, based in Australia, brings together more than 100 organisations from government, the private sector and universities in an eight-year joint venture. LINZ joined CRCSI in June 2009 with the aim of fostering greater cooperation between New Zealand and Australian organisations involved in leading-edge spatial information tools and technologies.

...and raising awareness and managing our own data...

To further support the implementation of the Strategy, we will communicate widely to raise awareness about the role and value of geospatial information, and to promote its efficient use across government.

LINZ will also support the Strategy by ensuring good-practice approaches for managing our own data and for making it accessible. Our initiative for doing so comes under the outcome of Authoritative land information.²⁸

...which will result in...

Our work in this area will result in a more coordinated approach to the management of New Zealand’s geospatial resources, and help to reduce barriers currently limiting the contribution the geospatial sector makes to the economy.²⁹

Geospatial datasets will be easier to discover, access, combine and re-use for multiple purposes. This improvement in data management practices will in turn enable more effective and efficient use of geospatial data, promoting flow-on effects that benefit communities, our economy and the environment.

As data accessibility improves, the organisations that provide data will shift their focus from data provision measures to data quality and currency. Organisations providing high-quality, readily available and current geospatial data will be rewarded as they see their value to the geospatial community (and through it, to the New Zealand economy) as a whole increase.

A more collaborative approach among the geospatial community, along with improving access to data and information management practices, will foster an environment of innovation and a focus on successful solutions, with the potential to benefit many parts of the New Zealand economy.

26 A spatial data infrastructure is a framework of spatial data, metadata, users and tools that are interactively connected in order to use spatial data in an efficient and flexible way.

27 The e-GIF is a collection of policies and standards endorsed for New Zealand government information technology systems to enable interoperability.

28 For more information see Authoritative land information.

29 For more information about these barriers, see the report, Spatial Information in the New Zealand Economy (August 2009).