GIS Technology

The GIS Technology programme focuses on providing and/or developing the technology, including the knowledge behind it, needed for the realization of a Spatial Information Infrastructure (SII). The increased use of geographic information systems introduced new questions also in the field of Geosciences. Complex problems arise as far as geographic data files, quality description of geographic data and the visualisation and query of geographic data are concerned. In fact GIS technology forms a bridge between processing techniques of spatial data and the use of geo-information.

Themes

The programme studies two themes in depth:

• Crisis management, which focuses on building advanced frameworks, developing solutions and testing prototypes that permit knowledge-based use of geoinformation to assist the decision-making process in crisis situations, taking into account the time constraints, communication, network and visualisation limitations. The research is derived from, and therefore shared with, the fundamental technological research on geo-DBMSs.
• Spatial information infrastructure, which focuses on the technological aspects of the realization of a spatial information infrastructure. One important prerequisite here is the establishment of key data sets, such as those containing topographic and land registration information. SII developments are currently on-going at various levels such as the set of authentic registrations in the Netherlands, INSPIRE at European level and the Land Administration Domain Model at global level.