Building SDI Bridges to Address Global Challenges
Rotterdam (NL) - 15/06/09 - 19/06/09
Spatial Data Infrastructure Convergence: Building SDI Bridges to Address Global Challenges
The eleventh Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) World Conference, co-organised by the JRC, is currently underway in Rotterdam, the Netherlands (16-19 June 2009).
Leen Hordijk, Director of the JRC's Institute for Environment and Sustainability (IES), gave a keynote address at the opening of the conference, as part of which the third INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community) Conference is also taking place.
The title of the address was “Building Bridges in support of Local and Global Environmental Challenges”. Dr Hordijk looked in particular at the INSPIRE initiative as a European response to pressing environmental challenges. INSPIRE is an EU Directive launched in 2007. It aims to make available relevant, harmonised and high quality geographic information in support of EU policies with a territorial dimension or impact, thus assisting policy-making that may have a direct or indirect impact on the environment.
Over a thousand participants are attending the conference, which is being held at the World Trade Centre of Rotterdam and has been co-organised by the JRC and a number of partners including the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) association, the Dutch spatial-data infrastructure executive Geonovum, and Space for Geo-Information (RGI).
The ambition of the event GSDI 11 is to bring together parties from around the globe who are leading successful implementation of spatial data infrastructure. It should also help to create partnerships in the resolution of pressing societal problems in areas such as sustainable development, environment, and health.
Spatial Data Infrastructure is a coordinated framework of policies, institutional arrangements, technologies, standards, data and people. Its aim is to enable sharing and effective usage of geographic information.
The GSDI-11 event is an occasion to showcase Europe’s continued commitment to solving global challenges and contributing to the goals of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) of which the European Commission is co-chair.