Authoritative Geospatial Data and Digital Twins - Denmark in 3D
In the last year, with the threat of Covid-19, it has become clear data plays an integral role in decision making. Data was already a big part of our lives, and has become ever more so with charts being published daily and data driving important decisions on restrictions to our everyday life. It is clear that the location or Geospatial element of data is important, to use a popular phrase “everything happens somewhere”.
When using data for important decisions, data is often described as Authoritative Data. Authoritative Data is not to be mistaken for “important data” or the “well known data”, it has a specific definition: “Data provided by or on behalf of a public body (authority) which has an official mandate to provide and sustain it, that is based on a set of criteria to ensure (inter alia) known data quality, and that is required to be used or aimed towards extensive use and re-use within the public sector and society as a whole.” (Crompovets et al. 2019).
Authoritative Geospatial data has seen a rise in use during 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The use of authoritative Geospatial data provided Governments with the spatial context to make life-critical, evidence-based decisions. The impact of the decisions made using authoritative data highlights the need for the data to be trusted and to be of good quality. At 1Spatial’s Smarter Data Smarter World Conference back in November 2020, Adam Burke from Natural Resources Wales summarised this well stating “any decision made in the absence of good data is basically just a guess”.
To cope with this greater demand for good quality Geospatial data, and increasing demands on budgets, producers of authoritative Geospatial data are having to implement innovative ways in which to make their Geospatial data available. Increasingly across the world we are seeing data being published on geoportals with automated data workflows in place to streamline the production, whilst ensuring the data is trusted and re-used.
During Tech UK’s Geospatial Data Campaign Week we are delighted to be presenting with SDFE a project looking to develop a production line for good quality authoritative 3D data for the whole of Denmark.
In an increasingly Data Driven world, decision makers are relying on Geospatial data to manage, simulate various scenarios and support evidence based decision making. Digital Twins are taking this decision making process to the next level of detail by creating digital equivalents of our built world in order to get a true understanding of the potential impact of decisions made. Digital Twins are reliant on a good quality 3D dataset as their backbone that is complete, current and accurate.
In Denmark, an efficient, digital public sector relies on relevant, open, free and standardised Geospatial data about Denmark and its citizens. “Denmark in 3D” is an innovative project looking to build a process where a 3D building dataset for the whole of Denmark can be created from the existing open data, and maintained to serve as that backbone for a future Digital Twin. The process is designed to ensure rapid updates to datasets as new buildings are built (or demolished), and any updates are run through a 3D validation rules engine to ensure they meet the specification for good quality data.
In a world that is becoming ever more digital and data driven, authoritative data is going to be used ever more frequently. The emphasis on location and the quality of that data is vital for important life saving decisions, such as those mentioned in 2020.
You can read more insights from techUK's #GeospatialFuture campaign here!
Laura Foster
Laura is techUK’s Head of Programme for Technology and Innovation.
