Building synchronous, unified national geospatial data infrastructure

National geospatial data infrastructure is classified as an important digital resource of the country, social sectors as well as the economy. Especially, in the current period, all levels, branches and localities are developing national plans, regional planning, provincial planning, urban planning, rural planning. All related to spatial database or topographic base map.

The reporter of the Newspaper of Natural Resources and Environment had an interview with Mr. Hoang Ngoc Lam, Director General of the Department of Survey, Map and Geographic Information of Vietnam to better understand the role of national geospatial data infrastructure as well as a number of tasks and solutions to build national geospatial data infrastructure in the coming time. Below is a summary of Mr. Pham Ngoc Lam’s statements:

The important role of national geospatial data infrastructure data:

Geospatial data plays a very important role in all national economies; especially in the period of industrial development 4.0, developing digital programs like today. In the information system, geospatial information also plays a very important role for smart city development, disaster prevention, environmental protection, etc.

Mr. Hoang Ngoc Lam, Director General of the Department of Survey, Map and Spatial Information of Vietnam

Currently, smart cities and smart cities are common trends in the world. In Vietnam, the Prime Minister has approved the Project on sustainable smart city development for the period 2018 – 2025 and orientation to 2030.

To develop a smart city, geospatial information is required. World experience shows that 80% of geospatial data plays a fundamental role in smart urban planning and management, not only for managers but especially for people in the city who know how to use data for their smart cities.

Not only that, geospatial information is also especially important for environmental protection. Currently, Vietnam has major programs on environmental protection. Among them are issues in the application of geospatial data for natural disaster prevention and control; building databases for management on environmental pollution and environmental degradation; building geospatial data systems for forecasting and warning of natural disasters such as floods, sea level rise, forest fire prevention, etc. All of these require geospatial technology and geospatial data.

Invest in building a geospatial data system:

In our country, the Government and state management agencies soon realized the importance and great benefits from geospatial data. Therefore, for many years, Ministries and sectors in general and the Natural Resources and Environment sector in particular have focused on investing in building a geospatial data system to serve the needs of State management, socio-economic development, ensure national defense and security.

Especially, in the period from 2008 to 2012, the Government has paid attention to invest in the Surveying and Cartography industry, in which there are 2 Government projects “Establishing a spatial information base database at scale: 1:10,000 associated with digitized elevation model covering the whole country” and “Establishing spatial information base database at the scale of 1:2,000, 1:5,000 of urban areas, industrial zones, key economic zones”. The products of the projects, including geospatial database and topographical maps at scale 1:2,000, 1:5,000, 1:10,000, have been handed over to provinces and cities across the country.

Up to now, data serving the construction of national geospatial data infrastructure currently has a framework dataset on the system of national geodetic base points, national geodetic networks, national spatial background, all kinds of topographic, border, national administrative maps, aerial photos, remote sensing image data, place data are fully built according to unified data standards.

Application of geospatial information in smart city planning and management

In addition, the large specialized data set on all fields of land, water, sea, forest, underground works, natural disasters, economic administration, urban and rural planning, etc. belonging to responsibilities of ministries, branches and localities has also been formed.

Storing and using the national geospatial data system

Although the datasets of frameworks and specialized data are very large, at present, these data have not been built according to unified data standards, which are not guaranteed to be integrated, shared and used on Vietnam Geospatial information Portal.

On the other hand, most geospatial data has not been updated in a timely manner, so it is not suitable with current reality and lacks synchronization of relevant data. The integration between data types still occurs in contradictions and inconsistencies; The status of data has not been provided or shared for general use but kept separately by agencies and organizations, causing waste and overlap in the construction of spatial data.

In particular, there is no mechanism to encourage organizations and individuals to coordinate and participate in updating, providing and sharing geospatial data to take advantage of human, technological and financial resources of the whole society. Not much attention has been paid to training on spatial information in educational institutions to improve understanding and ability to use these data for jobs serving the purposes of society and raising people ‘s awareness.

Solutions to accelerate the construction of national geospatial data infrastructure

Facing the country’s development requirements, Vietnam’s surveying and cartography industry must continue to develop strongly, speeding up the construction of the national geospatial data infrastructure. Carrying out the tasks assigned by the Government, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) has completed the Draft Strategy for building this infrastructure by 2030, with a vision to 2045.

Accordingly, the Draft Strategy sets a specific goal by 2030, to ensure 100% of geospatial data is connected and shared across the country in service of providing information and public services to organizations and individuals.

With a vision to 2045, it will be needed to develop the national geospatial data infrastructure to ensure the creation, maintenance and enhancement of the value of information, data, surveying and cartographic products, and meeting data requirements of the whole society, serving the tasks of national defense and security, participating in and connecting to the global geospatial data infrastructure network.

To achieve the above goals of building the infrastructure, MONRE has identified synchronous tasks and solutions including: Complete institutions, policies and laws on geodesy and cartography; Develop and complete a system of standards and technical regulations on this infrastructure; Build and update the national spatial database; Strengthen the capacity of technical equipment and technology in updating, managing, exploiting and operating the national spatial database; Build and operate the Vietnam Geospatial Information Portal; Foster human resources to meet the needs of building the national geospatial data infrastructure…

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Design software toolkit for spatial data management, spatial portal
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