Norway Digital sets example for interoperable SDI

Norway Digital online services in Gaia

Norway digital is the Norwegian government's initiative to build a national geographical infrastructure. Already a working spatial data infrastructure (SDI) Norway digital has partner data available through more than 100 operational web map services, geoportals and other services.

Through Norway digital the public gets free access to a variety of view services provided by government, municipal, county and corporate partners. Partners benefit from access to a broad variety of geographic information including - downloadable datasets, web based services (WMS, WFS, etc), transformation software and services, tools for developing product specifications, access to the portal, participation in the organizational structure and participation in a variety of networks, e.g. technical and thematic.

The Norway digital technology framework is based on Implementing Rules founded on the ISO 191xx-series of standards and OGC specifications - specifically, there's growing interest among the partners to disseminate data as view services based on Web Map Services (WMS).

So where's Norway digital now? The effort formally started 2005 and today more than 10 Norwegian ministries, 20 of their agencies, a number of county agencies in all 18 counties and about 100 municipalities take part. In the future, more and more applications will be developed based on this national geographical infrastructure - but interoperability is no longer a major obstacle thanks to the great example set by by Norway Digital's use of international standards.

- Jeff