Geomatics 2.0 for New Brunswick - In Support of a Spectrum (Green Included) of Decisions
(Robin Steeves and Dave Finley, Land Information Infrastructure Secretariat, Service New Brunswick)
This paper reports on progress with the development of a New Brunswick "Spatial Data Infrastructure" (NB SDI).
The term "spatial data infrastructure" is widely used to denote the standards, policies, data, technologies
(hardware and software), and organizational arrangements that facilitate the availability of, effective access to,
and use of spatial data and services. The NB SDI will provide a basis for spatial data discovery, evaluation, and
use for many users and providers within all levels of government, industry, non-profit organizations, academia,
and by citizens in general. This infrastructure is being developed cooperatively and collaboratively by provincial
government agencies. It is based on open development principles and as such leverages input from all
stakeholders and will support the seamless integration of various types of spatial data, including environmental,
hydrological, agricultural, topographical, and many others. The SDI is being built on "Web 2.0" and other
technologies, and will greatly improve the availability, accessibility, reliability, and usability of a wide spectrum of
data and services in support of many types of decisions. Support for data analysis across the various layers of
spatially-related data is being built in to the SDI from the start, and new standards are being developed to meet
modern requirements for data integration and manipulation.
