Transcript Statistical and Spatial Frameworks, Standards and Data Infrastructure Work Session on Statistical Metadata 2013 WP11 Alistair Hamilton [email protected] Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

Statistical and Spatial Frameworks,
Standards and Data Infrastructure
Work Session on Statistical Metadata 2013
WP11
Alistair Hamilton
[email protected]
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
Content
1. Space is big…and getting bigger
2. The emergence of spatial data & metadata
standards
3. Global Geospatial Information Management
(GGIM) Initiative and UNSC Programme Review
4. Toward an international statistical geospatial
framework.
5. A national example from Australia
6. Conclusions, and possible topics for consideration
Space : The universal frontier
• Space and time are the framework within which the mind is
constrained to construct its experience of reality
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Immanuel Kant
Statistics has traditional focused more on time series analysis than spatial
analysis?
• Connecting information with space assists in connecting it with
experienced reality
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Location – experience of place (point)
Experience of movement through (or connection across) space (line)
Spatial extent – experience of domain (polygon)
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Eg neighbourhood, boundaries of countries , service (and sales) regions
Along with official statistics, geospatial information is an indispensable
element in the information system of a democratic society
Relevance of spatial information
• Spatial information
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describes the natural and built environment in which citizens live their lives
and consume goods and services
represents a key dimension when considering equity of access to services and
when measuring efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery .
provides a meaningful point of common reference when "overlaying" and
analysing data from multiple sources
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official statistics, data about infrastructure and services, data from administrative datasets, data
from social media
Explosion over the past decade in availability &
use of spatial information
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If the first big bang created space and time, a second big bang has resulted in
prevalence of spatial information?
• Availability
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GPS (Global Positioning System)
Cellular networks
RFID (Radio-frequency identification)
Automated geocoding for street and IP addresses
• Use
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Google Maps
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Including Navigation and Transit
Google Earth
(Relatively) user friendly & community supported open source geospatial tools
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Including GeoTools and GeoServer
Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI)
• A data infrastructure implementing a framework of geographic
data, metadata, users and tools that are interactively connected
in order to use spatial data in an efficient and flexible way
• Examples
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INSPIRE
16 national examples listed on GGIM website
Standardisation driven by industry needs
• Use of GIS (Geographic Information Systems) became prevalent
within the industry during the 1980s.
• Led to a need to be able to exchange data and metadata between
different GIS.
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Defacto industry standards emerged in the early 1990s (eg shapefiles)
• Rise of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) from 1994
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Currently comprises 475 companies, government agencies and universities
Consensus process to develop publicly available interface standards
Aim is to enable geoprocessing technologies to interoperate, or plug & play
OGC has standardised 50+ specifications,
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Includes GML, KML (used widely by Google), WMS (Web Map Service), WFS (Web Feature Service)
Also includes registry services, catalogue services, access control, semantic web
Focus on metadata
• Standardisation of geographic metadata at the national level
during the 1990s.
• International harmonisation begins in 1999
• ISO 19115 ("Geographic Information - Metadata“) released 2003
• ISO 19139 released 2007 to provide standard XML representation
for metadata that corresponded semantically with ISO 19115
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Some analogies with work to represent GSIM using SDMX and DDI
• Many national and transnational implementations use or profile
the ISO metadata standard(s), eg
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INSPIRE
FGDC
• Covers identification of resources (can be used for cataloguing
traditional library resources), spatial extent (eg bounding box),
temporal extent, data quality etc
Global Geospatial Information Management
(GGIM) initiative
• Arose from UNSC 2010 paper from Brazilian NSI requesting focus
on GGIM
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UNSC recognized the importance of the integration of geographic and
statistical information
• GGIM operates under auspices of the UNSD & UN Cartographic
Section
• In their second meeting, in August 2012, GGIM Committee of
Experts concluded
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One of nine areas for focus in the future was linking geospatial information to
statistics.
A Programme Review by the UNSC would be helpful to support the
development of a Statistical Geospatial Framework in National Statistical
Systems.
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ABS volunteered to assist and to prepare a paper for consideration by the UNSC in 2013.
UNSC Programme Review
• Objectives
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To present a review of current geospatial capabilities and capacity within NSOs
To propose roles for NSOs in geospatial activities, with a particular focus on
integrating statistical and geospatial information
To propose how geospatial activities could be further developed by NSOs
within countries, and understand user needs driving particular geospatial data
developments
To explore how NSOs do, or should be doing, geocoding of their data; and
To explore how to set standards that integrate data between the two
communities.
• Survey of Linking Geospatial Information to Statistics, circulated in
October 2012
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50 questions
53 NSOs responded
Results reported to UNSC, including detailed analysis.
Developing an international statistical geospatial
framework (1)
• Main paper from ABS to UNSC 2013 addressed
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The need for linking socioeconomic information to a location
The current situation (summarising the findings of the survey)
The future information agenda (such as requirements beyond the Millennium
Development Goals and to inform Sustainable Development)
Proposed future directions
Developing an international statistical geospatial
framework (2)
• Recommendations (fundamentals were endorsed by UNSC)
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An international conference be convened to identify and address common issues relating
to linking socioeconomic information to a location, including developing best practice
principles
Linkages between relevant statistical and geospatial organizations be formalized, building
on the efforts of the UN Committee of Experts on GGIM and working with other relevant
international entities, including HLG.
The approach used in Australia through the Statistical Spatial Framework (SSF) be
examined as a possible methodology to guide a common global approach to linking
socioeconomic information to a location.
A group of experts be established at an international level to further the development of
a common approach to linking socioeconomic information to a location.
In developing national statistics plans, countries be encouraged to consider the
possibilities for linking statistical and spatial information, consistent with their
development priorities
As national statistics offices undertake information management infrastructure
transformation activities, consideration be given to adding geospatial capability, including
the geocoding of addresses
Bringing it back home
• HLG Projects for 2013
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Frameworks and Standards for Statistical Modernization Project
Common Statistical Production Architecture Project ("Plug and Play")
• Under “Frameworks and Standards” Work Package 6 is
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provide an initial assessment of the role of geo-spatial standards in the
modernisation of official statistics, including how they may relate to the GSBPM
and the GSIM.
• Examples of possible areas for review
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How should relevant attribute components within unit and dimensional data structures
used in statistics be denoted as geospatial in nature (eg if they contain geographical coordinates or codes for geographic areas) and linked to relevant geospatial metadata (eg
spatial representation information, reference system information)?
Both statistical and geospatial metadata include data quality information. Quality in the
latter case typically refers to precision of spatial positioning. How can we manage the
two types of quality information, making the right information available to the right user?
Both statistical and geospatial metadata support the identification, description and
subsequent discovery of resources. How can they best work together?
Both statistical and geospatial metadata standards refer to the temporal extent of data.
Australian Statistical Spatial Framework (SSF)
Context
Key points
• The concept of location or ‘place’ is now a key driver for the ABS
and other organisations collecting, compiling, analysing and
disseminating socio-economic statistical information
• SSF is aimed at providing a consistent and common spatial
approach for all providers of socio-economic information.
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Using a common approach will greatly simplify the process of linking socioeconomic data sets to help better understand a wide range of complex issues,
improving the ability of government and the community to make more
informed decisions.
SSF is essentially a bridge - a bridge between the statistical and spatial
communities and the systems in which they operate.
• The common element in this bridge is geography. Geography draws the
socio-economic into the spatial community's environment, and makes it
available for use within that environment.
SSF needs to meet ABS, Australian Government and National needs and
support International interoperability.
Expected outcomes
• By standardising the process of integrating a range of socioeconomic information within a location context, the SSF is
expected to enable
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Improved planning for regional economies and communities
Targeted service delivery at the small area level; and
Community level decision making
• In addition, the Framework will support the considerable efforts
currently being made to bring a range of data together to better
understand the causes, impacts and responses at the local level to
national and global concerns such as climate change and
sustainable development
Conclusions
• Spatial data is increasingly prevalent and increasingly used by
governments and the community.
• UNSC and others recognise the importance and value of the
integration of geospatial information and statistics in supporting
social, economic and environmental policy decision-making
• Developing, agreeing and applying statistical spatial frameworks
can facilitate this integration at the national & international levels
• UNSC, UNSD and HLG are committed to taking practical steps to
establish such frameworks
• The expertise and experience of specialists in statistical
information management, including statistical metadata, will
make a vital contribution to defining frameworks which serve as
the "bridge" between the spatial and statistical communities
Possible considerations for METIS participants
• What additional information and/or actions might help them
better to contribute to this work at the national and/or
international level?
• How might contributions from the statistical metadata
community best be progressed?
• What collaboration arrangements would be best across the
statistical metadata community and beyond that community (eg
with geospatial data and metadata experts)?