Geomatics

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A surveyor's shed showing equipment used for geomatics Survey instruments-2.png
A surveyor's shed showing equipment used for geomatics

Geomatics is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as the "discipline concerned with the collection, distribution, storage, analysis, processing, presentation of geographic data or geographic information". [1] Under another definition, it consists of products, services and tools involved in the collection, integration and management of geographic (geospatial) data. [2] Surveying engineering was the widely used name for geomatic(s) engineering in the past. Geomatics was placed by the UNESCO Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems under the branch of technical geography. [3] [4]

Contents

History and etymology

The term was proposed in French ("géomatique") at the end of the 1960s by scientist Bernard Dubuisson to reflect at the time recent changes in the jobs of surveyor and photogrammetrist. [5] The term was first employed in a French Ministry of Public Works memorandum dated 1 June 1971 instituting a "standing committee of geomatics" in the government. [6]

The term was popularised in English by French-Canadian surveyor Michel Paradis in his The little Geodesist that could article, in 1981 and in a keynote address at the centennial congress of the Canadian Institute of Surveying (now known as the Canadian Institute of Geomatics) in April 1982. He claimed that at the end of the 20th century the needs for geographical information would reach a scope without precedent in history and that, in order to address these needs, it was necessary to integrate in a new discipline both the traditional disciplines of land surveying and the new tools and techniques of data capture, manipulation, storage and diffusion. [7]

Geomatics includes the tools and techniques used in land surveying, remote sensing, cartography, geographic information systems (GIS), global navigation satellite systems (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou), photogrammetry, geophysics, geography, and related forms of earth mapping. The term was originally used in Canada but has since been adopted by the International Organization for Standardization, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and many other international authorities, although some (especially in the United States) have shown a preference for the term geospatial technology, [8] which may be defined as synonym of "geospatial information and communications technology". [9]

Although many definitions of geomatics, such as the above, appear to encompass the entire discipline relating to geographic information – including geodesy, geographic information systems, remote sensing, satellite navigation, and cartography –, the term is almost exclusively restricted to the perspective of surveying and engineering toward geographic information.[ citation needed ] Geoinformatics and Geographic information science has been proposed as alternative comprehensive term; however, their popularity is, like geomatics, largely dependent on country. [10]

The related field of hydrogeomatics covers the area associated with surveying work carried out on, above or below the surface of the sea or other areas of water. The older term of hydrographics was considered[ by whom? ] too specific to the preparation of marine charts, and failed to include the broader concept of positioning or measurements in all marine environments. The use of different data processing technologies in hydrography does not change the purpose of its research. [11]

Health geomatics can improve our understanding of the important relationship between location and health, and thus assist us in Public Health tasks like disease prevention, and also in better healthcare service planning. [12]

A growing number of university departments which were once titled "surveying", "survey engineering" or "topographic science" have re-titled themselves using the terms "geomatics" or "geomatics engineering", while others have switched to program titles such as "spatial information technology", and similar names. [13] [14]

The rapid progress and increased visibility of geomatics since the 1990s has been made possible by advances in computer hardware, computer science, and software engineering, as well as by airborne and space observation remote-sensing technologies.

Geomatics engineering

Surveyor using a total station TS by The sea.jpg
Surveyor using a total station

Geomatics engineering is a rapidly developing engineering discipline which focuses on spatial information (i.e. information that has a location). [15] The location is the primary factor used to integrate a very wide range of data for spatial analysis and visualization. Geomatics engineers design, develop, and operate systems for collecting and analyzing spatial information about the land, the oceans, natural resources, and manmade features. [16] [17]

Geomatics engineers apply engineering principles to spatial information and implement relational data structures involving measurement sciences, thus using geomatics and acting as spatial information engineers. Geomatics engineers manage local, regional, national and global spatial data infrastructures. [18] Geomatics engineering also involves aspects of Computer Engineering, Software Engineering and Civil Engineering. [19]

Applications

Application areas include:

Areas of knowledge

Geomatics integrates science and technology from both new and traditional disciplines:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geographic information system</span> System to capture, manage and present geographic data

A geographic information system (GIS) consists of integrated computer hardware and software that store, manage, analyze, edit, output, and visualize geographic data. Much of this often happens within a spatial database, however, this is not essential to meet the definition of a GIS. In a broader sense, one may consider such a system also to include human users and support staff, procedures and workflows, the body of knowledge of relevant concepts and methods, and institutional organizations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geoinformatics</span> Application of information science methods in geography, cartography, and geosciences

Geoinformatics is a scientific field primarily within the domains of Computer Science and technical geography. It focuses on the programming of applications, spatial data structures, and the analysis of objects and space-time phenomena related to the surface and underneath of Earth and other celestial bodies. The field develops software and web services to model and analyse spatial data, serving the needs of geosciences and related scientific and engineering disciplines. The term is often used interchangeably with Geomatics, although the two have distinct focuses; Geomatics emphasizes acquiring spatial knowledge and leveraging information systems, not their development. At least one publication has claimed the discipline is pure computer science outside the realm of geography.

A GIS software program is a computer program to support the use of a geographic information system, providing the ability to create, store, manage, query, analyze, and visualize geographic data, that is, data representing phenomena for which location is important. The GIS software industry encompasses a broad range of commercial and open-source products that provide some or all of these capabilities within various information technology architectures.

Geographic information science or geoinformation science is a scientific discipline at the crossroads of computational science, social science, and natural science that studies geographic information, including how it represents phenomena in the real world, how it represents the way humans understand the world, and how it can be captured, organized, and analyzed. It is a sub-field of geography, specifically part of technical geography. It has applications to both physical geography and human geography, although its techniques can be applied to many other fields of study as well as many different industries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geospatial intelligence</span> Information on military opponents location

In the United States, geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) is intelligence about the human activity on Earth derived from the exploitation and analysis of imagery, signals, or signatures with geospatial information. GEOINT describes, assesses, and visually depicts physical features and geographically referenced activities on the Earth. GEOINT, as defined in US Code, consists of imagery, imagery intelligence (IMINT) and geospatial information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spatial reference system</span> System to specify locations on Earth

A spatial reference system (SRS) or coordinate reference system (CRS) is a framework used to precisely measure locations on the surface of Earth as coordinates. It is thus the application of the abstract mathematics of coordinate systems and analytic geometry to geographic space. A particular SRS specification comprises a choice of Earth ellipsoid, horizontal datum, map projection, origin point, and unit of measure. Thousands of coordinate systems have been specified for use around the world or in specific regions and for various purposes, necessitating transformations between different SRS.

Digital Earth is the name given to a concept by former US vice president Al Gore in 1998, describing a virtual representation of the Earth that is georeferenced and connected to the world's digital knowledge archives.

Geospatial metadata is a type of metadata applicable to geographic data and information. Such objects may be stored in a geographic information system (GIS) or may simply be documents, data-sets, images or other objects, services, or related items that exist in some other native environment but whose features may be appropriate to describe in a (geographic) metadata catalog.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Cartographic Association</span> International organization

The International Cartographic Association (ICA) is an organization formed of national member organizations, to provide a forum for issues and techniques in cartography and geographic information science (GIScience). ICA was founded on June 9, 1959, in Bern, Switzerland. The first General Assembly was held in Paris in 1961. The mission of the International Cartographic Association is to promote the disciplines and professions of cartography and GIScience in an international context. To achieve these aims, the ICA works with national and international governmental and commercial bodies, and with other international scientific societies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faculty of Geodesy, University of Zagreb</span>

The Faculty of Geodesy at the University of Zagreb is the only Croatian institution providing high education in Geomatics engineering and the largest faculty in this domain in southeastern Europe.

Distributed GIS refers to GI Systems that do not have all of the system components in the same physical location. This could be the processing, the database, the rendering or the user interface. It represents a special case of distributed computing, with examples of distributed systems including Internet GIS, Web GIS, and Mobile GIS. Distribution of resources provides corporate and enterprise-based models for GIS. Distributed GIS permits a shared services model, including data fusion based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services. Distributed GIS technology enables modern online mapping systems, Location-based services (LBS), web-based GIS and numerous map-enabled applications. Other applications include transportation, logistics, utilities, farm / agricultural information systems, real-time environmental information systems and the analysis of the movement of people. In terms of data, the concept has been extended to include volunteered geographical information. Distributed processing allows improvements to the performance of spatial analysis through the use of techniques such as parallel processing.

GeoBase is a federal, provincial and territorial government initiative that is overseen by the Canadian Council on Geomatics (CCOG). It is undertaken to ensure the provision of, and access to, a common, up-to-date and maintained base of quality geospatial data for Canada. Through the GeoBase, users with an interest in geomatics have access to quality geospatial information at no cost and with unrestricted use.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are an increasingly important component of business, healthcare, security, government, trade, media, transportation and tourism industries and operations in China. GIS software is playing an increasing role in the way Chinese companies analyze and manage business operations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UNSW School of Surveying and Geospatial Engineering</span>

The UNSW School of Surveying and Geospatial Engineering (SAGE), part of the UNSW Faculty of Engineering, was founded in 1970 and disestablished in 2013.

The Faculty of Geodesy and Land Management is one of the sixteen faculties of University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn and prepares students to work in the following fields: digital photogrammetry and Internet photogrammetry, close range photogrammetry, engineering geodesy, satellite geodesy, higher geodesy, geomatics and spatial information systems, land management, numerical cartography, cadastral survey and common appraisal, mathematics and mathematical statistics, spatial and archeological reconstruction, positioning and navigation systems, remote sensing and photointerpretation, theory of deterministic chaos in dynamic analyses, theory of environment and real estate evaluation. Students of land management are prepared to work in local governments in the fields of real estate management and turnover, spatial planning, property counselling and expertise. Research on application of global satellite navigation systems, improving methods of acquiring, gathering and processing geodetic and satellite data and their use in special information systems as well as optimizing methods of space management are only a few examples of scientific fields of interest of the faculty employees.

Teledyne CARIS, A business unit of Teledyne Digital Imaging, Inc. is a Canadian software company that develops and supports geomatics software for marine and land applications. The company is headquartered in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. CARIS also has offices in the Netherlands, the United States and Australia, and has re-sellers offering sales and support of software products to more than 75 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute</span>

The Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI) is the professional association for surveyors and spatial science workers, including cartography, hydrography, remote sensing, engineering and mining surveying, photogrammetry and spatial information in Australia. The Institute's members are involved in communities of practice such as land administration, land development, natural resource management, forestry, agriculture, defence, marine environment, local government, health, education, transport, tourism, and many more. The institute deals with policy, administration, collection, measurement, analysis, interpretation, portrayal and dissemination of spatially- related land and sea information, together with associated planning, design and management.

Geographic data and information is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth. It is also called geospatial data and information, georeferenced data and information, as well as geodata and geoinformation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ed Parsons</span> Geospatial Technologist & Tech Evangelist

Ed Parsons is a London-based Geospatial Technologist and tech evangelist at Google. He is working to evangelise geospatial data for commercial application and consequently, to improve the usability and efficiency of location based tools at Google. He is credited as being one of the core proponents of Google Street View.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Technical geography</span> Study of using and creating tools to manage spatial information

Technical geography is the branch of geography that involves using, studying, and creating tools to obtain, analyze, interpret, understand, and communicate spatial information.

References

  1. ↑ ISO/TR 19122:2004(en) Geographic information/Geomatics — Qualification and certification of personnel
  2. ↑ "About Us". Applied Geomatics Research Laboratory. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  3. ↑ Haidu, Ionel (2016). "What is Technical Geography – a letter from the editor". Geographia Technica. 11: 1–5. doi: 10.21163/GT_2016.111.01 .
  4. ↑ Sala, Maria (2009). Geography Volume I (1 ed.). Oxford, United Kingdom: EOLSS UNESCO. ISBN   978-1-84826-960-6.
  5. ↑ "ACSG - Association canadienne des sciences géomatiques (Section Champlain) /// Des références utiles en géomatique". acsg-champlain.scg.ulaval.ca. Retrieved 2019-11-04.
  6. ↑ Arrêté du 27 décembre 1994 relatif à la terminologie de la télédétection aérospatiale , retrieved 2019-11-04
  7. ↑ Paradis, Michel (September 1981). "De l'arpentage à la géomatique". Le Géomètre Canadien (in French). 35 (3): 262.
  8. ↑ Boehm, Richard G.; Mohan, Audrey (2010). "Geospatial Technology: Curricular Keystone of Applied Geography". International Journal of Applied Geospatial Research. 1 (1): 26–39. doi:10.4018/jagr.2010071602. ISSN   1947-9654.
  9. ↑ Scholten, H.J.; Velde, R.; van Manen, N. (2009). Geospatial Technology and the Role of Location in Science. GeoJournal Library. Springer Netherlands. p. 1. ISBN   978-90-481-2620-0 . Retrieved 2022-01-28.
  10. ↑ Krawczyk, Artur (2022-11-09). "Proposal of Redefinition of the Terms Geomatics and Geoinformatics on the Basis of Terminological Postulates". ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. 11 (11): 557. Bibcode:2022IJGI...11..557K. doi: 10.3390/ijgi11110557 . ISSN   2220-9964.
  11. ↑ "Invited reply: Hydrography or hydrogeomatics?". Hydro International. 7: 34–37. 1 December 2003. ISSN   1385-4569 – via GITC BV.
  12. ↑ Kamel Boulos, M. N; Roudsari, A. V; Carson, E. R (2001-06-01). "Health Geomatics: An Enabling Suite of Technologies in Health and Healthcare". Journal of Biomedical Informatics. 34 (3): 195–219. doi: 10.1006/jbin.2001.1015 . ISSN   1532-0464.
  13. ↑ "Geomatics engineering & geographic information systems (GIS)". University of Colorado Denver- College of Engineering. University of Colorado Denver. Retrieved October 3, 2021.
  14. ↑ "White Mountains Community College- Spatial Information Technology Transcript Checklist". PDFFiller. Retrieved October 3, 2021.
  15. ↑ Hazelton, N W J (September 2005). "Surveying, Geomatics, and Engineering: A 'Structure' for a Rapidly Evolving Profession". Surveying and Land Information Science. 65 (3): 211–222. ProQuest   202972772.
  16. ↑ "Department of Geomatics Engineering | Kathmandu University". Department of Geomatics Engineering. Retrieved 2023-11-16.
  17. ↑ Lam, Steve Yau-Wah; Yip, Tsz Leung (February 2008). "The role of geomatics engineering in establishing the marine information system for maritime management". Maritime Policy & Management. 35 (1): 53–60. doi:10.1080/03088830701848896. S2CID   154941027.
  18. ↑ Ghosh, Jayanta Kumar; da Silva, Irineu, eds. (2020). Applications of Geomatics in Civil Engineering. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering. Vol. 33. doi:10.1007/978-981-13-7067-0. ISBN   978-981-13-7066-3.[ page needed ]
  19. ↑ "Marshall, Wesley". engineering.ucdenver.edu. Retrieved 2023-11-16.

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