Description
The Government of Canada will make more high-quality, authoritative, and useable geospatial data available in open formats to support better services to Canadians.
- Lead department:
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Natural Resources Canada
- Email address for enquiries:
- Other involved actors:
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n/a
- Overall status:
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Most deliverables on schedule.
Planned result
You’ll be able to find and use high-quality maps.
Key indicator
| Indicator | Target | Latest actual data (and data collection date) |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage of user satisfaction of the open maps service offering measured through dataset offering, user contributed map gallery, and web map application functionality | 70% by June 2018 | Not available (June 2018) |
| Increase access to satellite imagery collections through an open licence | Increase satellite imagery collections from 3 to 4 by June 2018 |
The original 3 Canada-wide collections were:
Three new collections were added (for a total of 6 collections), each one derived from a distinct type of remotely sensed data. The LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) elevation and flood polygons collections are continually updated as new information is gathered by our data contributors or in response to flooding events in Canada:
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Status
Status of Open Government Plan milestones (complete, substantial, limited, not started)
Substantial:
- 13.1 Improve access to open geospatial data through the expansion of open maps:
- 13.1.1 Increase the number of federal geospatial datasets available through a single window enabling Canadians to more easily find relevant geospatial data that can be mapped and visualized
- Geospatial datasets accessible through Open maps increased by more than 350 to 778 as of May 29, 2018. Data has been contributed by 14 departments and agencies, up from 8
- 13.1.2 Provide access to satellite imagery through an open licence
- A new collection of high-resolution elevation data derived from LIDAR. The High Resolution Digital Elevation Model (HRDEM) product is part of the CanElevation Series created in support to the National Elevation Strategy implemented by NRCan.
- Released the Canadian component of the Arctic DEM, in cooperation with the Polar Geospatial Center of the University of Minnesota.
- Released Flood extent polygons representing current year floods throughout Canada as monitored by Natural Resources Canada to support emergency response efforts in the affected areas
- 13.1.3 Work with researchers, data enthusiasts, and developers who use geospatial data to share their work through the open maps gallery
- Mapping applications, for desktop and mobile users, were developed to show case the application of open licensed geospatial data to various policy priorities (see links in section 13.3). These applications were to be featured through a gallery found on the Open Maps section of the Open Government Portal. The work to develop a map galley will not be completed in time for June 2018 due to unanticipated delays arising from work to secure departmental data APIs that were available through the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). This work was required to ensure the continued operation of the current Open Maps web mapping application when using geospatial data from departmental data APIs.
- 13.1.1 Increase the number of federal geospatial datasets available through a single window enabling Canadians to more easily find relevant geospatial data that can be mapped and visualized
- 13.2 Develop geospatial data and web service standards:
- 13.2.1 Increase the quality and standardization of critical geospatial data assets through strategic investments
- 13.2.2 Implement a management and investment framework for high value federal geospatial data assets
- NRCan transitioned the Federal Geospatial Platform (FGP) project to operational status with 11 partner departments
- NRCan led FGP Initiative obtained agreement from partner departments to assess and review the quality of data web services and work collectively to invest in data quality improvements as part of the FGP Concept of Operations
- Worked with the Open Geospatial Consortium Quality of Service Experience group to produce a Discussion paper (OGC QoSE). The report was approved by OGC Technical Committee vote. Development of the Discussion Paper was led by NRCan/FGP and is based on the web service quality assessment framework developed in 2017.
- Completed a data quality assessment on a sample of 30 datasets and associated web services found on Open Maps. Next phase will evaluate all FGP high value datasets
- Developed Standard Operating Procedures relating to the Federal Geospatial Data Asset Management Plan (FG-DAMP) developed with the FGP interdepartmental Data Work Committee (DWC)
- Worked with Provinces and Territories from October 2017 to April 2018, in collaboration with the Canadian Council on Geomatics (CCOG) members, and obtained agreement to exchange data and include Provincial and Territorial geospatial metadata and services through Open Maps.
- Completed data and metadata Inventory for 8 provinces and territories (BC, AB, SK, MB, ON, QC, NU and NL)
- The FGP initiative successfully developed a Geo-Community Cloud Architecture and installed the core components (ArcGIS Server, Portal, Image Server, GeoAnalytics Server) in the Azure Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud in collaboration with NRCan’s Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the Shared Services Canada cloud brokerage service.
- Use of cloud computing environments has altered the security requirements for some FGP applications and highlighted the need to streamline and modernize the way web content is deployed on Open Maps.
- NRCan successfully demonstrated the ability to automatically extract geographic features from high-resolution satellite imagery using a deep-learning algorithm deployed in a high-performance computing environment. The work is intended to support flood risks analysis through the location of buildings in flood prone areas. The project demonstrated the performance of the system and provided recommendations applicable to the application of deep-learning feature extraction on a national scale.
- 13.2.3 Participate in geospatial standards bodies to ensure that Canada’s data continues to be accessible and interoperable nationally and internationally.
- Led the Maps for HTML Community Group which seeks to establish at least one hypermedia type which can be considered to be consumed by a (new) "map" element for HTML. This is intended to lower the technological knowledge required for people wishing to add dynamic map content to their own web pages.
- Developed MapML submission to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Spatial Data on the Web Interest Group plenary meeting.
- Participated in the Open Geospatial Consortium Testbed-13 resulting in a MapML Engineering Report suggesting web client technology improvements and solutions to data visualization portrayal challenges to cope with limited bandwidth situations.
- Participated in the Open Geospatial Consortium Quality of Service Experience and released a discussion paper that was approved by OGC Technical Committee vote.
- Successfully collaborated with Statistics Canada in implementing pilot approaches for visualizing socio-economic data by holding regular governance meetings, piloting the dissemination of census data on FGP via web services, preparing a joint presentation for the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management (UNGGIM) Europe on stats-geospatial standards harmonization, and collaborating on the development of visualizations of Sustainable Development Goal indicators.
- 13.3 Develop Geospatial Applications:
- 13.3.1 Build mobile applications to disseminate key information to Canadians in an interactive format, which makes complex and large amounts of information easy to understand;
- 13.3.2 Provide targeted applications, which use open geospatial data to address the policy priorities of government; and
- 13.3.3 Provide the ability for Canadians to share data they collect through standardized tools.
- Examples of data visualizations and applications developed to address policy priorities:
- Marine Spatial data Infrastructure group on ArcGIS Online (AGOL)
- AAFC Featured Maps and Applications on AGOL
- NRCan “targeted apps”
- Deployed MapML services supporting three map projections
- A new version of FGP Data Extraction tool released providing a simplified interface for people wishing to download Canada’s geospatial framework data.
- FGP Web Map Viewer Authoring tool has been deployed in order to simplify the development of targeted mapping application using the FGP web map viewer application deployed on Open Maps
Other completed milestones:
- Participate on an ongoing basis in the following geospatial standards bodies to ensure that Canada’s data continues to be accessible and interoperable nationally and internationally:
- US Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) ISO Forum
- Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)
- United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM)
- World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
Challenges
- Shared governance of the various Federal Geospatial Platform web presences has made it difficult to move forward with a coherent and modern web design.
- There is still a need to effect the culture change necessary to increase the uptake of geography and geospatial data within the policy and science communities