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About the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure

An online resource for a wealth of location-based information

The Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) gives decision-makers access to online location-based information that can help them do their jobs better and more efficiently. Often presented in the form of detail-rich digital maps or satellite images, this geographic information enables decision-makers to spot trends… evaluate options… understand trade-offs… avert risks… assess emergencies… and much more.

Four priority areas, four priority audiences

In essence, the CGDI is an easy-to-use, advanced, online information resource that offers valuable benefits to decision-makers in four priority areas. For example,

• public safety decision-makers can use the CGDI to share maps of roads, bridges, electrical grids, water systems, buildings, and the like; these maps equip public safety decision-makers to better plan for and respond to emergencies and disasters;
• the public health community can use the CGDI to share location-based information securely to track pandemics, analyze trends, and monitor population health;
• Aboriginal community decision-makers can use the CGDI to connect people and communities, map the future, and realize opportunities; and
• environment and sustainable development decision-makers can use the CGDI to better manage land and water, assess the environment, and monitor ecosystems.

CGDI Essentials

Click on the following links to get more information about the CGDI:

• Combining current, standards-based data from its source makes the CGDI a potent decision-making ally
• Layering different CGDI data sets expands insights
• Sharing data from its source reduces costs and improves decision making
• Developers and suppliers also benefit from the CGDI

Combining current, standards-based data from its source makes the CGDI a potent decision-making ally

The secret to the CGDI's success is twofold. First, it provides decision-makers with online access to hundreds of location-based databases throughout the country. In essence, the CGDI serves as a one-stop catalogue for a wealth of location-based information. You can search the CGDI by visiting the GeoConnections Discovery Portal.

And second, the CGDI standardizes the way information in many of these databases is stored, accessed, and presented online. These standards are endorsed by GeoConnections—the national partnership program, led by Natural Resources Canada, that promotes the CGDI's use and growth. And these same standards often apply to geospatial data infrastructures run by other countries. Consequently, data from standards-based Canadian and international sources is compatible.

This compatibility is important because it enables decision-makers to create online maps generated from more than one database. Combining different types of data often provides a more revealing and helpful view than producing two or more separate maps.

Layering different CGDI data sets expands insights

Say that you worked for a municipal-planning department and a hog-farm operator had applied to start a new farm in your municipality. Before deciding to grant or deny the farm permit, you'd want to consider several factors:

• the location of the proposed farm
• the location's zoning
• the proximity of neighbouring residential areas and their expansion plans
• the locations of other area hog farms
• the routes of streams and rivers in the vicinity

If this information were available in separate databases that adhered to CGDI data standards, you'd be able to combine all these perspectives into one online map. In effect, you'd “layer” these different data sets on top of one another. One layer would show the proposed farm's location, another the local streams and rivers, another the municipal zoning boundaries, and so on.

Consequently, you'd quickly know whether potential pollution from the proposed farm might threaten drinking-water supplies or whether the farm would interfere with future residential developments or how many hog farms were operating in the area already. Having such an all-encompassing view would make your licensing decision much easier.

This is but one of hundreds of potential applications that the CGDI affords.

All CGDI applications have one thing in common: they improve decision making by helping people better understand their situations, challenges, opportunities—and potential solutions.

Sharing data from its source reduces costs and improves decision making

The CGDI's success depends not only on data owners and custodians adhering to CGDI data standards, but also on them sharing their data with others online. Sharing data directly from the source ensures that users get up-to-date, accurate, and authoritative information quickly and easily.

For example, if an organization that collects, say, air-quality data sends a copy of its database to another organization, as time passes, this copied data will become out of date. That's because the air-quality data provider will often update its database, but these changes will seldom be reflected in the copied database. In that case, the copied database becomes increasingly less useful to decision-makers.

By keeping data “closest to its source” and allowing others to access this data online—key principles of the CGDI—data owners and custodians ensure, however, that everyone always works with the most up-to-date, accurate data. This characteristic lessens the cost and effort of managing data and improves decision making—the CGDI's primary objective.

Developers and suppliers also benefit from the CGDI

Although the CGDI shines as a decision-making resource, it also serves as a vehicle to advance Canada's geomatics technology and expertise, both at home and abroad. Those who develop location-based data applications (developers) or supply data (suppliers) gain from the CGDI.

Developers and suppliers not only help decision-makers in several important areas, but also gain the opportunity to export their technologies, knowledge, and data services abroad. Exporting geomatics technology and expertise creates jobs for Canadians, improves companies' bottom line, and enhances the country's reputation as a worldwide geomatics leader and innovator.