What is the value of open geographic data?
Fecha de la noticia: 07-05-2024
Geographic data allow us to learn about the world around us. From locating optimal travel routes to monitoring natural ecosystems, from urban planning and development to emergency management, geographic data has great potential to drive development and efficiency in multiple economic and social areas. They are therefore considered high-value datasets by the European Commission, and have a specific obligations to make their publication accessible and interoperable.
In order to understand the real impact of this type of data, several reports and studies have been carried out. The following are several of them, which address the challenge of measuring the impact of geographic information.
Geospatial data in the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility. Impact of information co-produced by IGN and CNIG (2024)
- You can read the full report here.
This report, produced by ASEDIE and CNIG, aims to draw conclusions about the use and perception of the services co-produced by National Geographic Institute (IGN) and National Centre for Geographic Information (CNIG) in order to understand the benefit they bring to the daily activity of the companies that use them and to society. For this purpose, a survey was carried out among companies using geospatial data, thanks to which a classification of companies reusing geographic data could be drawn up.
Of the 170 companies considered, 70.0% are self-employed and micro-enterprises (less than 10 employees). These companies are mainly located in the Community of Madrid (25.6%), Catalonia (16.3%), Andalusia (14%), Valencia (11.6%) and Castilla y León (11.6%). 53.3% claim to reuse data from Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) and 51% open data from INE, among others. The most used products are orthophotos and satellite images (74%), followed by vector maps and cartographic and topographic databases (63%), and LiDAR (58%).
In terms of economic impact, the report estimates an average impact of 35.7% on the sales of the companies surveyed. Specifically, open geographic information from the IGN and CNIG account for an impact of 12.4% of sales.
The report also includes the analysis of collected use cases, as well as in-depth interviews with companies in the sector as examples of best practices and, on the other hand, updates the information from Asedie's annual report on the Data Economy in its 2023 infomediary scope with respect to the economic data of the geographic subsector.
Economic benefits of the SDI central node by CNIG and University of Leuven (2021)
- You can read the full report here.
This document develops and tests a methodology for estimating the economic benefits generated by the Spanish Spatial Data Infrastructure (IDEE), which establishes the publication and accessibility of spatial data through free geographic web services for viewing and downloading produced by cartographic, environmental, cadastral and land observation organisations at national, regional and local level since 2004, in accordance with norms, standards and recommendations that guarantee their interoperability.
The study was to answer the question of what would happen if the NSDI were to disappear. For the study, only the central node of the NSDIE was considered, understanding as such the geographic services and data co-produced among the partners of the National Cartographic System, and focusing on web map services (WMS) and map tiles (WMTS). The nodes of ministries, autonomous communities and local entities were not part of its scope.
Two investigation paths were used to carry out the calculation:
- Comparison with the costs of using Google Maps. The application of the different scenarios led to a profit/value of the 6 WMTS and 13 WMS of minimum 355,646 and maximum 891,144 euros.
- Comparison with other countries' charges for the use of their data and services. Despite the difficulties in calculating the rate per application, due to the existence of different approaches in each country, the total value of the FDIE was estimated at between 34,000 and 14 million euros.
This report joins others produced by the NSDI, such as these documents to estimate the average cost of metadata generation or the implementation of visualisation and download services for Inspire-compliant datasets, both carried out in 2019.
In order to allow other organisations to adapt the study to their particularities, an Excel file has been created, as a calculator, with the following calculation template.
ICEARAGON and ARAGEA Performance Report by the Government of Aragon (2024)
- You can read the full report here.
Regional governments are also interested in knowing the impact of their geographic information services. This is the case of the Government of Aragon, which recently presented a report on the performance of the Spatial Knowledge Infrastructure of Aragon (ICEARAGON) and the Active Geodesy Network of Aragon (AREAGA).
In total, these services are estimated to have saved almost two million euros for all Aragonese citizens by 2023. According to the report, ICEARAGÓN received almost 5 million visits in 2023, an increase of 58.6% over 2022. These users made 1.7 million downloads. Most of the information downloaded (47.8%) refers to environmental layers. Information on administrative boundaries (13.8%) and maps of Aragon (13.4%) were also very successful. Regarding the user profile, 71% are from the surveying field and 27% belong to the agricultural sector.
These reports serve as a basis for the work of the European Commission on a regular basis, compiling progress in the different areas of INSPIRE implementation. As a result of this work, annual reports are generated for each country, including a section on costs and benefits.
All this work on measuring and estimating benefits highlights the economic value of providing geographic data and services to society. As a result, new products and services can be created that boost the economy of the whole country and provide benefits to all its citizens.
