About Norway Digital - Norge digitalt

Norway Digital - the national geographical infrastructure

Norway Digital is the Norwegian government's initiative to build the national geographical infrastructure. Norway Digital is already a working co-operation and infrastucture with reference data and thematic data available, more than 100 operational web map services, geoportal and other services. Thus Norway Digital is an existing implementation of the infrastructure described by the the European Inspire-directive.

Norway Digital is a nation-wide program for co-operation on establishment, maintenance and distribution of digital geographic data. The aim is to enhance the availability and use of quality geographic information among a broad range of users, primarily in the public sector. A broad representation of Norwegian public bodies are preparing to participate, at national level ministries and their directorates, at local and regional level all Norwegian municipalities and different regional public bodies. The cooperation is based on the white paper from the Norwegian government; Stortingsmelding nr. 30 (2002-2003) "Norway Digital – a joint fundament for value-adding". The formal start of the Norway Digital co-operation programme was 1.1.2005.

All institutions participating in Norway Digital will bring own data into the infrastructure making it available to the other partners. The geographical data is divided in two main categories, reference data and thematic data. Norway Digital will treat both kinds of data. Reference data include topographical data, hydrography, roads and other infrastructure, land use, buildings and cadstral information, elevation and bathymetry, orthophotos. There will be a joint funding of reference data through Norway Digital, based on the Geovekst model. Thematic data include a broad range of information produced by national institutions and municipalities and the local level. The themes cover aspects such as demography, risks and risk management, protected sites, biodiversity and nature values, pollution, fisheries, geology, mineral resources, agricultural and forest resources, cultural heritage and outdoor recreation facilities.

The dissemination of information is based on new technologies for Internet distribution. There is a rapidly growing interest among the partners to disseminate data as web map services (WMS). Downloadable data are available on standard formats. Metadata is delivered together with the data. A national portal is giving information about the present status of the available data and web map services. The technologies used are based on international standards (ISO and OGC).

Important elements in the Norway Digital is cooperation and standardisation, and the two initiatives Arealis and Geovekst have been included in Norway Digital. The basic concept of Geovekst is pooling money for jointly executed projects for establishing, improving and maintaining large scale digital geographic data. A general agreement on the Geovekst programme includes all the major national services and more than 420 municipalities. Arealis was a national program initiated by the Norwegian Ministry of Environment. The main objective of the project was to make environmental data and land use information available at national, regional and local level. One of the important elements in Arealis was cooperation. More than 10 Norwegian ministries, 20 of their agencies, a number of county agencies in all 18 counties and about 100 municipalities took part in Arealis. The Norwegian Mapping Authority undertook the co-ordinating role both on national and regional level. The projects were based on an agreed set of standard rules and manuals, which facilitated the exchange and sharing across administrative boundaries.

Large effort has been made in working out specifications of several geographic and thematic data sets. The specifications have been developed based on the principles of the national de facto standard for geographic information (SOSI). The Arealis and Geovekst specifications are now a part of the standard. These important agreed documents, together with other specifications and harmonised systems on cartography, metadata, joint distribution systems and internet web map services, will be actively used in the development of Norway Digital - the Norwegian government's new initiative to build the national geographical infrastructure.