Geospatial Data

From Exchange Network Wiki

Geospatial Data
Geospatial data are data that identify, depict, or describe the geographic locations, boundaries, or characteristics of the Earth’s inhabitants or its natural or human-constructed features. Geospatial data include geographic coordinates (e.g., latitude and longitude) that identify a specific location on the Earth; data that are linked to geographic locations or have a geospatial component (e.g., socio-economic data, land use records and analyses, land surveys, homeland security information, and environmental analyses). Geospatial data may be obtained using a variety of approaches and technologies, including things such as surveys, satellite remote sensing, Global Position System (GPS) hand-held devices, and airborne imagery and detection devices. The Exchange Network has agreed that the OGC standards of GEO RSS and GML are the preferred ways of exchanging geospatial data. Both of these encode geospatial data in XML similar to environmental data. [1]