1. GISCO in 2014 integrating statistical and geospatial information
Atanas Trifonov
Eurostat E4
Regional statistics and
Geographic Information

2. Overview GISCO mandate GEOSTAT Project
Task force on the integration of statistical and geospatial information
Grants - Merging Statistics And Geospatial Information In Member States
UN GGIM and UN GGIM: EUROPE
New datasets
in cooperation with the European Forum for GeoStatistics (EFGS)

3. GISCO Mandate
The Geographical information system at the Commission, abbreviated as GISCO, is a permanent Eurostat service that answers the needs of Eurostat and the European Commission for geographical information at the level of the European Union (EU), its Member States and regions.
…..
GISCO activities consist of the following pillars:
management of the geographical reference database of the Commission;
operation of the spatial data infrastructure of the European Commission;
data processing, mainly for thematic mapping, spatial analysis, and data dissemination;
coordination and relationships with users and producers (Commission, European agencies, statistical offices);
promoting activities to integrate geographical information with thematic information, notably statistical information;
cooperation in initiatives for the establishment of a geographical information infrastructure at the European level (INSPIRE).

4. GEOSTAT Project
GEOSTAT was launched in 2010 by Eurostat and EFGS, to promote grid-based statistics and more generally to work towards the integration of statistical and geospatial information in a common information infrastructure for the EU.
Its aim is to develop common guidelines for the collection and production of spatial- and grid-statistics within the European Statistical System (ESS).

5. GEOSTAT 1
GEOSTAT 1A ( )- population prototype dataset for 2006
GEOSTAT 1B ( ) - first version of a grid dataset for the Census year 2011
GEOSTAT 1C (Q2/2015) – add further national data

6. Population Grid and DEGURBA
UNITED NATIONS ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE
Recommendations For The Next (2020) Censuses Of Population And Housing
Population grid (derived core topic) – draft Art
Degree of urbanisation (derived non-core topic) – draft Art
The Degree of urbanisation (DEGURBA) classification is developed by the OECD and the European Commission; see Directorates General Regional Policy and Urban Development, Agriculture, Eurostat and the Joint Research Centre.

7. Task force on the integration of statistical and geospatial information
Background of the task force
Proposed in a ESS “High Level Forum” meeting in 2012
Scope outlined in the EFGS Prague initiative 2012
Endorsed by the DIMESA and GISCO working group in 2013
Established in November 2013

8. Task force on the integration of statistical and geospatial information
Background of the task force
Proposed in a ESS “High Level Forum” meeting in 2012
Scope outlined in the EFGS Prague initiative 2012
Endorsed by the DIMESA and GISCO working group in 2013
Established in November 2013

9. Task force on the integration of statistical and geospatial information
Mandate of the task force
Opinion of 19th ESSC on the role of the task force: "… develop a strategy for a harmonised approach to geo- referenced statistics within the ESS and to base the round of censuses on registers"
Important link between the GISCO working group, and the ESS actions like GEOSTAT and other grants, and UN-GGIM.

10. Task force on the integration of statistical and geospatial information
Mandate of the task force
Initially 4 to 5 meetings:
Establish a base line of the situation of spatial statistics;
Produce recommendations on key aspects of spatial statistics: products, production process, data sources;
Intensify the cooperation between NSIs and NMCAs;
Design (joint) projects to advance the integration of statistics and geospatial information.
Produce recommendations on priority areas;
Members are AT, BE, FI, PL, PT, SE, UK;

11. Task force on the integration of statistical and geospatial information
Work so far
Inventory of issues of spatial statistics within the ESS, covering topics like legal arrangements, confidentiality management, organisational aspects, production issues, etc.
Now focus on 2 aspects
input geospatial information and output spatial-statistical information products
data protection
Next steps: Report on recommended input- and output topics

12. Task force on the integration of statistical and geospatial information
Preliminary results - Desired inputs
List of 54 geospatial datasets, 20 INSPIRE themes,
point based administrative data of people businesses public services, ….
Preliminary results – Spatial statistics outputs
11 types of statistics, grid statistics, statistics by areas (administrative or functional), various types of mobility statistics, statistics by distances (to services or geographical features), ….
Contact (ESTAT): Ekkehard PETRI,

13. Grants - Merging Statistics And Geospatial Information In Member States
Announced during the ESS “High Level Forum” meeting in 2012
The objectives of the calls in 2012, 2013 were:
Improving the integration geo-information and georeference into the statistical production process
Illustrating how linking geo- and statistical information provides additional value and creates new information
Designing innovative web applications to show the spatial distribution of statistics
The objective of the 2014 call was expanded to cover:
Impact of the survey design and metadata development

14. Number of Beneficiaries
Grants - Commitments
Year
Funds
EURO
Number of Beneficiaries
Beneficiaries
2012
7 MS
EL, HU, MT, NL, PL, SK, UK
2013
AT, BG, DE, FI, HR, IT, SL
2014
8 MS
EE, FR HU, HR, NO,PT, PL, UK

15. Grants - Expected Results
Studies on the spatial distribution of statistical phenomena and the inherited causes;
Projects to derive new statistical data by combining existing data and geographical information;
Improved data management processes whereby geoportals are connected to statistical databases;
Interactive map applications allowing users to delineate output areas for statistics and to illustrate the spatial dimension of statistics;
Projects that involve third party providers of official geoinformation such as mapping agencies are particularly welcome. Also projects using the GEOSTAT population grid dataset as a starting point are in the focus of Eurostat.
The expected results:
 Register or administrative data used for statistical purposes, enhanced with geographic coordinates or linked to other, already georeferenced registers and data repositories;
 Process analysis studies describing which improvements are required to establish a complete update and maintenance process of the georeference of registers and administrative data which are used for statistical purposes, taking into account internal and external stakeholders and processes. This may be done in cooperation with experts from other NSIs;
 Feasibility studies on the integration or linkage of statistical (SDMX) and geographical (INSPIRE) metadata standards;
 Studies on the spatial distribution of statistical phenomena and the inherited causes;
 Projects for the production of national grid data from the census 2011 data, following the GEOSTAT guidelines1 .
 Interactive map applications allowing users to delineate output areas for statistics and to illustrate the spatial dimension of statistics.

16. UN GGIM - United Nations initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management
In 2009, the United Nations Statistics Division/DESA (UNSD) convened an informal consultative meeting with geospatial information experts.
July 2011, ECOSOC adopted a resolution to create the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management
October 2011, the First High Level Forum on Global Geospatial Information Management, and First Session of the United Nations Committee of Experts were held in Seoul, Republic of Korea.
August 2012, Second Session of the Committee of Experts was successfully held in New York.
July 2013, Third Session of the Committee of Experts was held in in Cambridge, the United Kingdom.
August 2014, Fourth Session of the of the Committee of Experts was held following the 2014 Global Forum on the integration of statistical and geospatial information.

17. UN-GGIM EUROPE
Preparations had started in November 2012, with the involvement of Eurostat, recognising the need to involve the statistical offices from the start
UN-GGIM-Europe was established on 1st October 2014, in Chisinau Moldova.
The meeting was co-chaired with Walter Radermacher (Eurostat) and Vanessa Lawrence (Director-General and Chief Executive of Ordnance Survey UK).
EuroGeographics will be tasked with the Secretariat of UN-GGIM: Europe

18. UN-GGIM EUROPE: the future
Executive committee was elected:
Chair of the Executive Committee Mr Bengt Kjellson (SE);
Members Ezio Bussoletti (IT), Peter ter Haar (UK), Pascal Berteaud (FR), and Hans-Jörg Kutterer (DE).
Work plan spanning 2015 – 2017 was adopted.
Two working groups were created to work on the work plan priorities:
Increasing data interoperability and harmonisation by proposing core geospatial data which meet essential user needs;
Enabling integration of core geospatial data with other data in order to foster further usage.

19. New Datasets EU-DEM: Digital Elevation Model
The spatial reference system is geographic, lat/lon with horizontal datum ETRS89, ellipsoid GRS80 and vertical datum EVRS2000 with geoid EGG08. The vertical unit of this DSM is metres. These tiles have then been aggregated into 5°x5° tiles which have been projected to ETRS-LAEA by JRC.

20. Digital Elevation Model (DEM)
The EU-DEM dataset is a realisation of the Copernicus programme, managed by the European Commission, DG Enterprise and Industry.
Temporal coverage: 2000
Geographic accuracy: EU-DEM-4258: 1 arcsec - 5 arcsec, EU-DEM-3035: 25m, Color shaded DEM derived from the EU-DEM-3035: 25m.
Rights: Access to the data is governed by the draft delegated regulation on Copernicus data and information policy, …
Owners: Directorate-General Enterprise and Industry (DG-ENTR), European Commission (EC)
Processors: European Environment Agency (EEA)
Methodology: The EU-DEM is a hybrid product based on SRTM and ASTER GDEM data fused by a weighted averaging approach and it has been generated as a contiguous dataset divided into 1 degree by 1 degree tiles, corresponding to the SRTM naming convention.
Coordinate reference system: EPSG:4258
Data sources: SRTMS (Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) DEM), ASTER GDEM (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission Radiometer-Global Digital Elevation Model version 2 (ASTER GDEM2))
Rights: Access to the data is governed by the draft delegated regulation on Copernicus data and information policy, as approved by the EC on 12th of July 2013, and in the process of decision making by the Council and European Parliament.
The spatial reference system is geographic, lat/lon with horizontal datum ETRS89, ellipsoid GRS80 and vertical datum EVRS2000 with geoid EGG08. These tiles have then been aggregated into 5°x5° tiles which have been projected to ETRS-LAEA by JRC.

21. Digital Elevation Model (DEM)
EU DEM (ETRS1989)
EU DEM Hillshade
EU DEM RMS
EU DEM (LAEA)
EU DEM Aspect
EU DEM Hydrography (ETRS1989)
EU DEM Coloured relief
EU DEM Slope
EU DEM Hydrography (LAEA)
Methodology: The EU-DEM is a hybrid product based on SRTM and ASTER GDEM data fused by a weighted averaging approach and it has been generated as a contiguous dataset divided into 1 degree by 1 degree tiles, corresponding to the SRTM naming convention.
Coordinate reference system: EPSG:4258
Data sources: SRTMS (Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission (SRTM) DEM), ASTER GDEM (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission Radiometer-Global Digital Elevation Model version 2 (ASTER GDEM2))
Rights: Access to the data is governed by the draft delegated regulation on Copernicus data and information policy, as approved by the EC on 12th of July 2013, and in the process of decision making by the Council and European Parliament.
The spatial reference system is geographic, lat/lon with horizontal datum ETRS89, ellipsoid GRS80 and vertical datum EVRS2000 with geoid EGG08. These tiles have then been aggregated into 5°x5° tiles which have been projected to ETRS-LAEA by JRC.

22. GEOSTAT Population Grid

23. Thank you