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Resources & Tools
GeoBase poised to blanket Canada
Don’t blink or you might miss it—the speed of GeoBase’s growth that is.
GeoBase is a collection of current, accurate geospatial data about Canada—roadways, administrative boundaries, and other geographic characteristics. Geographic information systems (GIS) specialists use this framework data to build applications that support sustainable resource development, public safety and emergency response, and environmental protection, to name but a few priority issues.
This GeoBase data is divided into six categories or themes:
- Administrative Boundaries
- Canadian Digital Elevation Data
- Canadian Geodetic Network (precise positioning points)
- Geographical Names of Canada
- Landsat 7 Orthoimages and Control Points (satellite images that have been treated to remove the effects of the Earth’s curvature, a process akin to flattening a globe into a map)
- National Road Network
The first four themes have covered Canada completely since November 2003, and the latter two themes soon will follow. For instance, last November, the National Road Network covered only 40 percent of Canada. Now it covers 85 per cent—a hefty 113 percent increase in coverage capacity in just one year. And the remaining 15 per cent will be completed by March 31, 2005.
What will completing the National Road Network mean? It means that GeoBase will deliver accurate, consistent, and up-to-date information about every highway, thoroughfare, street, boulevard, crescent, avenue, and cul-de-sac in the country. That’s gold for GIS developers who want to build applications with global positioning system (GPS)- or web-based applications that rely on roadway data.
Consequently, a trucking firm could tap into the National Road Network to plot the most efficient routes for its drivers, saving gas, time, and wear and tear on trucks. Or a rural fire department could use the resource to respond faster to fires. When shaving even two minutes off a response time can save a life, the National Road Network promises to become a valuable asset to emergency response organizations throughout the country.
Six-layer integration
You may be familiar with a certain delicious seven-layer dip: a combination of refried beans, avocado, sour cream, tomatoes, green onions, olives, and cheese. Some of those ingredients are tasty on their own, but blending them together produces a dipping delight. This same approach applies equally well in the GeoBase world.
By combining the six Geobase data layers or subsets thereof, application developers can enrich the value of the layers’ information. For example, because all of the layers fit together, one could lay road network data over a Landsat 7 orthoimage and garnish it with geographical names. The result? A satellite image of a particular area complete with roadways and town names—a perspective far more valuable than any one data layer would offer alone.
About Geobase
Hosted and operated by Natural Resources Canada, the Geobase portal and data were developed with the financial and in-kind resources of federal, provincial, and territorial agencies. It delivers on the framework data commitments of the GeoConnections initiative, which is also a key contributor to the GeoBase effort.
For more information about GeoBase, please visit www.geobase.ca. (Sorry, no seven-layer dip recipes included.)