CLGE Newsletter March 2009

The EU-Parliament Vice President, Marek Siewic made a presentation to the CLGE General Assembly (GA) held in Krakow, Poland on 27 – 28 March 2009. In a lively debate Mr Siewic was asked if he thought that the surveying profession and in particular the cadastral surveying profession was understood by enough people in Brussels, he answered very briefly. “No”. He said that when he asked his staff to find some information in the directives on surveying they couldn’t find anything. However he offered to support a Public Hearing for surveyors in Brussels that could enable us to raise our profile. This was a very welcome offer and one that CLGE will take full advantage of.

For more information visit CLGE web site

The seminar will take place in the Norwegian City of Bergen, well known as the capital of the Fjords, on the 29 and 30 April 2009. The seminar will be conducted in English and will concentrate on the importance of property information, with special focus on the boundary. Registration is open until April 1.

Visit the Bergen Seminar official website http://www.theboundary.no/

The Third INSPIRE Conference will take place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 15-19 June 2009, in conjunction with the Eleventh International Conference of the GSDI Association, Building SDI Bridges to Address Global Challenges. and the National conference on Dutch SDI: Results and Challenges.

Find more about the conference on http://www.gsdi.org/gsdi11/index.html

For information about the conference site visit the website of World Trade Center Rotterdam on http://www.wtcrotterdam.nl/index_eng.htm

This year ESRI European User Conference (EUC) will take place in Vilnius, Lithuania – European Capital of Culture 2009, on 14-16 October. The EUC is dedicated to users throughout Europe, giving them the chance to learn about geographic information system (GIS) solutions.

This is a unique opportunity to visit Vilnius and Lithuania which celebrates a one thousand years since the first mention of its name. The Old Town, historical centre of Vilnius is part of UNESCO world heritage, and is one of the largest in Eastern Europe.

Find more about the conference on http://www.esri.com/euc/

Find more about Vilnius on http://www.vilnius-tourism.lt/

The Federal Chamber of Architects and Chartered Engineering Consultants have successfully implemented an electronic document archive in Austria run in their own sphere of sovereignty. The 300 Austrian chartered engineering consultants for surveying are the first to start filling the electronic archive with public documents required for public records of the Land Register.

Rudolf Kolbe reports from Austria. Report published on CLGE web site

On 26 January 2009, Jean-Yves Pirlot, Secretary General of CLGE was appointed President of the Belgian Union of Land Surveyors.

Jean-Yves Pirlot - the President of the Belgian Union of Land Surveyors

By the end of 2008 Lithuania had completed a project “Development of Lithuanian geographical information infrastructure (LGII)” as part of building a National spatial data infrastructure in line with INSPIRE regulations. Spatial data and services from public organization will be available via a national Geoportal which is going live in April 2009. State Enterprise GIS-Centras is responsible for maintaining the national geoportal. National Land Service is a responsible government institution for the transposition of INSPIRE regulations and spatial data policy in Lithuania.

Mindaugas Pažemys reports from Lithuania. Report published on CLGE web site

Geoportal can be accessed by the following link http://www.geoportal.lt

A conference was held last December in Malta having the theme of Location: Exploiting the Benefits. The event was jointly organized by the Malta Association for Geographic Information (MAGI), the Malta Institution of Surveyors (MIoS) and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS Malta). The conference attracted many stakeholders of the local industry and it provided networking, knowledge-sharing and collaboration opportunities to engage and strengthen the surveying and GI industries in Malta.

Michelle Camilleri reports from Malta. Report published on CLGE web site

The biennial GIN-Info Congress this year will take place in Utrecht in the traditional Jaarbeurs (Conference and Trade Centre) where the GIN-Info Congress was held for a number of years. The Congress and Trade Fair will take place on 2-3 December 2009. Congress is organized by the Dutch branch organization Geo-Info in close co-operation with her sister organization Geo Business Netherlands and VNU Exhibitions Europe. GIN Trade Fair in 2007 attracted 64 professional companies and organizations active in the field of geo-informatics. Visitors from abroad are cordially welcome.

Mark R.Wijngaarde reports from the Netherlands. For more information please contact Mark R.Wijngaarde by email: mrwijngaarde@cs.com

In November 2008 the report “Place matters: the Location Strategy for the United Kingdom” was accepted by the UK Government as the direction of travel for location based information in the United Kingdom. The report states: “This Strategy will benefit government, the wider public sector, the private sector and the citizen when accessing, sharing or reusing ‘place-based’ information.”

Rob Mahoney reports from UK. Report published on CLGE web site

Full paper can be accessed http://www.gipanel.org.uk/gipanel/docs/uk-location-strategy.pdf