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THE BIG STORY: AGRICULTURE
The Geo-Green Revolution | P. 28
REGIONAL FOCUS
LatAm Calling | P. 64
TRIMBLE
SEPTEMBER 2013
VOL 04
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WORLD
GEOSPATIAL
Y O U R G E O S P A T I A L I N D U S T R Y M A G A Z I N E
A GPS company until 1999, Trimble dared to re-defne itself,
pursued a much wider range of technologies to cater to chosen
vertical markets and over a period of just 14 years became
agnostic relative to technology, all the while being central to the
change it wanted to see in global geospatial industry P. 22
Transforming
the World
TM
6 Geospatial World | April 2013
Shaping the Future of the Geospatial Industry On the Go
2013 Intergraph Corporation. All rights reserved. Intergraph is part of Hexagon.
Intergraph and the Intergraph logo are registered trademarks of Intergraph
Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and in other countries.
GETCONNECTED
Mobile Geospatial Solutions for a Smarter City
Intergraph
Geotechnology is
responsible for the
initial information
needed to analyse
the feasibility
of a project. A
country that needs
development shall
provide accurate
geographic
information
to enable new
investments
Mauricio Aveiro,
President, Orbisat
Its better if
we pursue the
development of
an SDI as our
main objective, to
support the use of
spatial information
in the context
of sustainable
development
Santiago Borrero,
General Secretary, IPGH
Special Feature | Latin America
67 Geospatial World | September 2013
build the land administration system for better urban plan-
ning. Tese include archaic property identifcation systems,
inappropriate policies, lack of technical knowhow and inad-
equate capacities.
In Mexico, the government is working on a $1.7-million
Programme for Modernisation and Linking Property Public
Records and Cadastre. Te Congress is also discussing a law
that addresses the issue of public real estate records and
municipal land registers to provide the basis for generat-
ing a detailed and transparent digital list of properties.
Proponents agree that such a law, if enacted, will have a
far-reaching impact on public fnances, particularly in the
collection of taxes, ensuring legal certainties, attracting
investments and fghting crime. It has the same impact of
structural reform without being one, notes Manuel Nunez
Velasco, Economic Adviser to the Mexican Senate.
Brazil has a mature cadastre system. Te National
Institute for Agrarian Colonisation (INCRA) is responsible
for maintaining rural property records. Te Land Manage-
ment System (SIGEF) receives information in an automated
form. Until mid 2012, an average of 20 certifed property
registrations were issued per day, which has risen up to 140.
SIGEF is an electronic tool designed to welcome, validate,
organise and provide georeferenced data of rural proper-
ties. Te challenge now is to ofer a service that not only
keeps the record, but also plans for the future, says Carlos
Guedes, president of INCRA.
Another project, the Rural Environmental Cadastre
(CAR), involves the use of high-resolution satellite im-
ages to mark the perimeter of the farms across the country
and their online registration. A total of $28.9 million was
invested in 2012 for acquiring high-resolution satellite
images of up to 5-metre resolution for the entire country,
which is used as a basis for CAR. It was the largest acquisi-
tion of satellite images from Brazil and one of the largest
in the world, provides for the registration of more than 5
million farms, and when implemented will be the largest
programme of carbon sequestration on the planet, empha-
sises George Porto Ferreira, Coordinator of Environmental
Monitoring at IBAMA, the Brazilian agency to combat
deforestation.
Venezuelas National Land Programme is almost to-
wards the end of its frst phase and has consolidated much
of the target areas in the form of cartographic, geodetic, ca-
dastral and collateral impact of social actions. Te next step
is to establish a period of review and analysis of the results,
procedures and strategies adopted during the initial phase
to perform the necessary adjustments based on
past lessons.
B
razil will invest around 4% of its GDP, totalling $250 billion, over the period
of ve years, in infrastructural development for 2014 World Cup and 2016
Olympics Games. The Ministry of Sports, Brazil has already spent around $14
billion to upgrade the public resources for the upcoming grand events. The invest-
ment is scattered over 51 projects across 12 cities which will host the games.
Out of these, 35 are infrastructure projects for transportation and urban mobility.
According to the government, this expenditure is within the overall budget for the
World Cup. It is estimated that around $22 billion of $17 billion will be invested
in the city of Rio de Janeiro alone for the major sporting events. The organisers
of both the games explain that the government investments are planned mainly
for the countrys infrastructure, urban mobility, stadiums, airports, transporta-
tion and communications, among other areas directly connected to the events.
Private investments are more concentrated towards the tourism sector, especially
construction of new hotels.
According to a study by Ita Unibanco, on the economic benets realised
with the help of these major sporting events, a positive impact of 1.5% to the
GDP of Brazil is predicted in the next three years, with the creation of at least
250,000 direct jobs in various sectors. The direct impact of investments in
infrastructure, both by government and the private sector, is adding 1% to
the GDP. Preparations for the World Cup is giving a multiplier effect to the
economy, says Ilan Goldfajn, President, Itau bank.
Astrium is providing satellite images of the construction and renovation works
being carried out at various stadiums in Brazil, in an initiative of its own.
The population needs to monitor the management of these resources. The
government buys some images to monitor the progress of work being done but
do not have a regular supply. The great demand is still to come, says Pierre
Duquesne, President, Astrium company.
Besides infrastructure, 14 Command and Control Centres will be set up (two
national and 12 in the World Cup host cities). These centres will offer modern
technology solutions like air imaging devices and observation decks providing real
time updates. After the events, these centres will be linked to support technological
and telecommunication integration to police, which is highlighted as one of the
most important legacy that will be left for the country.
Brazil on a roll with mega sporting events
68 Geospatial World | September 2013
Infrastructure
Latin America has a long way to go in terms of
putting in world class infrastructure. Accord-
ing to a report, Designing the infrastructure in
Latin America: the Next Five Years, by CG/LA
Infrastructure, 2.1% of Latin Americas GDP
is invested in infrastructure, which means an
investment of $511 billion by 2015. Tis is just
enough to operate and maintain the old matrix.
Tere must be an investment of $185 billion a
year to meet current infrastructure demand. Te
biggest demand in 2015 will be transportation,
mainly highways (40% of investments), followed
by the generation and transmission of energy
(25%) and telecommunications. Also, Te Five
Powerful Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and
Chile represent 70% of total infrastructure
investments in the region.
Geotechnologies are generally funda-
mental to all phases of infrastructure, i.e., it
is present in diferent forms in preliminary
and feasibility studies, execution, overseeing,
monitoring and fnally during operation.
Agriculture
Agriculture is the backbone of the regions
economy. Several initiatives in this sphere
demonstrate the advances geospatial technol-
ogy has made in this sector.
In Brazil agribusiness is vital, accounting
for around 25% of the GDP. Te Territorial
Management unit of the Brazilian Agricultural
Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) has a mis-
sion to propose, coordinate and implement
services of territorial management of agricul-
ture at strategic levels, and develop technolo-
gies and innovative solutions. Brazil has in fact
been a pioneer in the use of various advanced
technologies in agriculture.
Tis is also underlined by the fact that in
the last 10 years, more than a hundred small
to medium industries involved in developing
and marketing precision agriculture products
have come up in neighbouring Argentina. Te
machines are exported especially to Brazil, and
to developed countries like the US.
Te future of agriculture and livestock lies
in the accuracy of the process and that requires
programming and control, says Mario Braga-
chini, Coordinator, Network of Precision Agri-
culture Project and Machines Accurate National
Institute of Agricultural Technology (INTA).
Other successful examples are the pro-
jects coordinated by Mexicos Secretariat of
Agriculture, Livestock, Rural Development,
Fisheries and Food to promote research plans
for increased productivity in agriculture. Te
priority lines of research focus on improving the
quality of seeds and plants to make them more
resistant to climatic, pests and diseases. In April,
the Secretariat signed a $4.2-millon agreement
with 32 states to activate projects for agriculture,
livestock, fsheries and productive assets.
In Chile, the SDI project of the Ministry of
Agriculture arises from the need to have a uni-
fed system that allows access to all geospatial
information from government institutions.
One of the fundamental principles of the IDE
is interoperability. Te project is currently
in its second version and operates a portal
wherein users can access the geo-catalogue
from the ministry, news, miscellaneous docu-
ments and display of maps. Eugenio Gonza-
lez, President, Centre for Natural Resource
Information (CIREN) emphasises, We have a
very important work to kind of evangelise
about the use of these technologies at the
public level. We have been working very hard
to demonstrate to the world of agriculture that
this is such an essential tool.
Mining
Latin America and the Caribbean together has
around 65% of the worlds lithium reserves,
42% of silver, 38% of copper, 33% of tin, 21% of
iron, 18% of bauxite and 14% nickel. Accord-
ing to a report by the Economic Commission
for Latin America and the Carribean (ECLAC),
the four UNASUR countries (Argentina, Brazil,
Chile and Peru) account for 62% of the region-
al investments in mining exploration for 2010.
Adding Mexico takes this fgure up at 84%. In
2011, Brazil, Chile and Peru were among the
top 10 countries in terms of attracting mining
investments (36% of the worlds total), up from
26% in 2000.
Te current focus in Brazil is to discuss
a new regulatory framework to expand and
Brazils Land
Management System
is an electronic
tool designed
to welcome,
validate, organise
and provide
georeferenced data
of rural properties.
The challenge now
is to offer a service
that not only keeps
the record, but also
plans for the future
Carlos Guedes,
President, INCRA
We have to
maximise the
economic, social
and environmental
impacts from the
use of geospatial
information,
starting from
the knowledge
and exchange of
experiences and
technologies in
different countries,
based on common
standards
Luis Fortes,
President, CP-IDEA
Special Feature | Latin America
69 Geospatial World | September 2013
strengthen the participation of mining in the
national economy. Mining contributes 23.5%
to Brazils total exports. Another highlight is
the creation of a new regulatory organisation
to implement a new management model,
regulate mining activity, mitigate market
imperfections, among others.
Similarly in Peru, mining comprises around
30% of the national budget and provides jobs
to about 10 million citizens. Peru is working at
reducing the time taken to issue new mining
exploration licences. Te licences took be-
tween 300 and 500 days, but with the new rules
this will come down to less than 200 days. Tis
will help us deliver faster permits for explora-
tion in Latin America, says Peruvian Minister
of Mines and Energy, Jorge Merino Tafur.
Te mining sector is driven by data and ad-
vanced technologies. From exploration to pro-
duction to transportation, an integrated dataset
and a wide array of technologies is imperative
in all the stages. Also, as more and more mines
opt for automation for better productivity
and safety, geospatial technology has almost
become a backbone of the sector. Te demand
for such services has been growing with rising
awareness about this technology, says Marcelo
Moraes, Technical Manager of Globalgeo, a
Brazilian company that sells satellite images
and geo-based software and services.
After the infamous incident in 2010 when
33 miners were trapped underground for
over two months in Chiles San Jose mine, the
government made the use of GPS mandatory
in all mines besides investing in technologies
to ensure safety. Technologies like LiDAR are
important from the safety aspect as it allows us
to look at the operations area without anybody
physically entering unsafe zones, notes Rod-
rigo Soto, Business Director of Fugro Geospatial
Service, one of the pioneers in the use of LiDAR
technology in Chile.
The geospatial
industry focuses only
on the public sector.
The participation
of the private sector
is still very limited
as companies that
operate in the space
segment are highly
dependent on public
sector
Antonio Machado de Silva,
President, AMSKepler
Though geospatial
technology has
been accepted
well in a wide
range of sectors, it
is still unknown
and unexplored in
many others. The
governments must
progress to the next
level of using this
technology to solve
business problems
rather than using it
only for mapping
Juan Enrique Silva,
Director Commercial,
Esri Chile
Special Feature | Latin America
71 Geospatial World | September 2013
emphasising that free data requires a mix of
government leadership, policies and technology.
Te OGC also sees interoperability as a big issue.
In Brazil, INPE provides free satellite images
of Sino-Brazilian Satellites (China-Brazil Earth
Resources Satellite) CBERS 1 and CBERS 2, in a
friendly tool display on its portal. But in Mexico,
enterprises identify the availability and cost
of satellite images as one of the barriers to the
development of the geospatial industry in the
country. Te creation of the Mexico Reception
Station Constellation Spot in 2003 reduced costs
but the sector is still missing the vital push.
Tere are two challenges: reducing the cost
of satellite images and educating the decision-
makers about the use of geo-technologies, says
Esteban Garcia Dobarganes Bueno, Director of
Geotecx, a Mexican consulting group.
Lack of trained manpower is another grave
concern and IBAMAs Ferreira feels the onus is
on the geospoatial industry, free software com-
munity and universities to focus on capacity
building. Geoinformation is becoming part
of our everyday life. We need more human re-
sources for the sectors growth, he says.
Tere is a clear need for greater investments
in training, quality programmes and the dis-
semination of good practices to implement suc-
cessful projects and thereby generate a virtuous
circle that ensures that this technology is used
not only by the top strata of the powers that be,
but also the masses. But the good news is that
in the private sector, geotechnology is migrating
from being under spending header to invest-
ment header of companies and government
departments. Tis is very good and it means
that there is great growth potential, signs of
Machado e Silva, from AMSKepler.
Renata Dias Rodrigues, Asst Regional Product
Manager, Latin America, Geospatial Media &
Communications, renata@geospatialmedia.net
72 Geospatial World | September 2013
P
ublic and private sector organ-
isations across the globe follow
OGCs guidance while planning
and procuring technology. Tese
organisations have a strong interest
in complying with OGC standards to
maximise the value of their technology
investments.
Innovation in standards is vital.
Terefore OGC standards working
groups review all requests for changes
in existing standards. Change requests
are usually submitted by developers
who have gained experience in im-
plementing the standards. Sometimes
change requests or requests for new
standards come from domains that
were previously not represented by the
OGC, such as modelling and simula-
tion, smart cities and carbon ofsetting.
Requests also crop up due to emerging
technology trends that change the
playing feld for technology users and
providers.
OGC baseline compatibility
or big tent?
Te OGC baseline consists of the ap-
proved OGC Abstract Specifcation and
OGC standards as well as OGC Best
Practices documents and related ISO
TC 211 standards.
Te OGC Abstract Specifcation
provides the basic concepts that form
the basis of the organisations stan-
dards. Most OGC standards are com-
patible with the OGC Baseline and its
implementation standards. Sometimes
specifcations are introduced that
enable OGC to standardise on existing
technology that has been developed
outside (such as KML, WaterML and
the Augmented Reality Markup Lan-
guage). Eforts are made to harmonise
these externally developed standards
with the OGC Baseline.
Compatibility across the base-
line is a key OGC strength, but this is
frequently a topic of debate among the
Consortium members. Some favour
the big tent approach under which
any spatial interface or encoding stan-
dard that plays a prominent role in the
market might be introduced for adop-
tion in the OGC as an open standard.
Maintaining stable
standards in a
changing market
Beat
Rapidly changing markets are increasing the demand for
revised and new standards. By particpating in the standard
development process, stakeholders can steer this change
Emerging
technologies
Externally developed
interface & encoding
specications
User suggestions
Requirement of
new domains
73 Geospatial World | September 2013
Tis maximises the opportunities for
eventually harmonising those standards
with the baseline. Te challenge is to
balance the diversity of specifcations,
which expands the OGCs scope of
infuence, with compatibility, which
ensures interoperability among systems
that implement OGC standards.
Market domains proliferate
Te OGC serves many market domains.
National Spatial Data Infrastruc-
tures (NSDIs) make up an important
megadomain in which a national
regime of specifc technical standards
and policy imperatives underpin wide-
spread sharing and reuse of geospa-
tial data and services. NSDIs support
domains such as emergency response,
planning, disaster management and
business geographics. Compatibility
between NSDIs supports regional and
global cooperation.
Te OGC staf analyses market
domains to support membership
development, as illustrated in the OGC
home page http://www.opengeospatial.
org/. On the left side is a list of geospa-
tial market domains, such as aviation,
business intelligence and defence and
intelligence. By clicking on a market
domain one can see a Web version of
the domain business plan. Each of these
domain pages provides an overview
of the domain and how the OGC is
addressing its needs.
As spatial information gets embed-
ded in the activities of more market
domains and the systems become more
interconnected, issues of interopera-
bility and data sharing become more
important.
Also, challenges to baseline purity
arise as new domains and new domain
relationships give rise to requirements
for new and revised standards, new con-
nections with non-OGC (and non-spa-
tial) standards, and new favors of
existing standards.
Technology trends destabilise
standards
Geospatial technology is implemented
with broader information technologies
such as databases, search engines,
imaging technologies and sensors. Ad-
vances in these underlying technologies
may beneft geospatial applications and
create opportunities for new geospatial
applications, but those advances also
may make some standards obsolete.
Vendors of geospatial software and
services must constantly race to adapt
to technology trends and to innovate
ahead of their competitors. Te playing
feld changes constantly. For example,
OGC standards have contributed to
wider availability of of outdoor loca-
tion-based information, and this is
driving demand for indoor location
applications, which make more stan-
dards work necessary. Inexpensive big
processing (access to massive server
resources in the cloud), the embed-
ding of microprocessor sensors into
nearly every device, commercial use of
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the
miniaturization of LiDAR systems of
these developments drive innovation
in geospatial software and services
markets and increase the pressure on
OGC members to revise and expand the
OGC baseline.
Te only remedy
At present, there is an active and
broad-ranging discussion going on
within the consortium about the evo-
lution of the OGC Baseline. Weighing
and debating the benefts and risks
of change, the members are proceed-
ing carefully. On one hand, any hasty
decision by the OGC can jeopardise the
prior investments made by technology
providers and users. On the other hand,
failing to adapt to change can result in
obsolete standards, and this, too, can
jeopardize those investments.
Tere will be a change and there will
be growth in the number of standards.
By participating in the standards pro-
cess stakeholders can steer this change,
meet the growing need for mainte-
nance, compliance testing and docu-
mentation, and get the earliest possible
understanding of what the change will
mean for their organisations.
George Percivall, Chief Engineer
Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)
A screenshot of OGC Website giving a list of geospatial market domains
O
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September 16-19
URISAs 51st Annual Conference
for GIS Professionals
Rhode Island, US
http://www.urisa.org/gispro2013
September 24-26
Asia Geospatial Forum 2013
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
http://www.asiageospatialforum.
org/
September 24-25
5th International
LADM Workshop
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
www.isoladm.org
September 17-18
Geospatial Defence &
Intelligence Asia 2013
Singapore
http://www.geospatialdefenceasia.
com/Default.aspx?MAC=GSW
October 30
2013 Blue Marble
User Conference
US
http://www.bluemarblegeo.com/
bmuc/index.php
October 28-31
The year in infrastructure
2013 conference
London, UK
http://goo.gl/U9FUPY
October 22-25
Symposium on GNSS 2013
Istanbul, Turkey
http://www.isgnss2013.org/
October 1-3
Conference on Earth
from Space
Russia
http://www.conference.scanex.ru/
index.php/en/
Mark Your Calender
Events
N
o
v
e
m
b
e
r
November 18-22
Pacifc Islands GIS/RS User
Conference
Suva, Fiji Islands
www.picgisrs.appspot.com/
November 5-7
Geo-Services International
Conference
Quebec, Canada
www.geoservices2013.com/en
November 4-8
GSDI World Conference 2013
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
www.gsdi.org/gsdiconf/gsdi14/
6 Geospatial World | April 2013
Data courtesy City of Quebec
10248_Ad_Bentley_Map_7.75x10.25-EN_0713.indd 1 7/29/2013 11:11:36 AM
6 Geospatial World | April 2013