Astrium, in partnership with IGN France International (IGN-FI), recently finished deploying a complete IT infrastructure comprising topographic and thematic map production lines built around a host structure designed to enable sharing and compilation of a broad spectrum of geospatial data.
In addition to precise, detailed mapping, this new infrastructure will also allow Serbian operators to generate multi-theme data sets vital to enhance land planning, improve farming practices and natural resource monitoring, and gain more insight into biodiversity. In crisis situations like fires and floods, RGA can now request urgent acquisition of satellite imagery and its operators have been trained by this project to generate damage assessment maps in support of relief and reconstruction efforts.
Astrium and IGN-FI teams have been working together for more than a year to provide this NSDI for RGA. The new infrastructure will enable RGA to produce 1:25 000 topographic maps and thematic maps for agriculture, hydrology, environment and hazard management applications. All maps and databases created comply with the EU’s INSPIRE directive and will be shared by national institutes working in these areas via a Web portal developed by the project.
Astrium and IGN-FI’s experts have trained some 60 operators at RGA who today use the Pixel FactoryTM system for orthorectification of vast volumes of raw data and countrywide orthomosaic production, GeoView software to map relief using satellite and aerial imagery, and OVERLANDTM software to generate thematic maps covering such applications as water, vegetation and soil types.
The project, which will be completed in 18 months’ time at the end of the current on-site technical support phase, gives Serbia an NSDI that will serve its ambition to accede to the European Union and to implement and comply with Brussels’ requirements regarding national land planning. The national mapping centre was officially opened in Belgrade on 21 March by Oliver Dulic, the Minister for the Environment and Transport (RGA’s overseeing ministry), and France’s Ambassador in Serbia François-Xavier Deniau, who both paid tribute to this French-Serbian collaboration that is a natural extension of the strategic partnership agreement signed by Presidents Sarkozy and Tadic last year.
