April 03, 2019 -- Open data services developed using official national sources of geospatial information have been demonstrated for the first time at Geospatial World Forum.

Conference delegates received an exclusive preview of the first test services from the Open European Location Services (ELS) Project which is being coordinated by EuroGeographics, the membership association for Europe’s National Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authorities.

The services are being delivered through a customer interface developed by ThinkWhere and include pan-European topographic data (EuroGlobalMap), an open cadastral Index map of property level information and a regional gazetteer of geographical names.

With the exception of the EuroGlobalMap web feature service, which has a separate licence, the services delivered by the Project are licensed under a standard framework. This provides a common basis for licensing, and respects the different national policy, legislative and business models across Europe.

Under the Open ELS licence, users are free to:

• Copy, publish, distribute, re-use and share the Open ELS data
• Adapt the Open ELS data & services
• Exploit the Open ELS data commercially and non-commercially, for example by combining it with other information or inclusion within their own product or service.

“Our members believe there are many benefits for users and for society in having a single access point for harmonised, pan-European, authoritative geospatial information and services created using their data,” says Mick Cory, Secretary General and Executive Director, EuroGeographics.

“The Open ELS Project demonstrates this potential and aims to maximise the benefits and use of authoritative geospatial information by making it easy to find, access and re-use. The test data services unveiled today provide a first step in realising economic and social benefits of high-value geospatial open data from the National Mapping, Cadastral and Land Registration Authorities of Europe.”

“Reports indicate that businesses using geospatial information growing faster than those that do not with demand for geospatial information continuing to grow. By making our members’ geospatial data available to the widest range of users and purposes, we’re supporting the development of open public data as an engine for innovation, growth and transparent governance.”

Open ELS is a two-year project co-financed by the European Union's Connecting Europe Facility. It aims to improve the availability of geospatial information from the public authorities responsible for mapping, cadastre and land registries.