The challenge

Geographic data represents a wealth of information for reaching optimum public decisions. In order to make policy choices and policy tasks concerning defense, spatial planning, nature management and so on as efficient as possible, the government of Wallonia has a clear aim in mind: fully exploiting the government’s geodata. Achieving this necessitates a highly detailed strategic framework.

The solution

In order to draft the Geomatics Strategy Plan for Wallonia, GIM consulted various sources of information:

• International geomatics studies,
• Strategy Plans of other regions (including the UK, Switzerland, Brussels and Flanders),
• Existing geo-analyses about InfraSIG (Wallonia’s geographic information structure), portals for spatial data infrastructures (SDI), municipal GIS, etc.

The result

GIM defined four pillars for the Walloon Geomatics Strategy Plan. An overview:

• Informing citizens and organizations about the advantages of geomatics,
• Producing high-quality geographic data and developing a reference base for geodata,
• Efficiently organizing the sharing of geographic data,
• Preparing a policy model for geomatics in Wallonia.

Furthermore, we supplied a comprehensive strategic study. In addition to the geomatization of our society and the advantages of geomatics for authorities and society, open data structures and the transition from GIS to SDI are also given a chance.