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Geospatial Metadata

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Springer Handbook of Geographic Information

Part of the book series: Springer Handbooks ((SHB))

Abstract

The concepts behind metadata have been around since the beginning of human communication, describing and recording what is known about objects/phenomena. This and the ability to communicate in detail – to interoperate – is what allowed humans to become the dominate species on Earth. Metadata is a primary interoperability enabler, providing information that is not apparent in the object itself: how old is it, when did it come into being, how was it made, where did it come from? Although the concept has been around a long time, the term metadata came about during the information technology (IT) age. Metadata is used to describe data about data or more broadly any information technology resource – data, services, knowledge stores, or other information types.

Geospatial metadata refers to IT resources which relate spatially to the Earth. It provides information which allows resources to be discovered by interested parties searching for resources, evaluated, accessed, and understood, enabling proper utilization. Metadata serves geospatial information IT resources throughout their lifecycle. It is both used and collected during the resource creation process. It is used to inform others of its availability and provide information to potential users as to the resourceʼs pedigree and ensure it is fit for purpose. When employing resources and creating new knowledge, the metadata is used to back up the decisions made and help validate what was accomplished.

To truly enable interoperability, metadata must be widely understood. Users need to understand what metadata needs to be produced and what should be available to understand a resource. The metadata must be understandable by anyone using it, no matter their language or cultural differences. This is what makes standardized metadata so powerful and important. To this end, many national geospatial metadata standards exist today as well as international metadata standards to promote global interoperability.

This chapter provides an introduction and background for metadata, defining the types of metadata and describing its uses. It also introduces national and international standards related to geospatial metadata and looks into the future of geospatial metadata and the advent of the semantic web.

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Abbreviations

CAD:

computer aided design

CEN:

Comité Européen de Normalisation

CSDGM:

Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata

DIGEST:

Digital Geographic Information Exchange Standard

DLG:

Digital Line Graph

DTM:

digital terrain model

FGDC:

US Federal Geographic Data Committee

GIS:

Geographic Information System

GML:

Geography Markup Language

GNSS:

Global Navigation Satellite System

HTML:

Hypertext Markup Language

INSPIRE:

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community

IS:

Implementation Specification

IS:

International Standard

ISO:

International Organization for Standardization

IT:

information technology

LIDAR:

light detection and ranging, Laser Scanning

MD:

Oracle Multi-Dimension

NSDI:

National Spatial Data Infrastructure

OMG:

Object Management Group

OWL:

Web Ontology Language

RDF:

Resource Description Framework

SDI:

spatial data infrastructure

SDTS:

Spatial Data Transfer Standards

SOA:

Service Oriented Architecture

SPARQL:

SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language

TC:

Technical Committee

UML:

Unified Modeling Language

URI:

Uniform Resource Identifier

USGS:

United States Geological Survey

VGI:

Volunteered geographic information

W3C:

World Wide Web Consortium

XML:

Extensible Markup Language

gmdXML:

geographic metadata XML encoding

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Esri, 8615 Westwood Center Drive, 22182-2214, Vienna, VA, USA

    David M. Danko

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  1. David M. Danko
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Correspondence to David M. Danko .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Applied Sciences Neubrandenburg, Brodaer Str. 2, 17033, Neubrandenburg, Germany

    Wolfgang Kresse

  2. Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc., 8615 Westwood Center Drive, 22182-2214, Vienna, VA, USA

    David M. Danko

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Danko, D.M. (2011). Geospatial Metadata. In: Kresse, W., Danko, D. (eds) Springer Handbook of Geographic Information. Springer Handbooks. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72680-7_12

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