2001 National Report for China
The Information on China’s Activities in Spatial Data Standards
Prepared by Prof. Du Daosheng
Wuhan Technical University
Wuhan, China
- Major Spatial Data Standard Organizations in China
(1)Geographic Information Standardization Technical Commission of China (CSBTS/TC 230)
(2)Geo-Spatial Information Coordination Commission of China was formally founded in 1998 sanctified by the State Department. One of its major functions is to organize, study and formulate the planning, standards, regulations, policies, laws and development strategies for the national spatial information infrastructure construction and GIS development.
(3)China ISO/TC 211 Domestic Activities Network
(4)Standardization Institution of Surveying and Mapping of the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping of China
- Kinds of Spatial Standards We Have or Are Developing
(1)Standards to be published
l Classification and codes for the Features of Topographic maps at scale 1: 5000, 1: 10000, 1: 25000, 1: 50000, 1: 100000
l Compilation specification for topographic maps at scale 1: 25000, 1:50000
l The naming and coding rules for highway bridge
l Codes for the administrative divisions of the People’s Republic of China
l Urban geographic features as city roads, road intersections, block and municipal system rules encoding structure
l Geographic grid
l Principles and methods of terminology
l Directives for the work of standardization rules for drafting standards of terminology
l Rules for encoding administration regions of the country and countryside
(2)Draft standards for approval or for examination
l Specification for Data Dictionary of Basic Database of Surveying and Mapping
l Data Exchange Format for Information of Surveying and Mapping
l Quality for Topographic Map Products
l Specification for Digital Topographic at Scale 1:500, 1:1000, 1: 2000
l Classification and Codes for Cadastral Information
l Classification and Codes for Digital Topographic at Scale 1:500, 1:1000, 1: 2000
l Technical Specification of Interface between Topographic Database and Name Database
l Data Format Standard for Large Scale Urban Maps
l Data Record Format for Field Mapping at Scale 1:500, 1:1000, 1:2000
l Classification Index for Surveying and Mapping Products
l Secret Index for Surveying and Mapping Products
l Quality Standard for Digital Cadastral Surveying and Mapping Products
l Quality Standard for Digital Topographic Map Products
l Quality Standard for Digital Elevation Model Products
l Standards for 1:50000 database including land cover map, digital-photo topographical map, matedata of basic geographical information, name and codes for national road, name and codes for province road, encoding principle and implement project for rivers and reservoir, name codes of railway station, name codes of railway.
(3)Standards to be developed in the near future
l Standard System of Geographic Information
l Terminology of Basic Geographic Information
l Geographic Information Classification and Coding Principles and Methods
l Specification for Updating Basic Geographic Information
l Spatial Data Quality Measurement Index and its Evaluation Methods
l Interface between GPS and GIS
l Specification for Establishing Fundamental Database of Urban Geographic Information System
l Specification for Designing Urban Geographic Information System
l Testbed of Urban Geographic Information System
l Communication Security and Secret stipulation for Basic Geographic Information
(4)The national standard, “Guide to Standardization for UGIS”, was published. The main contents of this book are:
l Overview of UGIS
l Basic terminology (for this book)
l Management of UGIS Standardization
l Standard system
l General design for UGIS and detailed Design for its subsystems
l Spatial reference
l Contents of urban geographic information
l Data classification and data encoding
l Data structure and format
l Principles for selecting hardware and software
l Data quality control
l System performance and maintenance
l Data communication
l System safety and secret
- Relations of China’s Standards Work with Other Efforts in the Asia Region
The spatial data standards that are developed by other countries in Asia /Pacific Region was referenced when we develop our spatial data standards for our country. Generally, the international standards could be used with three types of format: completely used, partly used and referenced.
- Discussion of Any Kinds of National Spatial Metadata Standards
With the informatization development and the separation between data production department and application department, data sharing has become one of the important objectives for the spatial information infrastructure construction, among which the metadata in spatial data is the key to realize spatial data sharing. The demand for application includes organization and maintenance of spatial data, providing information for data catalogue and data exchange center, managing and explaining the requirements of spatial data.
In 1999, the 21st Century Agenda Management Center of China edited and published a book named “Study on Chinese Geographic Information Metadata Standards”. This book has had a deep analysis and study on the metadata standards in countries as England and American and metadata standards being formulated by ISO/TC 211. The definition, effects, significance, common formats and matters on standardization of metadata has been discussed. The content, level, structure, grading, property, characteristics of metadata in addition with the principles and methods for metadata extension of information sharing of China has been proposed. The basic models, operation tools of metadata standard implementation, metadata collection and establishment, maintenance, updating and quality guarantee of metadata database have been studied. This book also provides “Metadata Standard of China’s Sustainable Development of Information Sharing” (discussion draft). The standard regulates the metadata content of China’s sustainable development information sharing, including ID, content, quality, status and other relevant characteristics of data. It can be used for comprehensive description on the sustainable development information or other information data set, data set catalogue and information exchange network service. The operated object may be data set, data set series, essential entity and attribute.
The organizational structure of this standard is as follows:
- Thematic content and applicable range;
- Referenced standard;
c.Technical terms;
- Hierarchical structure and property of metadata;
- Grading and characteristics of metadata;
- Metadata content
- a)First level metadata content: catalogue information of metadata;
- b)Second level metadata content:
(a) Second level metadata subset: including eight main subsets not to be used repeatedly and three minor subsets can be used repeatedly. Each subset includes several metadata entities and elements
(b) Second level metadata content table:
l Basic information: data set ID and explanations on spatial and temporal range, status, security limitation and so on;
l Evaluation information on data quality;
l Data mark information: application, data resources, productive technical methods and so on;
l Spatial data presentation information: spatial information presentation method and so on;
l Reference system information: explanations on spatial and temporal reference system;
l Essential classification information: definitions and explanations of the essential type, function, attribute and relation;
l Data distribution information: data provider, dealing purview and so on;
l Metadata reference information: actualization and the responsible unit information;
l Literature cited;
l Responsible unit information: unit or individual ID related to the data set;
l Address information: the communication information of data set provider.
g.Principle and method for metadata extension
- a)Extension type
- b)Extension Principle
c)Extension method
This standard draft is a research achievement but not the formal national standard. The spatial data metadata standard of China has been formally established as a project and is in the process of being regulated.
- Work with other regional of international (e.g.TC211) efforts to develop spatial metadata standards
China’s spatial metadata standard will be developed based on the metadata standards developed by USA (CSDGM, DIF), New Zealand and Australia, TC211 15046-15, etc..
- Planned or future spatial data standards activities in the next few days
A family of the standards for National Land Fundamental Database at Scale of 1: 50,000 will be developed in the next few years.
© Copyright, ICA Standards Commission, 2001