NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL FRAMEWORK PROJECT

The National Geospatial Framework Project is coordinated by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) and the University of New Brunswick (UNB) and is sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) through an international agreement with the Agência Brasileira de Cooperação (ABC).

The National Geospatial Framework Project began in September 2004 and will take 5 years to complete. It overlaps with and provides new dynamics to the Projeto Mudança do Referencial Geodésico no Brasil (PMRG) which has been underway in Brazil since October 2000 under IBGE’s leadership.

The National Geospatial Framework Project objective is to collaborate and assist Brazilian efforts to realize the national adoption of a geocentric coordinat system (SIRGAS2000) compatible with modern satellite technologies. Project activities include technical issues, understanding the impacts caused by the adoption of this new coordinate system, and establishment of strong communication links with the user community. Products will be made available to users at the end of the project.

Technical activities involve the integration of the classical network into SIRGAS2000, the modeling of the distortions of the classical networks with respect to SIRGAS2000 and to create datum transformation models that take into account the these distortions.

Impacts caused by the adoption of a new national geospatial framework are many and include technical issues affecting government agencies and private companies, and social impacts dealing with individual rights to land and related information, improvement in environmental management and natural resource development, gender equity and native rights, equal access to information for all citizens, improved services, and good governance. Strategies will be develope and applied to assess and monitor some of these impacts relating to:

-land reform
-equitable and open access to geospatial -information;
-access to real equity for women and native -peoples;
-improvement in good governance for -federal, state, and local authorities;
-mismatches between national, regional and -municipal maps;
-transformation of digital data banks;
-compatibility between cadastral databases;
-delimitation of indigenous peoples land;
-improvement in the delivery of utility -services;
-management and cost of data banks -transformation; and
-improved environmental management of -natural resources.

The project will ensure good communication with the impacted user community through effective interfacing with users in order to disseminate tools and methodologies to maximize use of the new geospatial ramework. Tools include a project web site, printed promotional material, update seminars, opinion polls, as well as the development of education Seminars on the impacts of the new datum and on how to make efficient use of the software application packages that will support the conversions.
One very important component of the project deals with the modernization of the GPS network for the long-term sustainability of the reference frame. Modernization steps will be suggested and tested in a demonstration project.

The National Geospatial Framework Project will develop supporting products: software to allow easy conversion between the various coordinate systems currently in use in Brazil to the new SIRGAS2000 and to allow visualization of data banks.

Other objectives of the National Geospatial Framework Project are to transfer Canadian expertise and technologies in the areas of national spatial reference systems helping to enhance the capacity of Brazilian institutions to develop, implement and maintain a national geodetic framework; to communicate the impact of such a fundamental change on public and private communities; to establish long term linkages between Canadian and Brazilian private and public institutions involved in spatial reference systems; and to ensure that new methods and technologies transferred through this CIDA sponsored project will continue beyond it’s duration.

It is expected that a project of the magnitude of the National Geospatial Framework project will create a positive paradigm shift in the way geographically referenced information is collected and accessed by all levels of users in Brazil . The success of this initiative will also benefit from the continued collaboration of international SIRGAS partners, as they work together in developing and efficiently maintaining the continental reference frame, and providing access to users.