Current and Potential Use of Linked Geodata

Abstract: As of Today (2017) Geographic Information (GI) is a vital part of our daily life. With different applications like Google Maps it is hard to not get in contact with these platforms. Applications like Google are becoming more than just maps for us to find our way in the real world, they contain important data. As of now some of these datasets are kept by authorities and institutes with no connection to each other. One way to link this information to each other is by using Linked Data and more specifically when it comes to GI, Linked Geodata. By linking data together, information becomes connected, which can help the structure of Open Data and other data collaborates. It also enables ways to query the data to for example in search engines. This Bachelor of Science thesis has been conducted at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, in cooperation with Digpro AB. This thesis purpose is to examine whether the Linked Geodata is something to invest in. This was done by investigating current use to understand how Linked Geodata is implemented, as well to describe challenges and possibilities in respect to Linked Geodata. This is done by literature review and through interviews with personnel working with implementation of Linked Geodata. The result showed some implementations in the Netherlands and in Finland, also a private initiative from the University of Leipzig called LinkedGeoData. In Sweden authorities had explored the topic of Linked Geodata without any actual attempts to implement it. The biggest challenges was that queries did not supported all kind of spatial data, maintain the Linked Geodata consistent and find a way to fund the workload. The biggest possibilities were to create cooperation between authorities, integration and discoverability of data in search engines and to improve the environment for publishing open data, which could lead to an improved social and economic situation. After evaluation this thesis concludes that there is a lot of potential use for Linked Geodata. The most considerable possible use is for authorities with a larger amount of geodata especially regarding their publishing of Open Data and integrating their data to search engines to provide more advanced queries. The technology seems to have some problems, mainly the lack of support for spatial data and also problems with maintaining the connections. However the problems are not too severe in order to not invest in the technology. The technology just needs some improvements and more initiatives.