ESSQ/00529/2018

CARTOGRAPHY ASSIGNMENT

A geoportal is a dedicated web portal that is utilized in accessing and finding geographic information and
other associated geospatial services and products through the internet. Examples of geoportals include
Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community geoportal (INSPIRE), Geospatial One-
Stop (GOS), NatCarb geoportal, United Nations Spatial Data Infrastructure (UNSDI) and the Esri
Geoportal.

Geoportals have various roles in in SDI mapping including allowing exclusive access to raw and first
hand data in different formats complete with metadata, online data reserves together with different
data visualization tools to enable the users to edit, compile and create maps using data provided in the
portals (Akinci & Cömert, 2007). They also enable creating and maintaining catalogs of metadata that
describe the nature and location of resources in an SDI.They arrange metadata records from service
providers into a consistent, searchable catalog and makes it available to users.

Geoportals are useful for business units for decision making. It makes it possible for people to access
geographic information of a place especially the population information, transport information and
topography which is useful for decision making. Farmers also use the weather information for decision
making.

Make maps that combine geospatial resources produced by others using a variety of map viewers’
technology. They provides functionality that enables authentication of users via most LDAP solutions
and authentications they provide. They alsoProvide a means for reference and accessing geospatial
information that is distributed and made available using variety of technologies. Receive automatic
notification of new geospatial data resources that meet pre-established criteria.

Geoportals associated with SDI are often referred to as catalog portals. They create and maintain
indexes or catalogs of metadata that describe the nature and the location of resources in an SDI.
Resource owners (or service providers) register their services at the portal and supply metadata
descriptions (Maguire & Longley, 2005). The portal arranges metadata records from service providers
into a consistent, searchable catalog and makes this catalog available to users. Through the catalog,
users can search for services coming from any of the registered service providers (Resch & Zimmer,
2013).

The geoportals enhance providence of automated linkages across different users together with datasets,
hence users can create and share maps online. The also incorporate commenting mechanism where
users come together and discuss quality of data and data interpretation as well as exporting completed
maps into various formats. Open geoportals allow users to contribute and modify the existing datasets.

Application portals provide Web mapping tools to allow users to view and work with the data they find.
For instance, geoprocessing tools such as: route finding, geocoding, printing, complex query and
perhaps even redlining and edit/update functions are important in doing analysis for business and other
activitie.

References
Esri-geoportal-technology.pdf

https://www.research gate.net

Geoportal Wikipedia.

Akinci, H., & Cömert, Ç. (2007). Geoportals and their role in spatial data infrastructures. Department of
Geodesy and Photogrammetry Engineering, Turkey.

Maguire, D. J., & Longley, P. A. (2005). The emergence of geoportals and their role in spatial data
infrastructures. Computers, environment and urban systems, 29(1), 3-14.

Resch, B., & Zimmer, B. (2013). User experience design in professional map-based geo-portals. ISPRS
International Journal of Geo-Information, 2(4), 1015-1037.