As part of the Geospatial One-Stop Initiative, Esri developed a portal to make it easier, faster, and less expensive for all levels of government and the public to access geospatial information. The portal was developed, building on Esri's experience and standards-based commercial off-the-shelf technology.

The purpose of Geospatial One-Stop is twofold. The first purpose is to support the business of government. Almost every aspect of government—including, but not limited to, disaster management, recreation, planning, homeland security, public health, and environmental protection—has a geographic component and requires geospatial data and tools to appropriately manage it. The second purpose is to support decision making; issues occur in places (e.g., floods, events, and crimes), and decisions addressing one issue often have broader implications, sometimes affecting entire communities. Geospatial information allows decisions to be viewed in a community context and can facilitate cross agency coordination.

Visit Geospatial One-Stop at www.geodata.gov.

The India NSDI portal provides access to information on spatial data that has been developed by several government agencies in India. Users can take the traditional approach to searching for spatial data based on a map sheet (or topo sheet, similar to the quad sheets in the United States), or they can search for spatial data using more generic search criteria such as spatial extent keywords. The portal also provides quick access to information on spatial data via Web pages with metadata provided by participating agencies.

Esri implemented the portal using ArcIMS 4.0.1, ArcSDE 8.3, and ArcGIS Desktop 8.3 with an Oracle 9.2 database. The portal search page can be accessed from ArcGlobe, allowing the user to search for live data and maps using the portal and then view this data in ArcGlobe. ArcGlobe is a new application that will be available with ArcGIS 3D Analyst 9.

Esri integrated India's own metadata standard approach with ISO 19115 compliant metadata. By doing this, the portal can contain metadata documents that fit within the India NSDI metadata standard and that are published by agencies that follow the ISO standard. This opens the door to foreign users and global spatial data infrastructure participation.

The EU INSPIRE Geo-Portal is Europe's Internet access point to a collection of spatial data under the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) Initiative. INSPIRE aims at establishing a legal framework for the creation of a European spatial information infrastructure that delivers to its users integrated spatial information services. This framework is expected to be in place from 2007 onward.

A prototype version of the EU INSPIRE Geo-Portal was implemented by Esri utilizing ArcIMS 4.0.1, ArcSDE 8.3 on an Oracle 8i database, and ArcGIS Desktop 8.3. The EU INSPIRE Geo-Portal also makes use of the ArcWeb Services Place Finder gazetteer service and the European street map image service based on the AND Global Road Data and Tele Atlas/TomTom MultiNet database.

The target users of the EU INSPIRE Geo-Portal include policy makers, planners, and managers at European, national, and local levels, as well as European citizens and their organizations. Possible services include the visualization of information layers, overlay of information from different sources, spatial and temporal analysis, and so on. Where appropriate and possible, the EU INSPIRE Geo-Portal will link to national geospatial portals. The EU INSPIRE Geo-Portal will not store or maintain data. The data is distributed in many national and private servers across Europe and maintained by the organization or agency responsible for the data.

Visit the EU INSPIRE Geo-Portal (eu-geoportal.jrc.it).