In the last ten years, the Land Portal has grown from being ‘simply’ a gateway to better access land data and information that is fragmented across the web, to a trusted knowledge broker that makes a difference by emphasizing data use and impact. In this time, we have accompanied our users to interact with land data in the ways that suit them best. We have told data stories, so that easily digestible content and context behind land and property rights data can be provided. We have created country and issue portfolios, so that data can be understood in the national or thematic context. Land, by its very nature however, is place-based. One entry point which we had yet to make available to our users was land data in its spatial form.
This all changes today! We are now pleased to announce the beta launch of the Land Portal’s Geoportal. The Geoportal responds not only to our user’s repeated requests to go beyond country borders with our data, but is also a natural progression in our mission to democratize the land data ecosystem. Making sense of polygons and spatial coordinates is mostly left to data scientists and geographers. But what about non-GIS experts? For them, visualizing data on a map will help in understanding and digesting data more easily. They are now being given a tool with which to do this.
“The Geoportal is accessible and usable, geared specifically to non-GIS experts from local communities, development agencies, policy makers and researchers. It provides an opportunity for all those interested in land data, not just data scientists, to interact with data in its spatial form. Data on the Geoportal will transcend national borders, moving beyond country boundaries. Our aim with the Geoportal is to move away from siloed and top-down approaches to data and to democratize all information, including spatial information,” says Laura Meggiolaro, Land Portal Team Leader. More specifically, the Geoportal allows users to display and overlay both statistical and geospatial data on the map and edit their own data visualizations.
We are grateful for the generous support of the Omidyar Network and for our collaboration with Plan B Services to build the platform. The Geoportal has been worked on over a series of months and will continue to be improved, based on your feedback. We also would like to express our thanks to our colleagues at Twente University and Kadaster International, who have helped us throughout this journey in an advisory role.
INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:
Laura Meggiolaro, Team Leader, Land Portal Foundation
FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO ARRANGE INTERVIEWS, CONTACT:
Neil Sorensen, Land Portal Foundation, neil.sorensen@landportal.org, +33.641668648
ABOUT THE LAND PORTAL FOUNDATION:
The Land Portal aims to help data and information providers to create, curate and disseminate land governance data and information to become part of a more inclusive, friendly and accessible information landscape. Our mission is to build an information ecosystem for land governance that enables and supports better informed decision and policy making at national and international levels.