GeoTest: A Testing Environment for Swedish Geodata

GeoTest is a project initiated by Future Position X (a GIS cluster organization in Gävle, Sweden), the National Land Survey of Sweden (NLS) and the University of Gävle. The project aims to test Swedish geodata and make sure they comply with the INSPIRE specifications in Annex I–III. The purpose of this paper is to present the development of and experiences from GeoTest in developing the required infrastructure for testing Swedish geodata. Due to the high demand for geodata in modern society, and anticipated requirements by INSPIRE, the issue of testing a national SDI is very important. An adequate testing environment is required. In this context, two aspects are discussed: 1. Technical requirements for GeoTest. 2. Organizational and coordination aspects. The technical requirements for GeoTest are to provide an environment to test current specifications in the context of INSPIRE Annex I. The methodology is crucial to govern the testing process. The developed methodology mainly relates to the transformation testing of the themes specified in Annex I–III. The objective of the tests is to ensure that the specifications are balanced in terms of costs and that they contribute to address user needs. At this stage, GeoTest focuses on transformation testing. The aim is to test that the transformations from local schemas to INSPIRE schemas are technically feasible. The methodology is based on four stages; the main strategy used in this testing was the ETL (extract-transform-load) approach. The testing process started with a preliminary desk study, with the objective to collect basic information about the themes and identify the availability and sources of schemas. The extraction process helped to identify the costly procedures when generating GML data that conform to the source schemas; in this stage we encountered some problems in the extraction process, as the data are loosely coupled to the source schema. The transformation procedures of the GML data from the extraction process to the INSPIRE GML schema performed in three sub-stages, mainly related to schema mapping, matching and transformation. The testing process was coordinated with NLS, via one contact person per theme. The extraction for the sample data was based on random selection of 5% of the sheet index. The paper presents the results of testing five themes addresses, cadastral parcels, geographical names, hydrography, and transport networks. The result shows that in total, 13 INSPIRE schemas has been investigated. Of these, data may be delivered for 10 schemas.