International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing

Along with the forthcoming of Google Earth, Virtual Earth, the next generation of Internet, Web 2.0, Grid Computing and smart sensor web, comes the new era for Geo-Information. In this paper, main features of new Geo-Information era are discussed. This new era is characterized by these features: serviced users are extended from professionals to all public users, the users are data and information providers as well, provided geospatial data are no longer measurement-by-specification but measurement-on-demand through smart sensor web, and services are transferred from datadriving to application-driving. Such problems as out-of-order issues in geographic data collection and information proliferation, quality issues in geographic information updating, security issues in geographic information services, privacy issues in sharing geographic information and property issues on sharing geographic information, which are brought about by new geo-information era, especially problems and challenges confronted in geo-information science and geo-spatial information industry, are analyzed. Then strategies concerning standards, planning, laws, technology and applications are proposed. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol. 38, Part II