CNIG – Spain
CNIG (Centro Nacional de Información Geográfica ) is a governmental Spanish autonomous body, which belongs to the Central Government. It was created in 1989. It belongs to the Ministry of Infrastructures and Transports through the Directorate General of National Geographic Institute (IGN). The mandate of CNIG is to produce, develop and distribute any type of works, projects and publications related to geospatial information demanded by the Spanish society; to generate derived and thematic products for national and international distribution, with focus on projects related to state of the art technologies, R&D and consultancy in geographical sciences.
CNIG objectives are:
- To create awareness of the availability and features of the available geographic products for its usage by public bodies, companies and individuals.
- To provide consultancy and technical assistance to other governmental bodies in relationship with remote sensing, photogrammetry, cartography, geodesy, geophysics and in the implementation of GIS.
- To collaborate with other national and international organization in research & development activities related with remote sensing, photogrammetry, cartography, geodesy, geophysics and in the implementation of GIS.
- To set up commercial agreements with companies in the IT and editorial sectors to develop specific products from the ones available in IGN.
- To generate added value on top of the basic products from IGN to have them adapted to the needs from the customers.
- To represent the Spanish IGN in international organizations.
The project will essentially be implemented by:
- Dr. Antonio Arozarena (M) has a PhD in forestry engineering.
- Nuria Valcárcel Sanz (F) has a MSc in Science.
- Guillermo Villa (M) has a MSc in Civil Engineering.
- Julián Delgado (M) has a MSc in Geodesy and Cartography.
Key expertise
CNIG works in the framework of IGN, the authority for cartography and geographic products in Spain. It is also Spanish National Reference Center for Land Cover and Spatial Analysis of EIONET European network. Land Monitoring Unit of IGN/CNIG coordinates Spanish National Remote Sensing Program, Spanish Land Cover and Use Information System (SIOSE), National Program for Aerial Orthophotography and National LiDAR Program. CNIG also coordinates the national Spatial Data Infrastructure, and the Copernicus GMES Pan-EU Land Cover Services in Spain, including CORINE Land Cover 1990, 2000, 2006 and 2011 databases and verification and improvement of the High Resolution Layers. IGN/CNIG developed an innovative object-oriented land cover data model for SIOSE, one of the major inputs in Inspire TWG for Land Cover, and also participated in Inspire TWG for Orthoimagery, Elevation, Land Cover, Land Use, among others. In Spanish National Remote Sensing Program (PNT), more than 5,300 scenes of different satellites (Spot 4-5-6, Pleiades, Formosat, Landsat,…) have been processed by IGN-CNIG in the last years, generating more than 26,000 products distributed to more than 200 organizations and user groups in Spain.