Geodata for everyone - model-driven development and an example of INSPIRE WFS service

Background On the first January 2013, everyone in Denmark received a wonderful new year present from the Danish government: “Free and Open Geo-data”. This means that everyone is free to use, reuse and redistribute the geographic data published by the Danish Geodata Agency. As Denmark’s central public source of geographic data, the Danish Geodata Agency is responsible for surveying, mapping and land registering of Denmark, Greenland, the Faroe Island and all waters associated with these. The overall goal of the organization is to supply and ensure that everyone in the Danish society has access to reliable and accurate maps and geographic information on all parts of the country. Methods This article presents a model-driven development process which has been established in the Danish Geodata Agency for unified distribution of geographic data. The process starts from the conceptual modeling of the geographic data to the end where data are distributed via WFS services and download services. Results By adopting this model-driven development process, we have automated the process from data modeling to data distribution. We have defined the national data models which comply to INSPIRE data models, thus we maximize the re-use of national spatial data for the INSPIRE services. Conclusions From our experience of using this model-driven development process, we conclude that it improves our INSPIRE compliant, national spatial data infrastructure and ensures free and open access to the high quality geographic data.