9. Developing a Statistical Geospatial Framework for the European Statistical System

National Statistical Institutes, NSIs, have recognised the need for a better consideration of the geospatial dimension in the collection, production and dissemination of statistics for more than a decade. There is now general consensus in the European statistical community on the best methodology for linking statistics to a location through the exact geocoding of statistical units—persons, buildings, enterprises and households—to a point-based geocoding infrastructure for statistics based on addresses. In these terms the map plays an important role for visualisation and quality control. However the data used and the actual processes to integrate geospatial information management and geocoding of statistics into statistical production can vary substantially between countries and as a result geospatial statistics products have not entered the main stream of official statistics yet and often lack comparability between countries. The recent adoption of the Statistical Geospatial Framework (SGF) by the Committee of Experts for United Nations-Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) offers for the first time a consistent framework to harmonise statistical-geospatial data integration and geospatial data management for statistics internationally. If fully developed and adopted by all NSIs, the Statistical Geospatial Framework should ensure high quality geospatial statistics. The next round of population Censuses in 2021 will generate a vast amount of statistical information on our societies with unprecedented spatial resolution. At the same time recent European and Global sustainable development programs will demand spatially disaggregated indicators. Specifically the indicator framework for the 2030 Agenda on sustainable development offers a unique opportunity to demonstrate the power of statistical-geospatial data integration across a wide range of statistical domains. To better structure these efforts and fit them into a framework that will result in consistent and comparable geospatial statistics the European Statistical System (ESS) will partner with National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies for the development of the ESS-SGF. The actual development is carried out via the GEOSTAT 3 project funded by Eurostat. Special attention will be paid to the full interoperability with statistical and geospatial data infrastructures and process models such as SDMX, INSPIRE and the Generic Statistical Business Process Model (GSBPM).