GISCO, the ‘Geographical Information System of the COmmission’, is a permanent service of Eurostat that fulfils the requirements of both Eurostat and the European Commission for geographic information and related services at European Union (EU), Member State and regional levels. These services are also provided to European citizens at large. GISCO’s goal is to promote and stimulate the use of geographic information within the European Statistical System and the European Commission.
In line with the Open Source Strategy of the European Commission the GIS world moved from a single proprietary software stack into a mixed environment. For the Desktop GIS user this involved the deployment of the OSGEO4W suite of tools like QGIS, Grass, Saga and GDAL, while for the corporate level a range of services have been deployed according to the respective requirements, ensuring alignment with respective OGC standards. Software packages to accomplish these tasks include PostgreSQL, OS-GeoNetwork, Mapnik, Nominatim, Photon, Mapproxy and own developments.
The talk will describe the current setup to the European Institutions, advantages and disadvantages and will conclude with some lessons learned. It will include practical examples how for example data from OSM are adapted to reflect the political view of the European Council.