VGI in National Mapping Agencies: Experiences and recommendations

Despite the considerable growth in Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) activities in citizen sensing and the evident opportunities for VGI use in map revision and updating, few European National Mapping Agencies (NMAs) or other types of government bodies have engaged significantly with VGI. Moreover, the level of engagement of NMAs with the VGI community varies greatly, and most of them have proposed their own tools for encouraging citizens and public partners to collect feedback or new data. There are numerous barriers limiting the participation of citizens and public partners in NMA data collection, including data quality issues, the motivation of the contributors and legal issues. The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of the experiences of some European NMAs in engaging with VGI. Guidelines and recommendations to support wider engagement with the VGI community are also proposed to help NMAs and interested government bodies exploit the potential of VGI for authoritative mapping.