Standards-based Solutions
Increasingly, earth-based information is being used to drive decisions in large organizations responsible for environment protection.  These organizations face a growing need for innovative, standardized geospatial data management solutions.  When enhanced with Open Geospatial Consortium and International Organization for Standardization (OGC/ISO) interoperability, these solutions contribute to open and extensible domain systems.  In this regard, ERDAS maintains a strong commitment to international OGC/ISO standard bodies.

ERDAS Engagement
The INSPIRE Directive entered into force in May 2007, establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in Europe.  ERDAS is engaging as INSPIRE Spatial Data Interest Community (SDIC) with other SDICs and Legally Mandated Organisations (LMOs), developing INSPIRE Data Specifications for Annex II (focusing on elevation, land cover and ortho-imagery).

With the Annex II work, the INSPIRE principles are addressed so that coverages or gridded data can be collected once and instantly made available for authorized discovery.  Data can then be shared and seamlessly combined with coverages from other sources, to be used in multiple applications and across several decision levels.

Supporting Environmental Policy Making
By conforming with INSPIRE rules, software solutions serve the European Commission (EC) environmental policy making processes.  Land topography, land use and infrastructures, flood forecasting and environment and health information layers cross national borders.  Implemented interoperability standards provide seamless data transfer protocols that support harmonization within federated data models, and are adaptable to security and rights management business rules.