The challenge
SDG GeoHub is the platform UNDP uses to collect and share geospatial data related to the Sustainable Development Goals. A platform like this keeps growing: new data arrives from many sources, users browse it on the web, and the services have to cope with the load without anyone preparing each map by hand. It needed a clear data structure, rules for managing it, and automated processes to feed it.
The approach
The technical director designed the geospatial data structure and its management policies on two tiers: a PostgreSQL database with PostGIS, and Azure Blob Storage for objects. The aim was to make the data available through scalable web services.
He then built automated cloud pipelines that bring new spatial data into the platform, and SQL functions in PostGIS that generate vector tiles on demand. With tiles generated at request time there is no need to pre-compute and store every layer at every scale: the database produces only what the user is looking at.
The result
The platform gained a data structure with its management rules, pipelines for the automatic integration of new data, and a vector tile service built on PostGIS functions.
It is the same way of working TT applies to the data behind its noise and energy models: PostGIS databases, open code, repeatable processes (see GIS, Lidar and geospatial data).
The technical director's role
The technical director, RafDouglas C. Tommasi, P.E., PhD, worked on the project remotely as GIS Data Engineer.