ISO 19157-1: 2023 Geographic information - Data quality – Part 1: General requirements

Information about the quality of geographic information regained its importance due to increasing emphasis on findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability (FAIR). The 2013 edition was no longer serving producers trying to keep up with the demand to provide FAIR quality metadata. Without FAIR quality information of geographic data, the comparison and selection of the dataset best suited to application needs or requirements is complicated if not impossible.

As a result of the recent revision by the team of experts, led by Dr Ivana Ivánová (Standards Australia) and Mr Torsten Svärd (Swedish Institute for Standards), the new ISO 19157-1 standard aims to provide a framework for describing data quality information of geographic data and products with a set of well-defined characteristics. The standard also defines the structure of data quality measures used in quality evaluation, describes general procedures for evaluating the quality of geographic data, and establishes principles for reporting data quality. 

In addition, ISO 19157-1 is now extensible, which provides producers with the capability to define their own domain specific quality descriptors and measures for their evaluation, as well as define the process for additional, domain-specific components for describing data quality, while providing an ISO 19157-1 compliant assurance for their quality metadata.

With the comprehensive list of informative annexes, ISO 19157-1 serves as a manual for producers introducing an ISO compliant quality framework in their organisations.

The project team is currently establishing a curated register for data quality measures for geographic information, which had formerly resided in Annex D. The new human friendly and machine-actionable register will be governed by ISO 19157-3, a new standard currently under development, with expected publication in 2025.