The coordinate reference systems of spatial data infrastructures in Albania
Nikolli, Pal & Bashkim Idrizi
One of the basics of geoinformation systems is to guarantee an unambiguous spatial reference of the stored information. The spatial reference can be given by coordinates or by geographic identifiers. Coordinates are unambiguous when the reference system to which those coordinates are related has been fully described. The standardization activities since the nineties in the frame of the European standardization organization CEN and of the international standardization organization ISO for GIS included the spatial reference aspect as a central topic. The coordinate reference system (CRS) is an aggregate class with the component classes datum and coordinate system; geodetic datum, vertical datum and engineering datum are subclasses to the datum. In Albania, many organizations have collections of spatial data. Few institutions have operational GIS databases. Except Municipality of Tirana, there are not online spatial data bases. Spatial data are created by several agencies as per their needs. Some realities of spatial data are: relevant data is often hard to find, frequently it is not in compatible forms, information describing data is often non-existent, framework data does not exist for broad geographic areas, data sharing across organizations is inconsistent etc. Therefore we need to do: common language, common reference system and common framework. In this paper we give some knowledge about coordinates references systems that are used in Albania to which are related the coordinates of spatial reference. Three common coordinate systems used in GIS in Albania are Geographic coordinate system (Lat-Long), planar (Cartesian) georeferenced coordinate system (easting, northing, elevation) which includes projection from an ellipsoid to a plane with origin and axes tied to the Earth surface, planar non - georeferenced coordinate system, such as image coordinate system with origin and axes defined arbitrarily (e.g. image corner) without defining its position on the Earth and projection.
Event: International Conference on Spatial Data Infrastructure 2010
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