Singapore has launched its new Geospatial Master Plan (2024–33), the second iteration of the island state’s 10-year geospatial strategy.
Led by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA), the Master Plan aims to “enable geospatial-enabled innovations to benefit more segments of society, while addressing the complex challenges Singapore faces as an island-nation”.
In particular, the new plan integrates land and marine spatial data development and charts a trajectory towards Singapore’s goal of becoming a leading global geospatial hub.
“As the national geospatial and mapping agency of Singapore, SLA plays an active role in spearheading national geospatial development,” said Mr Colin Low, Chief Executive of SLA.
“This second Singapore Geospatial Master Plan reflects our commitment to integrate and drive geospatial innovation in both the maritime and terrestrial domains.
“In land-scarce Singapore, we continue to overcome our urban challenges through the innovative use of geospatial technology and data, focusing our efforts on the mainstreaming and deepening of our geospatial capabilities to benefit end users, and enable a smarter, safer, and more sustainable Singapore,” Mr Low added.
“SLA is pleased to further our collaboration with MPA to propel Singapore to be a leading global geospatial hub.”
The Master Plan was unveiled during the opening ceremony of the recent Geo Connect Asia 2024 conference, at which several new strategic partnerships and key initiatives were announced across a range of sectors:
Healthcare: By ‘mainstreaming’ geospatial through close collaborations with key partners in the social and healthcare sectors, Singapore aims to support national programs such as HealthierSG and the Enabling Master Plan 2030.
Barrier-free access routing: Through collaborations with partners like SG Enable, SLA is working to produce a more inclusive society through, for instance, the launch of a barrier-free access routing function on OneMap.
Geospatial and generative AI synergies: Following the successful launch of the SLA OneMap GPT Challenge, which aimed to explore ways to incorporate AI technologies, two winning teams were chosen to demonstrate the potential of integrating geospatial and generative AI technologies to offer users greater convenience and personalised map-based services.
Climate change: The Centre for Climate Research Singapore, operating under the National Environment Agency, utilises tidal data from GeoSpace-Sea to analyse rising sea levels and conduct an assessment of extreme sea levels as part of the National Sea Level Programme.
Innovations across maritime domains: In the subsea domain, MPA is collaborating with BeeX, a Singapore-based deep-tech engineering company, to map and provide a comprehensive view of the subsea environment to enable safe navigation and active management of underwater drone operations, such as for seabed infrastructure and underwater inspections. In the sea domain, MPA’s Active Anchorage Management System will utilise artificial intelligence and data from GeoSpace-Sea to allocate and optimise the use of limited anchorage space for vessel anchoring.
“Having a more comprehensive geospatial awareness across the land and sea domains offers potential to optimise the use of our limited land and sea space, and helps develop new models to support maritime services, such as the bunkering of new marine fuels, as well as long-term coastal planning efforts,” said Mr Teo Eng Dih, Chief Executive of MPA.
“MPA looks forward to working with SLA to grow our geospatial capabilities as we upskill maritime professionals and hydrographers to co-develop new products and services with industry.”
