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new information website managed by the Geospatial Information Agency will provide comprehensive information for disaster mitigation efforts and environmental conservation.

The Ina-Geoportal, an interactive map, will provide the public and state agencies with real-time information about roads, mountains, land elevation and coastal lines, among other things.

“Ina-Geoportal provides the public, government bodies and agencies direct access to geospatial data, such as areas that are prone to natural disasters including earthquakes and floods, which will surely help disaster-mitigation programs,” one of the agency’s officials, Antonius Bambang Wijanarko, told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

“We can even link our portal to the US Geological Survey [USGS], to view historical data on earthquakes that occurred in Indonesia,” he added.

According to Antonius, Ina-Geoportal uses the same system as Google-Map but has more accurate coordinates and detailed content that will be provided by ministries and government agencies.

“Up until now, every ministry and government agency has had their own portal and geospatial data, but they keep it only for themselves and none of that data was incorporated. Ina-Geoportal was developed to integrate all that data into one portal, which can be freely accessed by everybody,” he said.

Ina-Geoportal was designed 16 years ago, but the portal’s development began only last year. The first phase of the site is expected to be completed by mid-2013, with the address, tanahair.net.

“Ina-Geoportal will help our country achieve good governance. It’s here to make the administration more efficient; it is very useful, particularly in avoiding duplication of data,” he explained.

Muhammad Sadly, the director of the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology (BPPT), said the BPPT fully supported Ina-Geoportal as it could be integrated with BPPT’s Nusantara Earth Observation Network (Neo-net), a combination of information communication technology (ICT), remote sensing and spatial base data.

“We have developed an information system that uses remote sensing to determine fish potential in given areas. We are collaborating with the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry to pass this information on to fishermen,” Sadly said on Friday.

“We hope that after the launch of Ina-Geoportal, every institution in the country will actively participate and think about the continuity of this asset. What we need is the cooperation of regional governments,” Sadly said.

The BPPT is also developing hyper-spectral technology, which can help to support food security, by seeing, for example, whether pests have attacked a certain rice field.

Syamsul Hadi, secretary-general of the Association of the Provincial Investment Agency, said that Ina-Geoportal would be useful for businessmen and potential investors as its geospatial information could provide detailed information on the kinds of commodity provided in particular areas, accurate locations, available infrastructure and land-ownership status.

“Ina-Geoportal offers potential investors greater efficiency as it can provide all the data they may need without their having to conduct field surveys,” Syamsul said. (nad)