Opening Remarks by Senior Minister of State for Transport, Mr Chee Hong Tat at the International Seminar on United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management

Ladies and Gentlemen,

1.     I am happy to welcome delegations from the Member States and representatives from the United Nations and International Hydrographic Organization. This is the first time the United Nations is organising an International Seminar on Global Geospatial Information Management. The seminar will also be held with three expert meetings which provide a forum for dialogue and coordination amongst Member States, the United Nations and international organisations such as the International Hydrographic Organization and Open Geospatial Consortium. My colleagues and I are honoured that Singapore was given the opportunity to host these meetings. 

Introduction
 
2.     With about 70 per cent of our earth covered in water, and over 80 per cent of international trade in goods carried by sea today, water is an important global resource for humankind. Our waters provide spaces for transport, recreation, and natural resources such as food, energy, and minerals. It is critical that we understand this resource and take collective responsibility to protect it.
 
3.     This is where marine geospatial information can play an important and useful role, to help us to understand our marine environment, and to enable us to make data-driven and evidence-based policy decisions in relation to our marine environment, so as to achieve better outcomes. It also helps us to support development of maritime technology.
 
4.     Having reliable marine geospatial information is also an important enabler to help us achieve global environmental sustainability. For example, having data on where people live, what activities they carry out, what is the impact on the marine environment, will help us to implement more sustainable practices to protect the environment. Having high-quality and reliable land-sea navigational and seabed data also allows for more efficient transport routes, better fuel consumption and port planning, which in turn can help to reduce the carbon footprint of transportation.
 
5.     Such information is also crucial in achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals such as ‘Life below water’, ‘Ensure available and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’, ‘Climate action’, and ‘Sustainable cities and communities’, just to name a few.
 
Cross-border Collaboration for Effective and Integrated Marine Geospatial Information Management
 
6.     Advancements in technology facilitates the open sharing of information. It has exponentially increased our ability to collect and process data. Specifically for marine geospatial data, we have progressed from using the traditional, manpower-intensive “line and pole” method to study the depths of our oceans, to fitting autonomous vehicles with sensors such as LiDAR and Side Scan Sonar which are able to map out the oceans with a higher degree of accuracy. It is also safer and more efficient. 
 
7.     However, the large amount of data available requires us to effectively integrate them across domains such as terrestrial, inland waters, coastal waters, and seas and oceans, in order to derive useful insights. This requires cross-border collaboration because oceans and seas are international in nature. So, we need cross-border collaboration not only for information sharing, but also for the development and adoption of international open standards.
 
8.     Singapore has contributed to international collaborations on marine geospatial information management together with the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO). The Joint IHO-Singapore Innovation and Technology Laboratory, or IHO Lab for short, which we launched in October last year, facilitates such collaborations among IHO Member States, industry, international organisations and maritime research and development bodies. 
 
9.     The IHO Lab is currently working on projects to facilitate the adoption and use of the IHO S-100-based Product Specifications which allow greater interoperability of navigational datasets and technologies, to enhance decision making. In addition, the IHO Lab will be joining the IHO Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) Navigation Project Team to contribute to the work needed for the establishment of MASS navigation data standards, including facilitating MASS test bedding in Singapore port waters. 
 
Enhancements to Singapore’s GeoSpace-Sea
 
10.    To harness and integrate the latest geospatial information from various sources of Singapore’s marine and coastal data, Singapore developed GeoSpace-Sea, and this is a National Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure, through the collaboration between the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, the Singapore Land Authority and 10 other government agencies and institutes of higher learning. GeoSpace-Sea aims to create the first-ever comprehensive picture of Singapore’s sea space and is guided by the IHO and United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management frameworks to enable the integration of information from multiple domains. As I mentioned earlier, we want to make sure that whatever we do here can facilitate cross-border collaboration and sharing. 
 
11.    Singapore’s government agencies have used it in various national initiatives for the monitoring and understanding of climate change impacts, such as: the National Sea Level Programme, coordinated by the Centre for Climate Research Singapore under the National Environment Agency, and this aims to deepen our understanding of sea levels around Singapore and how, if it should happen, a rise in sea levels could impact Singapore; and the Coastal-Inland Flood Model, which is currently in development by PUB, Singapore’s national water agency. When developed, it would enable holistic flood risk assessment by simulating the combined effects of extreme sea levels and inland flooding caused by intense rainfall. This would aid PUB in their planning of coastal protection measures.
 
12.    We don’t know whether some of these scenarios will happen, I hope not, but it is always better to be prepared for the worst case. Having a tool like this gives us that flexibility to be able to do these different simulations, test out different scenarios, and to see whether our mitigation measures can stand up to these scenarios. 
 
13.    GeoSpace-Sea data will also be used in digitalPORT@SGTM, a one-stop platform for port clearance and just-in-time services, to provide up-to-date information on vessel activity, optimise the use of anchorage space and achieve faster turnaround time at the port. This will result in shorter port stays, which is good for vessel owners because they can make better use of their assets, have a quicker turnaround, and from an environmental perspective it lowers the carbon emissions from vessels. 
 
14.    In line with the IHO’s objective to improve the availability and accessibility to hydrographic data, we have plans to make GeoSpace-Sea accessible to the public. By public, I mean both in Singapore and internationally. This expansion will allow standardised marine geospatial information to be widely accessible, and to facilitate collaboration and innovation among government, industry, and academia. 
 
15.    MPA is engaging partner agencies, user groups and data providers to provide publicly accessible datasets. Our earlier plan was to open GeoSpace-Sea to the public only next year in 2023, but in view of the positive feedback that we have received, the MPA team has been working very hard, together with other relevant government agencies and institutes of higher learning, to bring forward the timeline. I am pleased to announce that GeoSpace-Sea will be open to the public from August this year, several months ahead of schedule.
 
16.    With access to a rich source of maritime data, our public users could conduct simulations and come up with interesting applications, beyond what MPA and agencies are developing at this point. Because it is an open-innovation platform, I believe we can generate many interesting ideas, and that is actually one of the benefits of opening this up to the public. 
 
17.    I would like to encourage both local and international research communities, as well as marinetech companies and start-ups to explore the data in GeoSpace-Sea and to reimagine new applications and solutions for the industry. The GeoSpace-Sea team will provide marine and coastal data to the Technology Centre for Offshore and Marine Singapore, which is a national R&D centre dedicated to the maritime and ocean sectors. This will enable better prediction of the hydrodynamic environment around Singapore and allow us to better respond to any maritime incidents or disasters such as oil spills and storm surges.
 
18.    The benefits of having such a platform and opening it to the public, both locally and internationally, gives us benefits in the form of 3 ‘Ps’. First, it allows us to have better planning and policy formulation to achieve good outcomes. Secondly, it will help to strengthen partnerships, both locally and internationally. Thirdly, it will open up new possibilities beyond what we are currently working on. I hope that with this launch of GeoSpace-Sea in August this year, we will be able to achieve these three benefits together. 
 
Conclusion
 
19.    To conclude, integrated maritime geospatial data can improve our capabilities to respond to challenges such as climate change and maritime disasters so that we can better protect our oceans, and we can better protect our shared future. This is an important initiative, and I am very happy that we are holding this International Seminar and the expert meetings, because they serve as important platforms to bring together stakeholders to exchange technical knowledge, to facilitate the integration of geospatial information, and importantly, helping to work together to push ahead on this front.
 
20.    I wish everyone fruitful discussions over the next few days.
 
21.    Thank you.