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The increasing demand for digital geodata, as a result of the thriving mining and exploration industry, has made the Geological Survey of Namibia (GSN) realize the importance of having competently managed geodatabases and standardized data. Internal standardization of metedata is being gradually carried out with the aim of having data in internationally exchangeable formats such as XML, in order to facilitate efficient dissemination of geoscientific information and improve service delivery. The Geological Survey has several geological databases which are being managed by the different divisions. Integration of data from the various databases into the Earth Data Namibia (EDN), a database which was initially established to cater for the Economic Geology division, has been implemented and is ongoing.
Currently the EDN database contains information on mineral occurrences, geology, topocadastral data, mineral and exploration licences, mining industry reports, geochemistry, borehole data, geophysics, satellite images, earth sciences literature and environmental geology. Plans are underway to upgrade the EDN system software. The Regional Geoscience Metadatabase (RGSDB), which is run by the Regional Geoscience division, underwent a transition from the old database system based on MS Access to a new ISO/XML compatible database based on GeoNetwork open source GIS software. Furthermore, the GSN has plans to extensively improve its spatial data infrastructure and to eventually provide web based services.
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