Geospatial data shapes how we understand the world and how we make decisions about it. But its value depends on one critical condition: the ability to combine and use data across systems.
Geography and geology provide the foundation for this understanding. When location is added to data, its value increases significantly. Patterns become clearer, relationships emerge, and the potential of information technology is multiplied. Every object, activity, and process exists somewhere, whether fixed or in motion. Location is what makes these relationships observable and comparable.
In practice, that is often where the challenge begins.
Because the value of location has been understood for centuries, governments, businesses, and communities have developed their own spatial data and systems independently, often resulting in approaches that do not align across boundaries. Within cities, spatial data exists as multiple layers, from underground infrastructure to surface features and above-ground structures. These layers are often developed independently by different agencies. At larger scales, differences in standards and data models make integration even more complex.
The result is data that is difficult to combine, exchange, and use effectively.
MUDDI: A Shared Problem, Addressed Collectively
One area where these challenges are particularly noticeable is underground infrastructure. The decision to place utilities underground brings clear benefits, but it has the unfortunate consequence of making them invisible. Once buried and paved over, it becomes difficult to know exactly where they are located. Utility records from thousands of companies are often incomplete or poorly documented. Data may exist in different formats, stored in isolated silos, and referenced to different coordinate systems with varying levels of accuracy. Even within a single city, combining this data can be difficult. Across regions, it becomes even more complex. Without accurate and compatible utility data, the consequences are real: accidental strikes, construction delays, cost overruns, and challenges in emergency response.
Recognizing this as a shared problem, practitioners from cities, national agencies, and organizations from around the world came together through OGC to develop a common approach.
The result is the MUDDI Model (Model for Underground Data Definition and Integration), which treats utility networks as interconnected systems, capturing not only core infrastructure such as pipes and conduits, but also the surrounding context that supports and connects them.
Rather than starting from scratch, the group examined existing data models and standards already in use, including INSPIRE in Europe, subsurface engineering standards from the American Society of Civil Engineers, and Japan’s ROADIC model. By identifying common structures and relationships, they developed a shared conceptual model for underground data.
The model was made available for review and refinement and published as an OGC standard. However, even with this progress, the MUDDI Standards Working Group continues to work on additional use cases, profiles, and extensions.
From Model to Implementation
What makes this work significant is how it is being applied.
In the United Kingdom, the MUDDI model is informing the National Underground Asset Register (NUAR), an initiative to map underground utilities across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
In New York City, it is supporting the development of a 3D utility data program combined with efforts to digitize and integrate tens of thousands of geological records.
Other countries, including New Zealand, Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, have also begun applying the model in their own contexts.
At the same time, the work continues to evolve. OGC and ASCE are advancing integration between MUDDI and existing engineering standards, while the MUDDI Standards Working Group is exploring new applications, including flood risk and other environmental hazards, and digital twin environments.
What This Work Represents
Efforts like MUDDI show how geospatial standards are developed in practice and then evolve.
They emerge from real challenges faced in different parts of the world. They are shaped through collaboration, tested through implementation, and improved over time as new use cases emerge.
For those involved, this work offers more than technical outcomes. It provides an opportunity to engage with peers across organizations, understand how others approach similar problems, and contribute to solutions that extend beyond a single project or system.
Looking Ahead
As geospatial systems become more interconnected and are increasingly used to support infrastructure, climate resilience, urban planning, and many other public and private uses, the need for compatible, standardized data and shared approaches continues to grow.
Work like this depends on people who are willing to engage, contribute, and collaborate across borders and disciplines.
For those interested in being part of that process, OGC provides a space to participate and help shape how geospatial systems evolve.
Learn More
If you are interested in contributing to how geospatial systems evolve, you can learn more about OGC Individual Membership here: Explore OGC Individual Membership
