Thus, the management of Israel geographical-statistical data in a comparable, well-defined information system is a task of general significance.
Supported partially by external funds, The ISDC has developed and now run, GEOBASE - an innovative database of Israel urban and regional statistics, on the web.
GEOBASE is organized as a multi-dimensional database and consists of regularly updated annual and quarterly series on topics such as: economic activities, labor and wages, population, transportation, tourism, housing & construction and education. The main source of data is the Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS). Other figures are extracted from the National Insurance Institute (NII) publications and summaries derived from micro-data.
GEOBASE data model incorporates three dimensions:
The spatial-regional
dimension - already includes all urban localities, sub-quarters in
cities, regional municipalities, districts, sub-districts, metropolin areas as well as main
inter-locality roads.
The time dimension
- consists of annual, quarterly, monthly and other items (such as censuses).
The bulk of Geobase contents is organized in time series.
The content dimension
– urban & regional aggregates of population, labor force, incomes,
transportation, tourism, construction, dwelling, schools and economic
activities - each series relates to one or more geographic level.
The bi-lingual user interface on the web enables the user to search, extract and display, in Hebrew or English, regional and urban statistical figures of various layers and units. The user can either compare one series across various units or extract a multi-facet profile of a unit. Other options are: download a table to Excel worksheet and display it on a business graph.
GEOBASE Information System is still in a phase of enhancement, regarding both its tools and contents. Thus, the ISDC at the Hebrew University invites proposals from academic and public institutions, to join the project and share its management as well as its future direction.