Impact

摘要

For much of this economic crisis, the sharp edges of the downturn have been blunted, as far as the geospatial business is concerned, by governments all over the globe providing extra investment for projects that need geoinformation. Yes, construction has been at its lowest point of activity in decades, both in the United States and the European Union, and other infrastructural projects have been slowed down by the recession, all of which has had an impact on sales in the geospatial industry. But certainly in the first phase of the credit crunch which began in 2008, the mantra was 'invest, invest', in line with the old theory of economist Keynes, with governments intervening in the free market to support growth or soften the fall. Recently, however, the shift from credit crunch to debt crisis is forcing governments to rethink their investments. Two of the most striking and potentially most dangerous outcomes of this shift in thinking are cutbacks concerning the Enhanced View programme in the United States and budget restrictions on the EU's spatial programmes which are threatening the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme.