The city held a kickoff briefing for the "2026 High-Precision Electronic Map Construction Challenge Project" on the 18th at the office of the director general of the Construction and Housing Bureau in City Hall Annex 1, attended by about 10 people including officials from the Shinhan Aerial Survey consortium, the project's implementing agency. The briefing reviewed results from the 2024-2025 phases and focused on this year's plans and detailed implementation directions.
The project, carried out under a commission from the National Geographic Information Institute, is funded with a total of 5.4 billion won, matching 2.7 billion won in state funds with 2.7 billion won in city funds on a one-to-one basis. Ulsan has been selected for state matching funds for four consecutive years from 2024 through next year, allowing it to steadily advance its spatial information upgrade project.
The target area covers 532.5 square kilometers, or all of Ulsan. Through the project, the city plans to complete high-resolution three-dimensional spatial information by January of next year, including a 1:1,000 digital topographic map — the benchmark for precision — along with a digital surface model (DSM), a carbon spatial map and three-dimensional building modeling (LoD 2.5).
The newly completed high-precision electronic map will serve as core infrastructure across both the public and private sectors. It will be opened as base data for public administration, including urban planning, development projects, infrastructure (SOC) design and integrated management of underground facilities, as well as for private map services and navigation upgrades.
It will be actively used in particular for climate crisis response and strengthening the city's safety net. Ulsan will build a "carbon spatial map" that systematically visualizes greenhouse gas emissions and absorption using precise spatial information to support carbon neutrality policies, and will apply the data to disaster prevention, such as predicting downtown flooding paths during torrential rain.
"The core of this project goes beyond simply updating existing maps to securing three-dimensional spatial information that can precisely simulate a complex urban environment and be used in policymaking," a city official said. "Through systematic high-precision data construction, we will actively support the smart transformation of city administration overall, including urban planning and development, carbon neutrality and disaster prevention."
