Log Message:
geography/gdal: Update to 3.9.0

Upstream NEWS.md, heavily trimmed to remove bugfixes and minor
improvements:

See \ 
[MIGRATION_GUIDE.TXT](https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/blob/release/3.9/MIGRATION_GUIDE.TXT)

# GDAL/OGR 3.9.0 Releases Notes

GDAL/OGR 3.9.0 is a feature release.
Those notes include changes since GDAL 3.8.0, but not already included in a
GDAL 3.8.x bugfix release.

## In a nutshell...

* [RFC 96](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc96_deferred_plugin_loading.html):
  Deferred C++ plugin loading
* [RFC \ 
97](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc97_feature_and_fielddefn_sealing.html):
  OGRFeatureDefn, OGRFieldDefn and OGRGeomFieldDefn "sealing"
* [RFC 98](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc98_build_requirements_gdal_3_9.html):
  Build requirements for GDAL 3.9
* [RFC \ 
99](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc99_geometry_coordinate_precision.html):
  Geometry coordinate precision
* Add [S104](https://gdal.org/drivers/raster/s104.html) (Water Level Information
  for Surface Navigation Product) and
  [S111](https://gdal.org/drivers/raster/s111.html) (Surface Currents Product)
  raster read-only drivers (required libhdf5)
* Add raster [GTI](https://gdal.org/drivers/raster/gti.html) (GDAL Raster Tile
  Index) driver to support catalogs with huge number of sources.
* Add vector [MiraMonVector](https://gdal.org/drivers/vector/miramon.html)
  read/creation driver (#9688)
* Deprecated ARG driver has been removed (#7920)
* Code linting

# GDAL/OGR 3.8.0 Releases Notes

GDAL/OGR 3.8.0 is a feature release.
Those notes include changes since GDAL 3.8.0, but not already included in a
GDAL 3.7.x bugfix release.

## In a nutshell...

* Add [JSONFG](https://gdal.org/drivers/vector/jsonfg.html) read/write vector
  driver for OGC Features and Geometries JSON.
* Add [PMTiles](https://gdal.org/drivers/vector/pmtiles.html) read/write vector
  driver for PMTiles v3 datasets containing MVT PBF tiles
* Add [S102](https://gdal.org/drivers/raster/s102.html) raster read-only driver
  for S-102 bathymetric products (depends on libhdf5)
* Add [gdal_footprint](https://gdal.org/programs/gdal_footprint.html) utility:
  compute the footprint of a raster file, taking into account nodata/mask band,
  and generating polygons/multipolygons corresponding to areas where pixels are
  valid (#6264)
* Python bindings: various enhancements to reduce the number of "gotchas"
  related to inter-object ownership relationships, and a few syntaxic sugar
  enhancements
* Arrow interface: improve spatial and attribute filtering on read side;
  add write side with OGRLayer::WriteArrowBatch()
* GeoPackage: much faster spatial index creation (~ 3-4 times faster)
* ARG driver deprecated: will be removed in 3.9.0

# GDAL/OGR 3.7.0 Releases Notes

GDAL/OGR 3.7.0 is a feature release.
Those notes include changes since GDAL 3.6.0, but not already included in a
GDAL 3.6.x bugfix release.

## In a nutshell...

* [RFC 87](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc87_signed_int8.html): Add
  GDT_Int8 support
* [RFC 88](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc88_googletest.html): switch
  to GoogleTest framework for C++ tests (#3525)
* [RFC 89](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc89_sql_logging_callback.html):
  SQL query logging callback (#6967)
* [RFC 90](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc90_read_compressed_data.html):
  Direct access to compressed raster data
* [RFC 91](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc91_dataset_close.html):
  GDALDataset::Close() method
* [RFC 93](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc93_update_feature.html):
  OGRLayer::UpdateFeature() method
* [RFC \ 
94](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc94_field_precision_width_metadata.html):
  Numeric fields width/precision metadata
* ogrinfo: make it accessible through a new GDALVectorInfo() C API call, and
  a -json switch
* Add read-only raster driver NOAA_B to read NOAA GEOCON/NADCON5 .b grids
* Add read-only raster driver NSIDCbin for Sea Ice Concentrations (#7263)
* Add read-only vector GTFS (General Transit Feed Specification) driver
* TileDB: add read/write vector side
* Add support for [SOZip](https://sozip.org) (Seek Optimized ZIP) with enhanced
  /vsizip/ virtual file system and a new sozip utility
* OpenFileGDB: add read-only support for raster datasets (.gdb v10)
* PNG: 1.7-2.0x speed-up in whole image decompression with libdeflate on
  Intel/AMD CPUs. Benefits GPKG, MRF drivers
* [RFC 69](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc69_cplusplus_formatting.html):
  C++ code reformatting
* Code linting and security fixes
* Remove any traces of Rasdaman driver, now moved to OSGeo/gdal-extra-drivers
  repository (#4808)

# GDAL/OGR 3.6.0 Release Notes

Those notes include changes since GDAL 3.5.0, but not already included in a GDAL \ 
3.5.x bugfix release.

## In a nutshell...

* CMake is the only build system available in-tree. autoconf and nmake build \ 
systems have been removed
* OpenFileGDB: write and update support (v10.x format only), without requiring \ 
any external dependency, with same (and actually larger) functional scope as \ 
write side of the FileGDB driver
* [RFC 86](https://gdal.org/development/rfc/rfc86_column_oriented_api.html): \ 
Column-oriented read API for vector layers.
  Implemented in core, Arrow, Parquet, GPKG and FlatGeoBuf drivers
* Add read/write raster [JPEGXL \ 
driver](https://gdal.org/drivers/raster/jpegxl.html) for standalone JPEG-XL \ 
files. Requires libjxl
* Add KTX2 and BASISU read/write raster drivers for texture formats. Require \ 
(forked) basisu library
* Vector layer API: table relationship discovery & creation, Upsert() operation
* GeoTIFF: add multi-threaded read capabilities (reqiures NUM_THREADS open \ 
option or GDAL_NUM_THREADS configuration option to be set)
* Multiple performance improvements in GPKG driver
* ogr_layer_algebra.py: promoted to official script (#1581)
* Code linting and security fixes
* Bump of shared lib major version