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Spatial Data Infrastructures: A SWOTs analysis
Ian Masser
Professorial Fellow
Department of Geomatics,
Faculty of Engineering
University of Melbourne
Email: masser@onetel.com
Introduction
Recently I was asked by some students after a lecture on Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) to summarise what I saw as the strengths and weaknesses of current SDIs and what I regarded as the main opportunities to be exploited and the threats to be faced in the immediate future. In other words I was being asked to make a SWOTs analysis of the whole SDI field. I found this to be a very challenging and exciting task. This prompted me later to expand and develop my initial responses to their questions in the following article.
Strengths
The most important strength of the SDI concept is the way in which it enables a diverse group of users to access a wide range of spatially referenced data sets. The underlying rationale for SDIs is to maximise the use that is made of local, national and global geographic information assets and their ultimate success or failure is likely to be measured largely in these terms. In this way SDIs also make an important contribution to economic growth and job creation at the locals, national and global levels as well as promoting more effective and transparent decision making in both the public and private sectors.
The second main strength is the degree to which the SDI concept straddles existing professional and administrative sectoral boundaries. It is inherently an integrating concept that facilitates the use of local, national and global geographic information assets many times in many different applications. Recognition of the importance of integrating data from many diverse sources is already encouraging the merger of previously separate professional bodies in some countries. In Australia, for example, a Spatial Sciences Institute was set up in 2003 to bring together the disciplines of surveying, mapping, engineering and mining, surveying, remote sensing and photogrammetry (www.spatialsciences.org.au). At the global level a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association was set up in 2004 ‘to promote international cooperation and collaboration in support of local, national and international spatial data infrastructure developments that will allow nations to better address social, economic and environmental issues of pressing importance’ (www.gsdi.org). Its membership includes organisations of all kinds in both the public and private sectors as well as not for profit organisations and academia from all parts of the world.
The third main strength of the SDI concept is the way it has exploited recent developments in location based services and the Internet and the World Wide Web. The importance of the latter was recognised by the US Mapping Sciences Committee in their report on Distributed Geolibraries (National Research Council 1999, 31). In their view, 'the WWW has added a new and radically different dimension to its earlier conception of the NSDI, one that is much more user oriented, much more effective in maximising the added value of the nation's geoinformation assets, and much more cost effective as a data dissemination mechanism’.
Weaknesses
Each of the strengths referred to above also brings with it its weaknesses. The development and implementation of SDIs must reflect the needs of a great diversity of users from all levels of government as well as the private and non governmental sectors (Rajabifard et al 2006). Because of the number of stakeholders involved it will also be necessary to devise new kinds of management structures for this purpose.
It must also be recognised that SDIs can only facilitate access to a wide range of users if changes also take place in existing organisational cultures. To be effective SDIs require data sharing on an unprecedented scale. Some indication of the nature of the barriers that must be overcome is given in Uta Wehn de Montalvo's (2003) study of spatial data sharing perceptions and practices in South Africa from a social psychological perspective. The findings of her analysis generally show that there is only a relatively limited commitment amongst those involved to promote data sharing even in high profile initiatives such as South Africa’s National Spatial Information Framework.
Similarly, the extent to which SDIs straddle professional and administrative sectoral boundaries may lead to problems in building up and maintaining a consensus among the stakeholders involved over time. The old adage that Rome wasn’t built in a day is equally applicable to SDIs. The creation of SDIs is a long term process that may take years or even decades in some cases before they will be fully operational. Such a process is also dependent on sustaining political support and commitment for such initiatives. This is likely to present particular problems in some less developed countries where financial and human resources are scarce and governments have to operate in times of political instability.
Opportunities
The most important opportunity is the growing public awareness of the potential for SDI development in an Information Society. This can be seen from the agenda for the UN World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis in November 2005. Key factors underlying this Summit are the extent to which the Digital Revolution is changing the ways people think, communicate and earn their livelihood and the need to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor both between and within countries (www.itu.int/wsis/). Because of the degree to which a large proportion of all data is geo referenced SDIs are likely to play a major role in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals that the UN has set itself for improving the living standards of millions of people throughout the world.
Another important opportunity for SDIs arises from the growing pressure to make public sector information more readily available for reuse by the private sector. The rationale behind these debates in Europe is the recognition that the public sector is the largest single producer of information in Europe and that the social and economic potential of this resource has yet to be tapped. Geographic information held by public sector organisations has considerable potential for the development of digital products and services. With this in mind EU Directive 2003/98/EC sets out a framework for the conditions governing the re-use of public sector information (CEC 2003). The adoption of this Directive has important implications for the future development of the geographic information field in Europe because the measures that it contains are mandatory on all 25 national member states which had to incorporate them in their respective national legislation by July 2005.
Attention should also be drawn to the opportunities that are being created by the development of new kinds of internet mapping products such as Google Earth (www.earth.google.com) which are dramatically changing the way that geographic information is made available to users. Bob Barr (2005) has called them disruptive technologies because ‘they force us to re- evaluate what should be private what is public, what constitutes giving away data, what is a product and what is infrastructure, whether we need our own data if we can rely on using someone else's infrastructure for free (albeit having to consume some advertising in the process).’
Threats
As was the case with respect to the strengths and weaknesses the opportunities created by the Information Society and public sector information debates and the development of products such as Google Earth also bring with them threats. There is already some concern that the GI/SDI sector will be swallowed up by developments elsewhere and lose its identity in the process. As a result some of the special qualities of geographic information may not be adequately considered in future applications (Goodchild 2002). These include the questions such as those associated with transforming 3D information relating to the globe into two dimensions for display and analysis, the need to be to able to deal with multiple representations of the same data at scales varying from 1:1,000,00 to 1:500, and the voluminous sizes of geographic databases which can easily exceed one terabyte in size.
Next steps
In the light of this analysis it is up to the developers of SDIs to build on their strengths and take steps to overcome their weaknesses over the next few years. In the process they will also have to find ways of exploiting the opportunities that are emerging while minimising the threats to their activities. What they might do to achieve these objectives is the subject of another article.
References
Ian Masser
Professorial Fellow
Department of Geomatics,
Faculty of Engineering
University of Melbourne
Email: masser@onetel.com
Introduction
Recently I was asked by some students after a lecture on Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) to summarise what I saw as the strengths and weaknesses of current SDIs and what I regarded as the main opportunities to be exploited and the threats to be faced in the immediate future. In other words I was being asked to make a SWOTs analysis of the whole SDI field. I found this to be a very challenging and exciting task. This prompted me later to expand and develop my initial responses to their questions in the following article.
Strengths
The most important strength of the SDI concept is the way in which it enables a diverse group of users to access a wide range of spatially referenced data sets. The underlying rationale for SDIs is to maximise the use that is made of local, national and global geographic information assets and their ultimate success or failure is likely to be measured largely in these terms. In this way SDIs also make an important contribution to economic growth and job creation at the locals, national and global levels as well as promoting more effective and transparent decision making in both the public and private sectors.
The second main strength is the degree to which the SDI concept straddles existing professional and administrative sectoral boundaries. It is inherently an integrating concept that facilitates the use of local, national and global geographic information assets many times in many different applications. Recognition of the importance of integrating data from many diverse sources is already encouraging the merger of previously separate professional bodies in some countries. In Australia, for example, a Spatial Sciences Institute was set up in 2003 to bring together the disciplines of surveying, mapping, engineering and mining, surveying, remote sensing and photogrammetry (www.spatialsciences.org.au). At the global level a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association was set up in 2004 ‘to promote international cooperation and collaboration in support of local, national and international spatial data infrastructure developments that will allow nations to better address social, economic and environmental issues of pressing importance’ (www.gsdi.org). Its membership includes organisations of all kinds in both the public and private sectors as well as not for profit organisations and academia from all parts of the world.
The third main strength of the SDI concept is the way it has exploited recent developments in location based services and the Internet and the World Wide Web. The importance of the latter was recognised by the US Mapping Sciences Committee in their report on Distributed Geolibraries (National Research Council 1999, 31). In their view, 'the WWW has added a new and radically different dimension to its earlier conception of the NSDI, one that is much more user oriented, much more effective in maximising the added value of the nation's geoinformation assets, and much more cost effective as a data dissemination mechanism’.
Weaknesses
Each of the strengths referred to above also brings with it its weaknesses. The development and implementation of SDIs must reflect the needs of a great diversity of users from all levels of government as well as the private and non governmental sectors (Rajabifard et al 2006). Because of the number of stakeholders involved it will also be necessary to devise new kinds of management structures for this purpose.
It must also be recognised that SDIs can only facilitate access to a wide range of users if changes also take place in existing organisational cultures. To be effective SDIs require data sharing on an unprecedented scale. Some indication of the nature of the barriers that must be overcome is given in Uta Wehn de Montalvo's (2003) study of spatial data sharing perceptions and practices in South Africa from a social psychological perspective. The findings of her analysis generally show that there is only a relatively limited commitment amongst those involved to promote data sharing even in high profile initiatives such as South Africa’s National Spatial Information Framework.
Similarly, the extent to which SDIs straddle professional and administrative sectoral boundaries may lead to problems in building up and maintaining a consensus among the stakeholders involved over time. The old adage that Rome wasn’t built in a day is equally applicable to SDIs. The creation of SDIs is a long term process that may take years or even decades in some cases before they will be fully operational. Such a process is also dependent on sustaining political support and commitment for such initiatives. This is likely to present particular problems in some less developed countries where financial and human resources are scarce and governments have to operate in times of political instability.
Opportunities
The most important opportunity is the growing public awareness of the potential for SDI development in an Information Society. This can be seen from the agenda for the UN World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis in November 2005. Key factors underlying this Summit are the extent to which the Digital Revolution is changing the ways people think, communicate and earn their livelihood and the need to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor both between and within countries (www.itu.int/wsis/). Because of the degree to which a large proportion of all data is geo referenced SDIs are likely to play a major role in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals that the UN has set itself for improving the living standards of millions of people throughout the world.
Another important opportunity for SDIs arises from the growing pressure to make public sector information more readily available for reuse by the private sector. The rationale behind these debates in Europe is the recognition that the public sector is the largest single producer of information in Europe and that the social and economic potential of this resource has yet to be tapped. Geographic information held by public sector organisations has considerable potential for the development of digital products and services. With this in mind EU Directive 2003/98/EC sets out a framework for the conditions governing the re-use of public sector information (CEC 2003). The adoption of this Directive has important implications for the future development of the geographic information field in Europe because the measures that it contains are mandatory on all 25 national member states which had to incorporate them in their respective national legislation by July 2005.
Attention should also be drawn to the opportunities that are being created by the development of new kinds of internet mapping products such as Google Earth (www.earth.google.com) which are dramatically changing the way that geographic information is made available to users. Bob Barr (2005) has called them disruptive technologies because ‘they force us to re- evaluate what should be private what is public, what constitutes giving away data, what is a product and what is infrastructure, whether we need our own data if we can rely on using someone else's infrastructure for free (albeit having to consume some advertising in the process).’
Threats
As was the case with respect to the strengths and weaknesses the opportunities created by the Information Society and public sector information debates and the development of products such as Google Earth also bring with them threats. There is already some concern that the GI/SDI sector will be swallowed up by developments elsewhere and lose its identity in the process. As a result some of the special qualities of geographic information may not be adequately considered in future applications (Goodchild 2002). These include the questions such as those associated with transforming 3D information relating to the globe into two dimensions for display and analysis, the need to be to able to deal with multiple representations of the same data at scales varying from 1:1,000,00 to 1:500, and the voluminous sizes of geographic databases which can easily exceed one terabyte in size.
Next steps
In the light of this analysis it is up to the developers of SDIs to build on their strengths and take steps to overcome their weaknesses over the next few years. In the process they will also have to find ways of exploiting the opportunities that are emerging while minimising the threats to their activities. What they might do to achieve these objectives is the subject of another article.
References
- Barr, R., 2005. Disruptive technologies, Geoconnexion International, September, also available at http://www.geoconnexion.com/magazine/article.asp?ID=2409 (last accessed 25 October 2005).
- Commission of the European Communities, (CEC), 2003. The reuse of public sector information, Directive 2003/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, Official Journal of the European Union, L345, 90-96.
- Goodchild, M., 2002. What’s special about spatial? Presentation at the Centre for Spatially Integrated Social Science (CSISS), University of California at Santa Barbara, CA, www.csiss.org/aboutus/presentations/files/goodchild.qmss.oct02.pdf (last accessed October 28 2005)
- National Research Council, 1999. Distributed geolibraries: spatial information resources, Mapping Science Committee, National Research Council, Washington D.C: National Academy Press.
- Rajabifard, A.., A. Binns, I. Masser and I. Williamson, 2006. The role of sub national government and the private sector in future spatial data infrastructures, Int Jour of GIS, forthcoming.
- Wehn de Montalvo, U., 2003. Mapping the determinants of spatial data sharing, Aldershot: Ashgate.