The NGDI of Australia - Achievements and Challenges from a Federal Perspective

The NGDI of Australia - Achievements and Challenges from a Federal Perspective

Alister D Nairn (author) and Peter Holland (presenter)
Australian Surveying and Land Information Group
Department of Industry, Science and Resources
PO Box 2, Belconnen, Canberra, ACT 2616, Australia
Tel: +61-2-6201 4201 Fax: +61-2-6201 4368
Email: exec@auslig.gov.au, peterholland@auslig.gov.au

Abstract
Australia has a relatively advanced geographical information system (GIS) infrastructure with well-developed policies, data and technology. Over recent years this infrastructure has been defined as the Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure (ASDI) which conforms to a large degree to other National Geo-spatial Data Infrastructures (NGDI). The Australia New Zealand Land Information Council1 (ANZLIC) released its discussion paper on the ASDI2 in 1996. Since then, there has been considerable discussion of the nature of the ASDI and how it should be implemented. There has also been a substantial amount of work done to implement various components of the ASDI.

Australia’s federal system of government places a large responsibility for land management issues on state levels of government. Local government, the third tier of government in Australia, also has some responsibility in this area, especially in relation to planning of land use and provision of local services. The federal government is a large producer and user of geographic information for national applications. It plays a leading role in the co-ordination of the national activities of the various governments through established co-ordinating bodies such as ANZLIC. There are also a number of national projects undertaken by the federal government that rely on being able to access, integrate and analyse data from numerous custodians at the federal, state and local government levels.

The ASDI initiative has delivered significant achievements in areas that will improve the ability of users to access and integrate geographic information from numerous agencies that produce it. This paper will cover these initiatives and also look at the challenges that remain in fully realising the vision of the ASDI “To provide better access for all Australian to essential spatial data”.

Introduction
Background
This paper was originally written and presented by Alister Nairn at a GIS conference in Korea (Nairn, 2000). It is being re-presented by Peter Holland at the “Workshop on NGDI – Towards a Road Map for India”3 held on 5-6 February 2001 in New Delhi, India in Technical Session 2 “NGDI: International Experiences”.

Drivers for GIS Development
GIS information products have traditionally been used by decision-makers to improve economic, social and environmental conditions in the real world. Increasingly geographic information is being incorporated into business systems and used within industry to improve efficiency and competitiveness.

Technology development is now providing tools to enable GIS to be brought into the mainstream of information management. High powered computers, better graphics, improved bandwidth and communications, ease of use and of course the Internet and interoperability are all factors contributing towards this trend. As economies rely more on knowledge management to be competitive this is becoming increasingly important. There is a growing use of geographic information and GIS amongst government departments and businesses that are increasingly incorporating geographic information into their corporate databases.

This improved technology and greater penetration of GIS into government and business is also driving the need for access to reliable and accurate geographic information.

Experience is showing us that it is no longer the technology that is the impediment for GIS industry growth but the availability of standards compliant, accurate data that meets user requirements. In Australia, where there are a large number of government agencies across the different jurisdictions controlling much of the geographic information, the issue of access arrangements, including pricing and licensing to this data is currently an obstacle.

From this it follows that, while the technological framework can be upgraded or replaced with new developments, the investment in developing standards compliant data and associated whole of government policies for ensuring access to these data is vitally important. The improving availability of GIS data is providing opportunities for industry to add value to these data and become more involved with GIS.

The National Development Strategy for GIS in Australia
The overall objective of developing a NGDI is to achieve better outcomes for the nation through better economic, social and environmental decision-making. The availability of standards compliant fundamental geographic datasets is essential if the full potential of GIS technology is to be realised in supporting those decision-making processes. Recognising that the cost, quality and longevity of geographic data are critical in the application of the technology, the specific objectives in developing a national geographic data infrastructure should be to

Produce standardised fundamental geographic datasets;
Avoid unnecessary duplication of cost in developing and maintaining those data;
Facilitate access to and application of those data; and
Enable integration of other application-specific data by all users (value adding).

The underlying philosophy to this approach is that fundamental geographic information is a national resource that must be managed in the national interest.

The Importance of Co-ordination of Activities
The division of responsibilities between the three levels of government in Australia - federal, state and local - makes it important to co-ordinate geographic information activities to avoid duplication and to facilitate sharing of data across the jurisdictions. The peak co-ordinating council for geographic information in Australia is ANZLIC, which has representatives from all levels of government. Industry is also represented through a standing committee on industry development.

Federal Government	State Government	Local Government
Taxation	Law Enforcement	Town Planning
Defence	Education	Local Roads
Trade and Foreign Affairs including International Treaties	Transport	Rates
Social Security	Health Services	Local Environment
Astronomical Observations and Navigation	Land Management	Essential local infrastructure
Statistics	Agriculture

Table 1: A broad overview of the responsibilities of the various levels of government in Australia

Broadly speaking the responsibilities between the different levels of government are given in Table 1.

The level of autonomy of state and territory governments in Australia can sometimes cause difficulties at arriving at consistent national approaches to issues, however this autonomy has resulted in effective land management infrastructures in each jurisdiction. It is in effect a distributed as opposed to a centralised model. Also the relatively small number of state level governments (six states and two territory governments) makes co-ordination achievable in Australia. This contrasts with the United States of America where the number of states makes meeting and agreeing on issues far more difficult.

The model for the ASDI is in essence a combination of the jurisdictional level spatial data infrastructures whereby the ASDI provides the “glue” to enable these jurisdictional geo-spatial data infrastructures to inter-operate. The national challenge is to ensure standards are developed and applied at both the technical and policy levels so that national datasets can be derived from jurisdictional data. There will, however, always remain reasons for federal agencies to produce nationally consistent datasets where it is not feasible to simply “sew together” data available from states and territories.

The federal government co-ordinates its geographic information activities through the Commonwealth Spatial Data Committee1 (CSDC). This committee consists of the major federal government spatial data users and producers and the chairman of CSDC represents the federal government on ANZLIC.

PROGRESS TOWARDS IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ASDI
The Development of a Policy for Access and Pricing of Geographic Information

This is one of the most difficult areas for all governments to agree.

ANZLIC convened a workshop in May 2000 to develop a common approach for access to fundamental geographic information. This workshop identified and prioritised a number of issues requiring further action. The top eight issues are summarised below

Institutional arrangements;
Access to data;
Custodianship;
Engagement of the private sector;
The need for a national information office to facilitate access to government data;
Standards;
Metadata; and
A common clearinghouse technology framework.

Clearly access to data and the administrative and licensing conditions, including the price of data charged by data custodians, emerged as the main issue from the workshop. Private sector participants were particularly focussed on this area.

A comparison of the access and pricing policies in each jurisdiction reveals significant variations in both the prices and access conditions. In some jurisdictions whole of government pricing and access policies apply, while in other jurisdictions this is left up to individual agencies.

The New Zealand policy of access to government data is currently the least restrictive with low prices set for access and no royalty payments required for users wishing to value add and on sell the data. At the other end of the spectrum are agencies that charge a high price for data and require licences and royalties for users. Some jurisdictions have policies to provide data at minimal cost to other government agencies for internal use. An example of the variation in prices of the state and territory cadastral database across Australian jurisdictions is given in Table 2.

State/Territory	Price
Northern Territory	$2000
Victoria	$5,500
South Australia	$10,000
Australian Capital Territory	$26,150
Queensland	$87,500
Tasmania	$189,000
Western Australia	$200,000
New South Wales	$4,725,000

Table 2: The price for cadastral databases in Australia in November 1999 (These prices are possibly not current as jurisdictions continue to review prices).

In recognition of the importance for a consistent whole of government approach to access and pricing of geographic information the federal government is currently developing a new policy that will apply to fundamental geographic information nominated in a schedule1 . This policy will be available towards the end of 2001.

Development of Fundamental Data
The CSDC has developed a list of fundamental and framework data that are considered important for national applications2 . Framework datasets are those fundamental datasets that provide essential base information for multiple national requirements. They are the priority subset of fundamental datasets and provide the foundation on which organisations can create other datasets by overlaying their own thematic detail. The framework datasets needed for national responsibilities are shown in Table 3.

Ensuring the Quality of Data
The CSDC has embraced a process of “compliance auditing” of fundamental geographic information1 . This process is aimed at ensuring that fundamental geographic information meets a number of agreed compliance criteria that have been agreed. These criteria are given below.

Content/extent
The data are nationally consistent and nationally significant. A small geographic coverage could still be nationally significant.

Sponsorship
A sponsor has been identified for the data and complies with ANZLIC guidelines

Liaises and co-operates with ANZLIC and other sponsors to ensure that data are assembled, maintained and delivered in a nationally consistent way;
Consults with users to disseminate information about the data;
Fosters efficient use of the data;
Co-ordinates data collection to minimise duplication; and
Provides leadership in developing standards for content, quality and transfer.

Custodianship
Data custodians have been identified. For each ASDI data layer, there may be many data custodians. Custodians comply with ANZLIC custodianship guidelines

Consults with the national sponsor and community to determine data needs and priorities before developing or defining collection or maintenance programs;
Avoids duplication of capture by ensuring, in conjunction with the national sponsor, that data to be captured is not already held in the format required. Encourages the proper use of spatial information to discourage duplication through ignorance;
Develops, with the national sponsor and users, appropriate standards for the management and use of the fundamental data in their care;
Ensures that the data under their custodianship conform to appropriate national, international or agreed standards;
Provides full and frank quality statements regarding source, reliability, accuracy, completeness and currency;
Maintains the quality of the data;
Ensures the spatial information under their custodianship is both accessible and readily available;
Ensures appropriate storage, maintenance, security and archival procedures for their spatial information;
Safeguards the government’s interest in the use of its information through licensing agreements or letters of understanding to protect privacy and confidentiality and interpretation of the information; and
Provides a single point of contact for inquiries about the fundamental data under their care.

Access Arrangements
Data are available “off the shelf” - accessible and readily available. Conditions of use are documented and pricing/licensing arrangements are available.

Format
Data are available in well recognised / supported digital format suitable for interchange of the data.

Metadata (data documentation)
Metadata meet ANZLIC guidelines3 , are complete and meaningful for all ANZLIC page 0 elements. Information about scale/resolution, geo-referencing information (datum, map projection type and parameters) are supplied with the data. Metadata are available on the Australian Spatial Data Directory4 (ASDD). Metadata are always supplied with the data.

Standards
The data meets relevant international / national standards or guidelines. The data model is documented and available. Data dictionary describing the data is up-to-date and available. The data are compliant with the geocentric datum of Australia 19945 (GDA).

Quality Assurance
Satisfactory quality assurance procedures are in place to ensure that the data quality is correct as documented in metadata. In particular, mechanisms are in place to evaluate spatial accuracy, attribute accuracy, and logical consistency. Quality assurance procedures are documented and available. The status of audits undertaken to data is shown in Table 4.

The Creation of a National Topographic Data Base from Multi Jurisdictional Data

Major national responsibilities which require accurate spatial information products	Geodetic Control	Office Place Names	Populated Places	Elevation	Water Features	Transport	Administrative boundaries	Property	Bathymetry	Land Cover Use	Satellite Imagery
Defence, National Security, Disaster Management
Environmental Protection and Management, Sustainable Land Management.
Primary Industry; Natural Resources Management Resource Industries Management
Land Management Policy, incl. Native Title
National Statistical Service, Community Services Policy (incl. health & education), Regional Infrastructure Development
Communications Infrastructure, Transport Infrastructure, Navigation
Weather Forecasting, Climate Modelling
Commonwealth Asset Management/ Utilisation
Electoral Boundary Determination
International Treaties & Conventions, Offshore Territories

Table 3: Framework datasets required for national responsibilities

In 1993 the public sector mapping agencies (PSMA) in Australia formed a consortium to supply topographic and cadastral data to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) for the purposes of the provision of mapping for the 1996 census of population and housing1 . The data set is a multi-resolution data set sourced from the federal government, the states and the territories, with extremely detailed topographic feature representation in cities and urban areas, augmented by a national spatial representation of legal land parcels (the cadastral framework) provided by the states and territories.

Data set	Custodian	Compliance	Date
LANDSAT Thematic Mapper	AUSLIG 1	Yes	17 Sep 98
LANDSAT MultiSpectral Scanner	AUSLIG	Yes	17 Sep 98
Ocean Thermal Data	AODC	Yes	9 Oct 98
Geology of Australia	AGSO	Yes	24 Jan 2000
Aust Statistical Boundries	ABS	Yes	11 Nov 98
Register of the National Estate	Environment Australia	Not Yet (more info on standards used required	11 Nov 98
Digital Atlas of Aust. Soil	BRS	Not Yet	2 Feb 99
National Vegetation Information system	NLWRA	(Metadata and QA) Not Yet	1 June 2000
Aust Land Use	NLWRA	Not Yet	6 June 2000

Table 4: Status of CSDC compliance audits

This data set has been updated and improved and is licensed to a number of value added resellers that have incorporated it into their products. It forms one of the most widely used GIS base data sets currently in use in Australia.

Important Private Sector GIS Datasets.
The most widely used digital data sets produced by the private sector are the digital versions of street directories. This is large-scale data used increasingly by businesses over the Internet. One or two large companies dominate the market in Australia. One of these companies, Telstra , provides an Internet based mapping service to other companies wanting to use maps on their own web sites. For example a company selling real estate over the Internet may want to show the location of the property on a street directory type of map. Telstra provide this service based on an annual fee plus a usage figure. The digital maps are also provided to the in-vehicle navigation market.

A geocoded street address database marketed by MapInfo is another private sector dataset gaining increased use within business . This particular dataset is a value added product derived from the base topographic data produced by PSMA.

Access to Data
The Australian Spatial Data Directory
The ASDD is a national initiative supported by all governments under the auspices of ANZLIC. The directory is a tool to improve data discovery for spatial data for industry, government, education and the general community through effective documentation, advertisement and distribution. The directory links government and commercial nodes in each state/territory and spatial data agencies within the federal government.

The directory is an essential component of the ASDI and incorporates information about datasets (metadata) from all jurisdictions.

The directory was launched in 1998 and has since steadily grown in content to become the key source of spatial information in Australia. Currently there are 19 separate nodes, or individual databases connected to the directory with over 40,000 individual metadata entries.

The technology being used for the ASDD is the Z39.50 search and retrieval protocol which when combined with the World Wide Web (WWW) provides a simple method of searching, discovery and retrieval of spatial data. The directory is also compatible with the USA Clearinghouse Network and notes are searchable through this network.

The directory is maintained and developed by the federal government on behalf of ANZLIC through a National Co-ordination Group4 . This group is comprised of a consortium of Federal government agencies, namely the Australian Surveying and Land Information Group (AUSLIG), the Environmental Resources Information Network (ERIN) within Environment Australia and the Bureau of Rural Sciences (BRS). The architecture of the ASSD is shown in figure 1.

On Line Atlases
On line atlases are becoming a more accepted way of presenting and distributing geographical information. The federal government has initiated two significant on line atlas projects for specific purposes. The first initiative is known as the Coastal Atlas and is an initiative of the Department of Environment and Heritage. The other atlas product is a product to display the results of a national audit of land and water resources currently being finalised. It is known as the Australian Natural Resources Atlas.

Fig 1: Architecture of the ASDD

The Australian Coastal Atlas

Fig 2: WWW interface for the ACA

In May 1995 the Commonwealth Coastal Policy defined a need to establish an Australian Coastal Atlas (ACA) to help increase knowledge about Australia’s coastal zone, and thus provide a sound information base to support decision making for coastal zone management. The ACA project involves

Developing partnerships with marine and coastal agencies and working together to provide information to the wider public;
Improving management of marine and coastal data;
Filling some gaps in fundamental marine and coastal data; and
Development of protocols and software to help make data available over the internet.

The ACA is a national network of marine and coastal agencies all working together to provide information to the public over the WWW. The ACA is made up of a network of agencies around Australia called “nodes”. All nodes have now either been installed with the ACA software or have developed their own web mapping software. The use of Internet technology allows data from each node to be accessed both nationally and internationally by a broad base of users interested in coastal information. The primary objective of the ACA is to improve coastal management.

The development of an ACA was considered to be a partial solution to better coastal management by providing a foundation for

Integrated decision making and the development of long term strategic responses to coastal problems; and
Improved data management and information exchange to enable managers to make informed decisions about the use and development of the coast.

The WWW interface for the ACA is shown at Figure 2.

The Australian Natural Resources Atlas
The Australian Natural Resources Atlas is a vehicle for presenting the information products of the National Land and Water Resources Audit (NLWRA). The information is organised by subject and by geography. By subject

Area of interest eg water, soil, vegetation; and
Topic of interest eg surface water, soil quality.

By geography

Whole of Australia;
State or territory eg Victoria; and
Regionalisation eg surface water basins, interim biogeographical regions.

The information presented may take the form of maps, photographs, text descriptions, numerical information, charts, graphs that are managed in a database. Additionally, some of the maps are linked to an interactive map that allows the user to explore the information using state-of-the-art web mapping techniques.

The presentation of the information is dynamically generated by retrieval of appropriate information from the database and insertion of the retrieved information into layout templates. The Atlas is therefore a growing system which is intended to serve the needs of the resource management community well into the future.

Further extensions to the atlases are planned to provide data download capabilities, subject to the licensing requirements of the data custodians.

Federal Government Interoperability Trial
AUSLIG led a consortium of government, industry and research agencies, known as the Australian Web Mapping Consortium to participate in the OpenGIS Consortium Web Mapping Testbed project. This consortium developed an Australian testbed which was demonstrated in the USA in December 1999.

Internet based on line delivery of services is a rapidly developing area. Many services delivered by government agencies rely on sharing information maintained by other custodian agencies at the federal and state levels. The demand for interoperable solutions is clear and standards are emerging that will improve the ability to achieve this.

The CSDC is conducting a trial amongst six federal agencies to test the interoperability standards being developed. The trial will build on the work done by the Australian Web Mapping Consortium to allow agencies to gain first hand experience in the emerging technologies and enable them to make future decisions to improve their service delivery.

The trial will involve developing some applications that integrate data being served from the various participant agencies using different hardware and software into a single web interface.

Many of the theories and policies that have been developed by bodies such as ANZLIC and CSDC will be able to be tested through this process and shortcomings identified for future action.

Standards and Guidelines
The importance of standards for using and transferring geographic information as part of the ASDI are well recognised. These standards are particularly important to achieve a degree of interoperability across jurisdictional borders. A list of the standards being used and developed in Australia is provided in Table 5.

Standard	Purpose	Comment
ANZLIC Metadata Guidelines Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Data Used extensively	Consistent description of Metadata for geographic datasets forms foundation for the ASDD	Consistent with us FGDC Content Standards for digital Geospatial Data Used extensively
ANZLIC Custodianship guidelines	The guidelines provide advice on the principles of custodianship the responsibilities of custodianship and users on the management of information products.	These principal are accepted and followed to a large degree by custodians
AS 2482-1989 Geographic information systems-Geographic data-Interchange of feature-coded digital mapping data	This Standards specified the format and coding of instructed digital point and vector geographic data to be used when the information is being prepared for exchange purpose	This standard has been used expensively in the past but will be superseded soon by the ISO 19100 series on Geographic Information/Geomatics
AS/NZS 4270.1:1995 Part of a series of standards for geographic information systems Spatial data transfer standard-Logical specifications	This standard specifies a structure and content for spatially referenced data in order to facilitated data transfer between dissimilar spatial data base systems.	This standard has not been widely used in Australia. Users view this standards as too complex
AS/NZS 4584 (Int.) 1999 Geographic information-Australian and new Zealand land use codes.	The standards provides a hierarchical code for land usage in order to bring uniformity to the structure and categories under which the information is collected.	Being progressively applied in Australia
AS/NZS 4724:2000 Geographic information-Rural addressing	This standard established requirements and provides guidelines for a comprehensive rural addressing system. It identifies the elements of the system and provides guidelines for the application of those elements to various road patterns and road classifications found in rural areas.	Being progressively applied in Australia
ICSM Draft Australian and New Zealand Rural and Urban Addressing Standard (version 1.10 28 Aug 2000)	This draft standard is an attempt to determine the best way to incorporate geocoding and complex addressing into a standard	Comments sought
Geodetric Datum of Australia	A new geocentric geodetic datum of Australia has been implemented based on 19994 epoch	Being progressively implemented. Now is the official datum for Australia.
ICSM Draft National Topographic Data Model - Version 0.3	This data model has been designed to amalgamate the ideas of the jurisdictions which have separately contributed their own data models for topographic information.	Not in use yet.
ICSM National Cadastral Data Model Version 1.1. June 1999	This national Cadastral Data Model has been developed from a review of cadastral data models supplied by jurisdictions in Australia and New Zealand.	Not in use yet.

Table. 5: List of the standards being used and developed in Australia.

Industry Participation and Development
A study undertaken by Price Waterhouse in 1995 of the economic benefits arising from investment in spatial data infrastructure revealed that for every dollar invested in producing spatial data, $4 of benefit was generated in the economy. In 1989 – 1994 these benefits were in the order of $4.5 billion distributed across the broad spectrum of economic activities.

An ANZLIC discussion paper on industry development in Australia has recently been released. This paper defines the spatial information industry as that section of the economy engaged directly or indirectly in supplying spatial attributes information of all types. Currently, the public sector dominates the supply and demand aspects of this marketplace and accounts for a majority of expenditure in products, services and data. The commercial industry consists of the participants in the various product supply chains that are formed in servicing this spatial information marketplace.

The paper also suggests that the spatial information industry appears to be emerging from a developmental phase and moving towards exploitation. Additionally some significant spatial databases are being developed in the private sector particularly in the remote sensing area. Some key indicators of the shift in industry dynamics are:

Supply side participants beginning to reach the end of long standing data acquisition programs;
Maturation and commercialisation of spatial information technology, in both hardware and software areas;
Convergence of spatial and main stream information management technologies and, perhaps more importantly; and
Realisation of business benefits in traditional spatial information areas (land titles, natural resources, etc) has led to consideration and growing acceptance of low margin, high volume spatial information licencing, in direct contrast to the conventional very high margin/very low volume model.

The Federal Department of Industry Science and Resources has recognised the Spatial Information Industry as an industry with growth potential that is important in an information based economy. An Action Agenda has been established3 which will provide a mechanism for the Government and industry to work together to overcome barriers to growth and to ensure a whole-of government approach to the development of the industry. It will enable the industry to build on its existing strengths, generate new domestic and export marketing opportunities, enhance the development of Australia as a regional centre of excellence and encourage the creation of new technologies and products. The Action Agenda will also promote the capabilities of the industry, facilitate access to infrastructure, streamline technology diffusion between public institutions and the private sector, and encourage clustering to ensure effective competition for global market opportunities.

Conclusion
The increasing recognition of the importance of GIS data by government and industry is driving the development of a national GIS infrastructure known in Australia as the ASDI. The focus has changed recent times from discussion on the theory and organisation of the ASDI to implementation of its components. This paper has discussed some of the progress made in this implementation to date.

Due to the division of responsibility between the various levels of government in Australia co-ordination activities are important. The NGDI is in effect a combination of the infrastructures of the various jurisdictions involved.

The development of more consistent policies for access and pricing of geographic information remains a challenge for government but is seen as on of the most important issues to be resolved. The development of a more competitive and capable GIS industry depends to a significant degree on improved access to GIS data held by government agencies.

Progress has been made in the implementation of a national spatial data directory and the implementation of a number of national on line atlases. Additional work is being undertaken in trialing technology and standards to enable better sharing of data. Increased interoperability across federal and state government agencies is viewed as an important future development.

Standards are being developed through national committees that will provide a higher degree of national consistency with geographic information.

The identification and auditing of framework datasets will continue to deliver more reliable data. The development of datasets comprised from data sourced from all jurisdictions in Australia is also providing better GIS data. This data availability is stimulating the GIS industry. Finally, the government has recognised the potential of the GIS industry and is actively encouraging its development through the identification and removal of obstacles to growth.

Glossary
ABS - Australian Bureau of Statistics
ACA - Australian coastal atlas
AGSO - Australian Geological Survey Organisation
ANZLIC - Australia and New Zealand Land Information Council
AODC - Australian Oceanographic Data Centre
AS - Australian standard
ASDD - Australian Spatial Data Directory
ASDI - Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure
AUSLIG - Australian Surveying and Land Information Group
BRS - Bureau of Rural Science
CSDC - Commonwealth Spatial Data Committee
ERIN - Environmental Resource Information Network
FGDC - Federal Geographic Data Committee
GDA - geocentric datum of Australia 1994
GIS - geographic information system
ICSM - Inter-governmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping
ISO - International Standards Organisation
NGDI - National Geospatial Data Framework
NLWRA - National Land and Water resources Audit
NZS - New Zealand standard
PSMA - Public Sector Mapping Agencies
QA - quality assurance
WALIS - Western Australia Land Information System
WWW - world wide web

Reference

ANZLIC (1996), Spatial Data Infrastructure for Australia and New Zealand - Discussion Paper, ANZLIC.
Australia New Zealand Land Information Council, (1995), Australian Land and Geographic Data Infrastructure Benefit Study, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.
Commonwealth Spatial Data Committee, Fundamental Data Working Group Web Site. http://www.csdc.gov.au/fdwg.htm (Accessed September 2000)
Environment Australia, Australian Spatial Data Directory home page http://www.environment.gov.au/net/asdd/ (Accessed September 2000)
Environment Australia, Australian Coastal Atlas Web Site http://www.environment.gov.au/marine/coastal_atlas/index.html (Accessed September 2000)
Nairn, A 2000, Australia’s Developing GIS Infrastructure – Achievements and Challenges from a Federal Perspective, 5th International Seminar on GIS, Seoul, Korea, 28-29 September 2000
Nairn, A 1998, Commonwealth Government Initiatives to Support the Development of the Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure (ASDI), AURISA 1998
Nairn, A and Irwin, B 1997, The Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure: Its current Status and Future Directions, Cartography Vol 26 No 1, Australia.
National Land and Water Resources Audit Australian National Resources Atlas Web Site http://www.environment.gov.au/net/asdd/ (Accessed September 2000)
Public Sector Mapping Agencies Web Site http://www.psma.com.au/ (Accessed September 2000)