Conference Proceedings: National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI)

The NSDI would aim to have a de-centralized approach to:

Develop and maintain Standard digital collections of spatial data
Develop common solutions for discovery, access, and use of spatial data in response to the needs of diverse user groups
Build relationships among organizations to support the continuing development of the NSDI
Increase the awareness and understanding of the vision, concepts, and benefits of the NSDI

The NSDI will be an over-arching framework over existing agency-efforts at spatial information generation and format conversion. However, NSDI will bring about standardization to the total process of format conversion, access and inter-operability. The NSDI should have the authority to mandate contributing agencies to commit their map data holdings to the NSDI. NSDI must also have the authority to bring about newer data generation, as and when need is felt, by the data generation agencies and make them committed to NSDI. This can be achieved only after attaining the consensus of all concerned.

NSDI Contents
The urgent need is to encapsulate the national holdings of spatial data in digital format so that a national repository of the map information is available. The digital infrastructure would also enable greater sharing and better access to high quality spatial data and would also improve the well being of our communities. Responsible stewardship of our natural resources for sustainable development depends on making sound scientific information available to local decision makers. Quality of life in a free society is determined by the collective decisions of its individual citizens acting in the home, the workplace, and together as members of the community and these decisions requires the foundation of information, of which spatial information would be a major element. Collective decisions cannot be arrived at in a vacuum.

To start with, the rich collection of spatial data available in the country should form the foundation data for NSDI, as shown in Figure-4.1:

Figure 4.1 : NSDI Framework

National coverage of topographical maps on scales of 1:250000, 1:50000 and 1:25000 and any other data of the Survey of India (SOI) toposheets
National coverage of geological maps on 1:50000 scale and other maps/data of the Geological Survey of India (GSI)
National coverage of soil maps on 1:250000 and 1:50000 scales and other maps/data of the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Landuse Planning (NBSSLUP)
National coverage of forest maps on 1:50000 scale of the Forest Survey of India (FSI)
National coverage of the hydrology maps on all scales of the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB)
National coverage of landuse maps on 1:50000 scale; wasteland maps on 1:50000 scale; urban maps on 1:50000 scale; groundwater potential map son 1:50000 scale and other thematic maps of National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA);
NRIS Nodes of the NNRMS Programme involving District and State Natural Resources databases on 1:50000 scales;
Command area maps of Central Water Commission (CWC)
National coverage of coastal landuse maps on 1:50000 and 1:25000 scale of Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEnF)
Census maps and census data of the Census Department
NATMOs national atlases on 1:1000000 and other scales
National coverage of Satellite images of different resolutions
Hydrographic data of the National Hydrographic Department
To this set of basic data, addition of India Meteorological Department’s weather information and Department of Ocean Development’s Ocean information (at smaller scales) could also be added.
Non-spatial data of the Bureau of Economics and Statistics, National Council for Applied Economic Research etc – which could be linked to the spatial features and become a part of the NSDI.
The above is only illustrative and not exhaustive list of known agencies providing data of relevance to proposed NSDI. The NSDI would get augmented with organs of the State Governments and then in turn by non-governmental agencies – with which data may be available in various forms. Data resources of various agencies have to be studied in detail and mechanisms should be available for ensuring that this data, whenever relevant, becomes part of the NSDI.

The NSDI would evolve and expand with the participation of committing agencies and it is envisaged that SOI, NRSA, GSI, FSI, CGWB, NNRMS/NRIS, CWC, MoEnF, NATMO, NBSSLUP, CGWB, Census department, IMD, DOD, BES, NCAER etc would be the first committed agencies to the NSDI. Each agency would commit to establish a GSI database server as a NSDI Node. The NSDI would enable development of new relationships that allow organizations and individuals from all sectors to work together to share spatial data. Figure – 4.2 shows the overall framework of NSDI.

Figure 4.2 : NSDI Internet
As brought out in the foregoing, there are now a large number of organizations engaged in collection and collation of data for development and planning who follow varying methods for tackling similar problems. The solutions that emerge are often confusing and at times quite contradictory. There is thus a need for standardization of an information system, which addresses major issues for sustainable development. The system should be able to handle the tasks of recording, managing designing and developing a central authority to collect and manage data and thus provide an information which is at once authoritative and reliable.

Data sets obtained from NSDI are tailored to meet the specific needs of users. It is necessary, therefore to enumerate clear-cut policies and devise strategies to implement these policies. Major constraints in developing such an infrastructure revolve around the initiative and ability of the Government to establish a platform for consideration of activities of different organizations, formulating policies and towards creation of a coordinating body. All the efforts of the Government in the field standardization will be meaningful in case it is made obligatory on private and semi Government institutions to accept and use the same. At present due to absence of efforts in the desired direction, many organizations with minimum available where withal are in the process of creating their own data standards. This can only lead to a chaotic situation.

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