Spatial Data Infrastructures: An Initiative to Facilitate Spatial Data Sharing

Abstract

The need for environmental data is continually changing. In recent years nations have made unprecedented investments in environmental information and the means to assemble, store, process, analyse, and disseminate it. The present global challenge is not only the lack of environmental data, but also the development of the infrastructures that will enable citizens, the business community and the government agencies to use, in the most efficient way, the available technologies that the information society has made available in recent years. These have not only created new needs for environmental data, but new ways of making existing data available to the user on a real time basis at the global level. Given the high costs of data collection and database creation, nations needs to develop policies that are designed to invest and allocate environmental data resources wisely to ensure the greatest possible efficiency, effectiveness, and equity in the use of information. The resources throughout the world should not be wasted on duplicated effort. By organising environmental databases at a global level, people can far better contribute to and influence the development of global rules and standards for the sharing and use of environmental data. Geographic information together with environmental data at the global level is primarily required for research and monitoring of sustainable development. Within the context of “Agenda 21 ” and the Kyoto Protocol, such information is essential to monitor such trends in global weather patterns, the preservation of rain forests, sustainable agriculture, radioactive contamination, etc. Spatial data infrastructures (SDI) are a promising initiative intended to create an environment in which all stakeholders (users through producers) can cooperate with each other and interact with technology, to better achieve their spatial data objectives at different political