International SDI Symposium
REPORT TO ANZLIC
INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURES
19-20 November, 2001
The two-day International Symposium on Spatial Data Infrastructures was attended by over 80 delegates from around Australia and many overseas countries. It brought together 38 practitioners in SDI development to present papers detailing the experiences, achievements and challenges from local, state, national, regional and global SDI initiatives. Researchers from the Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Administration, The University of Melbourne made a number of presentations on key research areas. Contributions were also made from leading professionals and practitioners, especially the invited speakers:
Professor Ian Masser, President EUROGI, and Head of Urban Planning and Management Division at ITC, The Netherlands
Mr Santiago Borrero, President GSDI, Chair PC IDEA, Director General Agustin Codazzi Geographic Institute, Colombia
Professor Don Grant, Former Chair PSMA, and former Surveyor-General of NSW-Australia
Mr. Olaf Hedberg, Chair Public Sector Mapping Australia (PSMA)
Mr Drew Clarke, Head of Division AusIndustry, Analytical and Mapping, Dept of Industry, Science & Resources, Australia
Mr Peter Holland, Vice President PCGIAP, Vice Chair of International Steering Committee for Global Mapping (ISCGM) and General Manager AUSLIG, Australia
Ms Elizabeth O'Keeffe, Executive Director, and Mr Steve Jacoby, Director Land Information, Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Victoria, Australia
Dr. T.O. Chan, Manager Geographic Information, Corporate Management Division, Department of Natural Resources and Environment, Victoria, Australia
Mr. Rick Whitworth, Greater Geelong City Council Local Government, Victoria, Australia
Professor Ian Williamson, Head Department of Geomatics, University of Melbourne; Director, United Nations Liaison International Federation of Surveyors.
The objectives for the Symposium were:
· To provide an overview of SDI policies, concepts, standards and practices associated with the implementation and operation of a Spatial Data Infrastructure, including technical aspects such as metadata and clearinghouse concepts, with a focus on both developed and developing countries;
· To provide an understanding of the similarities and differences of SDIs operating within and between different jurisdictions, with case studies provided from local/state, national, regional (Asia-Pacific, Europe, Americas) and global SDI initiatives;
· To explore the institutional and technical issues influencing the development of SDIs;
· To identify forces affecting the future of SDIs in both developed and developing countries based on assessment of current SDI initiatives;
· To discuss and anticipate possible future SDI scenarios and develop a series of long term visions for SDI development; and
· To identify implications of the anticipated futures from local to state, national, regional and global level, and other stakeholder perspectives.
Topics covered in the Symposium were:
· Global and Regional SDI Initiatives, drawing on case studies from the Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Americas
· National SDI initiatives, with case studies from many countries around the world -developed and developing (Colombia, Iran, Lebanon, Australia, the United States)
· Elements of National SDI Development -State, Local and Corporate SDIs, taking examples from Australia and the United States
· Socio-political, Economic and Cultural dimensions of SDI Development
· Technical Manifestations of the SDI Concept
Future directions for SDI development were the focus of a two-hour discussion panel at the end of the Symposium. Members of the discussion panel were Santiago Borrero (GSDI, Colombia), Ian Masser (EUROGI, The Netherlands), Vanessa Lawrence (Ordnance Survey, United Kingdom), Warwick Watkins (DITM (NSW), Australia), Will Craig (University of Minnesota, United States) and Steve Jacoby (Land Victoria, Australia). The panel was chaired by Ian Williamson.
The key directions identified during the discussion, which focused on key issues, challenges and hurdles in facilitation and promotion of a spatially enabled society over the next five to ten years, included:
1. Success of GSDI depends on global coordination, cooperation and awareness, with equity between developed and developing nations.
2. Developing countries should focus on capacity building from short-term specific projects.
3. There must be broader stakeholder involvement in the development of SDI.
4. SDIs must be user driven.
5. The focus of SDI development is moving from creating databases and facilitating access, to developing the decision support tools enabling the use of data - the challenge of e-government and participatory democracy.
6. More consideration to database maintenance - setup and ongoing costs. Continuity in provision of data to meet traditional needs while retaining capacity to adapt to new circumstances - strategies to take advantage of uncertainty and create opportunity. Whilst maintenance is important it should be remembered that the availability of historical data is of as much importance for many applications as having up-to-date data.
7. Institutional buy-in on base reference data that others use for base infrastructure. Need to decide what base data is and who should be maintaining it - all sectors need to work together.
8. Need increased awareness across all sectors of the value of spatial data and benefit of sharing spatial data. Often too much emphasis is placed on economic benefit - social and environmental benefits are also important.
9. Disaster and risk avoidance and response offers good opportunity to demonstrate the value of SDI.
10. There is a human capital shortage across the industry. Need to get more people into the industry with a diversity of skills - there should be many paths into the spatial information industry.
11. Trade off between utility of data and privacy. A similar compromise between utility and privacy must be made along the lines of the environment, economic and social values considered in sustainable development. There should be a focus on a Code of ethics, promotion of professionalism and a culture of sharing. Recent world events have put more emphasis on security and privacy which can lead to decreased sharing of spatial information (as a result of use by terrorists).
12. Access and pricing are barriers and more time must be spent breaking them down.
13. To date focus has been on the data. Similar attention should be given to the models that are used in conjunction with the data in decision support systems. There are no metamodels available in a similar way as there is metadata.
14. Local government needs to be better represented in dialog and development of SDI.
15. National government (in a federation) needs to play a stronger role to coordinate the activities of the states to prevent wasteful duplication and diversity of policies, pricing etc. Ian Williamson, Mary-Ellen Feeney, Abbas Rajabifard 23rd January, 2002
Ian Williamson, Mary-Ellen Feeney, Abbas Rajabifard
23rd January, 2002