Cookbookv2 0

Developing Spatial Data Infrastructures:
The SDI Cookbook

Version 2.0
25 January 2004
Editor: Douglas D. Nebert, Technical Working Group Chair, GSDI
GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 1

Table of Contents
Table of Contents ____________________________________________________________________ 2
Chapter One: The Cookbook Approach __________________________________________________ 6
Introduction______________________________________________________________________ 6
Scope of this Cookbook ____________________________________________________________ 7
Spatial Data Infrastructures ________________________________________________________ 8
The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure _______________________________________________ 8
Distribution ______________________________________________________________________ 9
Contributors _____________________________________________________________________ 9
Organisation _____________________________________________________________________ 9
Cookbook Overview ______________________________________________________________ 10
Chapter 2: Geospatial Data Development: Building data for multiple uses ___________________ 10
Chapter 3: Metadata: Describing geospatial data _______________________________________ 10
Chapter 4: Geospatial Data Catalogue: Making data discoverable__________________________ 10
Chapter 5: Geospatial Data Visualisation: Online Mapping_______________________________ 11
Chapter 6: Geospatial Data Access and Delivery: Open access to data ______________________ 11
Chapter 7: Other Services _________________________________________________________ 11
Chapter 8: Outreach and Capacity Building: Creating a community ________________________ 11
Chapter 9: Case Studies __________________________________________________________ 11
Chapter 10: Terminology _________________________________________________________ 12
Chapter Two: Geospatial Data Development: Building data for multiple uses___________________ 13
Context and Rationale ____________________________________________________________ 13
Achieving Benefits ______________________________________________________________ 16
Organisational Approach __________________________________________________________ 16
Framework Leverages the Development of Needed Data ________________________________ 17
Who are the actors in framework data development? ____________________________________ 18
Implementation Approach _________________________________________________________ 19
Common Identities of Real World Objects____________________________________________ 20
Candidate National Framework Categories ___________________________________________ 21
Candidate Global Data Categories __________________________________________________ 21
Recommendations ________________________________________________________________ 21
References and Linkages __________________________________________________________ 22
Chapter Three: Metadata -- Describing geospatial data ____________________________________ 24
Introduction_____________________________________________________________________ 24
The Benefits of Metadata _________________________________________________________ 25
Levels of Metadata ______________________________________________________________ 25
Linkages between geospatial data and metadata________________________________________ 27

Metadata Standards ______________________________________________________________ 28
Why use Standards? _____________________________________________________________ 28
Geospatial Metadata Standards_____________________________________________________ 28
General Metadata Standards _______________________________________________________ 30
Who should create metadata? ______________________________________________________ 31
How do I create metadata? ________________________________________________________ 33
What software is available to create and validate metadata? ______________________________ 34
Issues in Implementation __________________________________________________________ 35
Vocabularies, Gazetteers and Thesauri_______________________________________________ 35
Minimum collaboration with users during the definition and implementation phases: a user-friendly
focus is needed _________________________________________________________________ 35
User-expected content____________________________________________________________ 35
Metadata for applications _________________________________________________________ 36
A geographic information product identification mechanism _____________________________ 36
Incentives for metadata development ________________________________________________ 36
Envisage legislation for public sector metadata content __________________________________ 37
References and Links _____________________________________________________________ 38
Chapter Four: Geospatial Data Catalogue -- Making data discoverable _______________________ 39
Introduction____________________________________________________________________ 39
Distributed Catalogue Concepts ____________________________________________________ 40
Roles _________________________________________________________________________ 42
Catalogue Server/Service Development ______________________________________________ 44
Alternative Approaches __________________________________________________________ 45
Catalogue Gateway and Access Interface Development _________________________________ 46
Registering Catalogue Servers _____________________________________________________ 49
Relevant Standards ______________________________________________________________ 49
Catalogue Server/Service Development ______________________________________________ 53
Available Software Implementations ________________________________________________ 54
Catalogue Gateway and Access Interface Development _________________________________ 54
Registering Catalogue Servers _____________________________________________________ 55
Introduction_____________________________________________________________________ 57
Open GIS Web Mapping Activities _________________________________________________ 58
Map Servers ___________________________________________________________________ 63

Available Software ______________________________________________________________ 67
References and Links _____________________________________________________________ 68
Chapter Six: Geospatial Data Access and Delivery – Open access to data ______________________ 69
Definitions and Overview _________________________________________________________ 72
Relationship to other spatial data infrastructure services _______________________________ 75
Standards _______________________________________________________________________ 77
ISO/TC211 ____________________________________________________________________ 77
ISO SQL/MM __________________________________________________________________ 78
Open GIS Consortium (OGC)______________________________________________________ 79
Web and Internet related __________________________________________________________ 80
Related Services ________________________________________________________________ 80
Best Practice Application __________________________________________________________ 81
Summary and Readiness Analysis __________________________________________________ 82
Chapter Seven: Other Services ________________________________________________________ 86
Geospatial Application Services ____________________________________________________ 87
Catalogue Services ______________________________________________________________ 88
Geospatial Data Services _________________________________________________________ 88
Portrayal Services _______________________________________________________________ 88
Processing Services______________________________________________________________ 89
Service Chaining________________________________________________________________ 89
Chapter Eight: Outreach and Capacity Building _________________________________________ 96
Introduction_____________________________________________________________________ 96
When does a Spatial Data Infrastructure make sense? ___________________________________ 96
Organisational Approach _________________________________________________________ 101
Principles of the GSDI __________________________________________________________ 101
Realisation of the GSDI _________________________________________________________ 102
Implementation Approach ________________________________________________________ 104
How does one build a successful SDI as part of GSDI? _________________________________ 104
Example 5 ____________________________________________________________________ 104

Recommendations: Outreach and Capacity Building Options for Implementing a SDI ______ 116
References and Linkages _________________________________________________________ 116
Chapter Nine: Case Studies of Interdisciplinary Coordination ______________________________ 118
Introduction____________________________________________________________________ 118
Local Case Study________________________________________________________________ 119
Background, Context and Rationale ________________________________________________ 119
Organisational Approach ________________________________________________________ 119
Implementation Approach________________________________________________________ 120
Recommendations______________________________________________________________ 121
National Case Study – Colombia ___________________________________________________ 121
Background, Context, and Rationale _______________________________________________ 121
Implementation - Approach ______________________________________________________ 130
Components of the ICDE ________________________________________________________ 130
Implementation of the ICDE______________________________________________________ 131
Issues________________________________________________________________________ 132
Conclusions___________________________________________________________________ 133
Study for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region ________________ 134
Background, Context, and Rationale _______________________________________________ 134
Implementation Approach________________________________________________________ 138
Conclusions___________________________________________________________________ 139
Global Case Studies – Activities Contributing to a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure ______ 141
GSDI Defined _________________________________________________________________ 141
An Overview of GSDI Infrastructure Elements _______________________________________ 142
The Digital Earth - a Case Study in the Genesis of a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure_____ 144
Summary - Furthering the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure ____________________________ 147
Chapter 10: Terminology ________________________________________________________ 149
INTRODUCTION_______________________________________________________________ 149
THE CONTEXT AND RATIONALE OF TERMINOLOGY ___________________________ 150
Identification of Concepts________________________________________________________ 150
Terms _______________________________________________________________________ 151
Definitions____________________________________________________________________ 152
THE ISO 19100-SERIES STANDARDS ____________________________________________ 154
IMPLEMENTATION APPROACHES _____________________________________________ 155
Some Current Implementation Instances ____________________________________________ 155
Registries and the Need for Unique Identification _____________________________________ 155
REFERENCES AND LINKAGES _________________________________________________ 156
Annex A. Abbreviations and Terminology used in the GSDI Cookbook_______________________ 157
Abbreviations _________________________________________________________________ 157
Glossary of Terms______________________________________________________________ 157

Chapter One: The Cookbook Approach
Introduction
At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992,
a major resolution was passed to focus on reversing the impacts caused by environmental
deterioration. The Agenda 21 resolution establishes measures to address deforestation,
pollution, depletion of fish stocks, and management of toxic wastes to name a few. The
importance of geographic information to support decision-making and management of these
growing national, regional, and global issues was cited as critical at the 1992 Rio Summit, and
by a special session of the United Nations General Assembly assembled in 1997 to appraise
the implementation of the Agenda 21. In 2003, a landmark effort was made to illustrate the
capabilities, benefits, and possibilities of using online digital geographic information for
sustainable development at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg,
South Africa.
Geographic information is vital to make sound decisions at the local, regional, and global levels.
Crime management, business development, flood mitigation, environmental restoration,
community land use assessments and disaster recovery are just a few examples of areas in
which decision-makers are benefiting from geographic information, together with the associated
infrastructures (i.e. Spatial Data Infrastructure or SDI) that support information discovery,
access, and use of this information in the decision-making process.
However, information is an expensive resource, and for this reason appropriate information and
the resources to fully utilise this information may not always be readily available, particularly in
the developing world. Many national, regional, and international programs and projects are
working to improve access to available spatial data, promote its reuse, and ensure that
additional investment in spatial information collection and management results in an ever-
growing, readily available and useable pool of spatial information. This is true of many initiatives
even if they are not actually labelled as “SDI initiatives”. An example of this is the Environment
Information System Program in sub-Saharan Africa (EIS-SSA). An emphasis on harmonising
standards for spatial data capture and exchange, the co-ordination of data collection and
maintenance activities and the use of common data sets by different agencies may also feature
in such initiatives, although these activities by themselves do not constitute a formal SDI.
In regions characterised by an availability of geographic information, in combination with the

power of Geographic Information Systems (GIS), decision support tools, data bases, and the
World Wide Web and their associated interoperability, the way better-resourced communities
address critical issues of social, environmental, and economic importance is changing rapidly.
However, even in the new era of networked computers, the social habits of the past continue to
prohibit users from finding and using critical geographic information. This can lead to either the
abandoning of a proposed project, or to unnecessary – and expensive - recapture of existing
geographic information. In many agencies there is still the lost opportunity to reuse incidental
digital geographic information collected for other purposes

There is a clear need, at all scales, to be able to access, integrate and use spatial data from
disparate sources in guiding decision making. Our ability then, to make sound decisions
collectively at the local, regional, and global levels, is dependent on the implementation of SDI
that provides for compatibility across jurisdictions that promotes data access and use.
Only through common conventions and technical agreements will it be easily possible for local
communities, nations and regional decision-makers to discover, acquire, exploit and share
geographic information vital to the decision process. The use of common conventions and
technical agreements also makes sound economic sense by limiting the cost involved in the
integration of information from various sources, as well as eliminating the need for parallel and
costly development of tools for discovering, exchanging and exploiting spatial data. The greater
the limitation on available resources for SDI development, the greater the incentive for achieving
alignment between initiatives to build SDI.
The development of a "cookbook" is envisaged as a means to clarify the SDI definition and to
share the current experiences in building SDI implementations that are compatible at many
scales of endeavour. This cookbook is intended to be a dynamic document available in printed
and digital form, to include "recipes" or recommendations on developing these infrastructures
from a local, even non-governmental, scale through global initiatives.
Scope of this Cookbook
This SDI Implementation Guide or Cookbook, through the support of the Global Spatial Data
Infrastructure community, provides geographic information providers and users with the
necessary background information to evaluate and implement existing components of SDI. It
also facilitates participation within a growing (digital) geographic information community known
as the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI).
To enable builders of SDI to make use of and build on existing SDI components in a way which
makes their endeavors compatible with the efforts of other SDI builders, this GSDI Cookbook
identifies:
• existing and emerging standards,

• open-source and commercial standards-based software solutions,
• supportive organisational strategies and policies and
• best practices.
Working within a common framework of standards and tools based on these standards also
makes it possible to maximise the impact of the total available resources for SDI creation
through future co-operation -- e.g. we develop this, you develop that, and then we share.
Although proprietary or project-based solutions for information sharing continue to exist, the
adoption of consistent geospatial data sharing principles will in general provide a better solution
for information dissemination, through publishing geospatial data using the Internet and
computer media. In an increasingly “global community”, there is a need to ensure that trans-
national implementations and common knowledge bases are available. Ultimately, these SDI
activities should improve collaboration within the geospatial data industry and make the benefits
derived from the use of geographic information part of everyday life for all.

Spatial Data Infrastructures
The term “Spatial Data Infrastructure” (SDI) is often used to denote the relevant base collection
of technologies, policies and institutional arrangements that facilitate the availability of and
access to spatial data. The SDI provides a basis for spatial data discovery, evaluation, and
application for users and providers within all levels of government, the commercial sector, the
non-profit sector, academia and by citizens in general.
The word infrastructure is used to promote the concept of a reliable, supporting environment,
analogous to a road or telecommunications network, that, in this case, facilitates the access to
geographically-related information using a minimum set of standard practices, protocols, and
specifications. The applications that run “on” such an infrastructure are not specified in detail in
this document. But, like roads and wires, an SDI facilitates the conveyance of virtually unlimited
packages of geographic information.
An SDI must be more than a single data set or database; an SDI hosts geographic data and
attributes, sufficient documentation (metadata), a means to discover, visualize, and evaluate the
data (catalogues and Web mapping), and some method to provide access to the geographic
data. Beyond this are additional services or software to support applications of the data. To
make an SDI functional, it must also include the organisational agreements needed to
coordinate and adminster it on a local, regional, national, and or trans-national scale. Although
the core SDI concept includes within its scope neither base data collection activities or myriad
applications built upon it, the infrastructure provides the ideal environment to connect
applications to data – influencing both data collection and applications construction through
minimal appropriate standards and policies.
The creation of specific organisations or programs for developing or overseeing the

development of SDI, particularly by government at various scales can be seen as the logical
extension of the long practice of co-ordinating the building of other infrastructures necessary for
ongoing development, such as transportation or telecommunication networks.
The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure
Just as SDI programs of necessity involve the alignment of scarce resources for achieving
success, so too it is necessary to ensure that the SDI initiatives develop in harmony with each
other in order to maximise the impact of these programmes. In reality, many initiatives are
working in isolation, not necessarily developing in harmony with others and consequently unable
to reap the benefits of working together.
Anyone who is involved in a project of which spatial information forms an integral part and who
intends leaving a legacy of spatial data or tools to exploit the data that lasts beyond the period
of funding for the project is, by definition, participating in some of the fundamental elements
required by an SDI. As coordination between such organisations expands, these projects very
often lay the foundations on which initiatives formally dedicated to the establishment of SDI can
then build. See Chapter 9 for specific case studies.
At a global scale, the most prominent examples of formal SDI programs are on a national scale.
Most of these are driven by the national or federal government (e.g. the NSDI in the USA, the
SNIG in Portugal, Australia’s ASDI, Malaysia’s NaLIS, South Africa’s NSIF, Colombia, or the

multi-national INSPIRE Initiative in Europe), but there are exceptions such as the Uruguay
Clearinghouse and NGDF in the United Kingdom, which have largely been driven by the private
sector. In most cases the need for wide participation in the development of lasting, useful SDI is
acknowledged, and so private-public partnerships are encouraged. The beneficiaries of SDI are
generally seen to derive from the public and private sectors, academia and non-governmental
organisations, as well as individuals. Federal countries are often able to build their national SDI
programs on SDI programs being driven by provincial or state governments (e.g. the ASDI of
Australia). Regional SDI initiatives often arise out of existing multilateral structures (e.g. the
Permanent Committee for GIS Infrastructure in Asia and the Pacific was formed through the UN
Regional Cartographic Conference for the Asia-Pacific region).
Distribution
This GSDI Cookbook is intended to be a "living" and dynamic document that can be updated as
new principles and technologies are adopted. Distribution of this Cookbook is intended primarily
via the World Wide Web, although electronic copies will also be made available on other
physical media such as CD-ROM and printed copy for audiences that are not well connected to
the Internet at this time.
Should you be reading this via the World Wide Web and wish to obtain a soft or hard copy,
please contact the GSDI secretariat, at www.gsdi.org .
Contributors
Contributions to this GSDI Cookbook are indeed global and are intended to satisfy many
different categories of participants. Contributors from around the world have nominated or been
selected to organise and contribute to each chapter. This was a deliberate choice, in order to
ensure that the Cookbook represented various perspectives from around the globe, to ensure
both that the collective global experience and existing resources would be represented in the
Cookbook, and that its applicability could truly be global.
Ongoing contributions to this GSDI Cookbook are welcome, and indeed necessary. If you
believe that you have something to contribute to the cookbook, please contact the GSDI
Technical Working Group through www.gsdi.org.
Organisation
Each chapter is organised into three major sections that correspond to levels of detail and
application:
• The first section in each chapter establishes the background, context, and rationale for
the subject suitable as general orientation for all readers, but targeted for managers and
end-users
• The second section addresses the design architecture of organisations, roles, and
software systems that are intended to interact
• The third section addresses the implementation with review of existing standards,
protocols, and software as appropriate

Each chapter is approximately 10 to 20 pages in length with links to other relevant documents.
Use-case scenarios and illustrations are featured in some chapters as inset boxes to further
build understanding. Most chapters have a set of recommendations placed in a summary.
Terminology used in this document, as well as guidance on how to standardize terminology, is
presented in Chapter 10.
Case studies are intended to provide for local or regional relevance and interpretation. The
document style not intended to be overly technical, however contributors have provided
references to more detailed and comprehensive technical information where possible.
Finally, no manual of this type can claim to provide all the answers to suit all variations that may
exist among implementations of national spatial data infrastructures. The goal is to provide
enough common guidance to allow adjacent SDIs to exchange information easily through the
adoption of common principles, standards, and protocols. This cookbook does provide a basic
set of guiding principles that have been successful for establishing compatible Spatial Data
Infrastructures, and are supported by the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure to promote
successful decision-making for issues of local, regional, and global significance. As mentioned
in the preceding section, if you feel that you have a contribution to make to the cookbook, or a
question that you feel ought to be answered in the cookbook, please contact the GSDI
Technical Working Group.
Cookbook Overview
The following sections provide an introduction to the content of each chapter. This is provided to
help readers decide where to begin their exploration. Some users may already be fluent in
geographic information systems but are unfamiliar with the tenets of Spatial Data Infrastructures
(SDI). They may wish to start with the next chapter on SDI and GSDI. Others may already have
extensive databases that are ready to be published on the World Wide Web. By starting in
Chapter Two, they can learn how to catalogue and serve information about their data holdings
in standard-based ways.
Chapter 2: Geospatial Data Development: Building data for multiple uses

In Chapter 2, you will learn about the development of standard and non-standard spatial data
themes or layers for use in a trans-national or global context. The development of consistent re-
usable themes of base cartographic content, known as Framework, Fundamental, Foundation,
or Core data is recognized as a common ingredient in the construction of national and global
SDIs to provide common data collection schemas.
Chapter 3: Metadata: Describing geospatial data

In Chapter 3, you will learn how geospatial data are documented with metadata, what relevant
standards exist, and how to implement them in software. Metadata are a key ingredient in
supporting the discovery, evaluation, and application of geographic data beyond the originating
organisation or project.
Chapter 4: Geospatial Data Catalogue: Making data discoverable

Geospatial data that are stored for use in local databases can often be used in external
applications once they are published. In this chapter, the concepts and implementation of

geospatial data catalogues are presented as a means to publish descriptions of your geospatial
data holdings in a standard way to permit search across multiple servers.
Geospatial data catalogues are discovery and access systems that use metadata as the target
for query on raster, vector, and tabular geospatial information. Indexed and searchable
metadata provide a disciplined vocabulary against which intelligent geospatial search can be
performed within or among SDI communities.
Chapter 5: Geospatial Data Visualisation: Online Mapping

The primary view of geographic data has historically been through maps. In the context of SDIs,
it is increasingly useful to provide mapped or graphical views of geospatial data through online
mapping interfaces. This can satisfy many of the needs of novice or browse users of data
without requiring download of the full data. Although it is not a replacement for direct data
access, it satisfies a broad requirement for public interaction with geospatial information.
Assuming that data are being used for their correct purpose and at an appropriate scale (the
Fitness for Purpose concept), maps can quickly portray a large amount of information to the
inquirer. The rise of the Internet and in particular the World Wide Web has allowed information
providers to harness this technology to the conventional stove-pipe GIS systems and data
warehouses. This chapter describes current best practice in on-line mapping, and the results of
the OpenGIS Consortium in realising simple inter-operability through a public web mapping
specification that is also a draft ISO International Standard.
Chapter 6: Geospatial Data Access and Delivery: Open access to data

Once spatial data of interest have been located and evaluated, using the Catalogue and online
mapping techniques described in previous chapters, access to detailed geospatial data in its
packaged form is often required by advanced users or application software. Access involves
the order, packaging and delivery, offline or online, of the data (coordinate and attributes
according to the form of the data) specified. Finally, exploitation is what the consumer does with
the data for their own purpose. This chapter walks through examples of data access and
delivery that are recognized elements in a full-service SDI.
Chapter 7: Other Services

Web mapping services and Catalogue services are described as new, maturing technologies in
earlier chapters. Additional services that extend functionality over the Web by combining data
from sources described in Chapter 6 are described here. The application of special services,
and service chaining, hold great promise in realizing true Web-based GIS interactions on data in
support of decision making.
Chapter 8: Outreach and Capacity Building: Creating a community

The establishment of a Spatial Data Infrastructure at an organisational or national level requires
an understanding of the requirements and responsibilities of the members of the community.
This chapter discusses, with examples, the elements required for building and sustaining a
geospatially-enabled community.
Chapter 9: Case Studies

One of the best ways to articulate the benefits of developing and using a spatial data
infrastructure is to highlight the success stories that have emerged at the local, national,
regional, and global levels. This chapter provides detailed accounts, or case studies from

around the world that put into perspective the value of compatible SDI’s and partnerships in
making better decisions regarding the increasingly complex environmental, economic, and
social issues that face our communities today.
Chapter 10: Terminology

This chapter provides an overview on how SDI organizations may wish to standardise their
terminology; it also contains a glossary of terms used elsewhere in this document with
appropriate citations. The abundant use of terms and acronyms in this highly technical field
requires such a terminology reference.

Chapter Two: Geospatial Data Development: Building data for multiple
uses
Editor: Claude Luzet/MEGRIN; Contributor: Hiroshi Murakami, GSI, Japan, U.S. FGDC
Context and Rationale
In the times of traditional ‘mapping’, collection and distribution of geographic information used to
be highly centralised, or controlled by powerful government monopolies. This pattern was
established since the beginning of the history of mapping, and lasted for centuries, until very
recent times. It was a necessity that had never been challenged due to the heavy costs and
technology associated with traditional mapping and to the long time-scales of mapping projects
that often extended over several decades. Also, maps were not necessarily a consumer
product, but were considered part of the national/local assets – data mainly used by the
government, for defense, taxes, planning and development.
Thus the governments determined the collection of the information in specific types and formats
required for its intended applications. Applications did not vary much across borders, and
therefore a similar range of products was developed in many countries. These include:
• Cadastre, cadastral maps (scales from 1:100 to 1:5 000)

• Large scale topographic maps for urban planning and development (scale from 1:500 to
1:10 000)
• National ‘base maps’ (medium scale, 1:20 000 to 1:100 000)
• Small scale maps (1:100 000 and smaller)
Most, if not all, other mapping products and projects would use these main ‘basic maps’ as a
template, as a common reference, and for building upon this ‘basic information’ the thematic
data and applications that were required. Thus national interoperability was achieved.
Moreover, needs across borders being very comparable, national products across borders were
also quite similar, and if edge-matching was not always evident, anyone from country 'A' would
be able to read and use a paper map from country 'B with no special effort required. Thus tacit
cross-border interoperability also existed.
GIS technology has changed all that, particularly with the development of desktop GIS. Usage
and type of applications is now incredibly diverse. GI has become a mass-market product on its
own or is found integrated in hard- and software solutions. Nearly anyone can create their own
maps, thanks to the use of desktop mapping, GIS, GPS surveying, satellite imagery, scanning
and intelligent software. The old monopoly is shaken.
GIS technology is been employed in many different areas and in newer fields of applications, as
computer hardware and GIS software applications provide improved capabilities at reduced
cost. However, the overall cost of developing geospatial data required to support GIS
applications remains relatively high compared with the hardware and software required for GIS.
In addition, GIS users tend to develop their own data sets, even if there are existing geospatial
data sets available for them, because:

• they may not know available existing data sets that could be appropriately used for their
applications; or access to these data sets is difficult
• they are not used to sharing data sets with other sectors and/or organisations; and
• existing geospatial data sets stored in a certain GIS system may not be easily exported
to another system.
These problems arise from the fact that existing geospatial data sets have been poorly
documented in a standardised manner. Consequently, there have been duplicate efforts in
geospatial data development, which sometimes hinders further dissemination of GIS
applications in local, national, regional and global circumstances.
As a result, the new era of GIS is still characterised by:
• many actors involved in data collection and distribution

• a proliferation of GI applications, product types, and formats
• duplication as a consequence of the difficulties to access the existing data, and the
highly specific quality of the data collected
• increasing difficulty in the exchange and use of data that came from different
organisations
Core-, Reference-, Base-, Fundamental-data, and other similar terms are often used, and
generally understood … until one tries to define what concept(s) they cover, or until one tries to
define the related specifications.
Most GIS applications employ a limited number of common geospatial data items, including
geodetic control points, transportation networks, hydrological networks, contour lines and so
forth. These items are common to many GIS applications and provide keys for the integration of
other and more specialized thematic information. They represent the content found in most
traditional base-maps, or in modern technology and terminology, in most GI databases and
products. Does that mean that these items are the ‘core’? What about postal addresses? What
about cadastral parcels?
The concepts of ‘core-data’ and of ‘reference-data’ relate to two quite different perspectives. But
fortunately they may result in the definition of very similar specifications. Let’s start with
‘reference’. The primary reference for cartographers is the geodetic and levelling networks that
give the surveyors the physical links to a co-ordinate system. Of course, this has recently and
dramatically changed with satellite positioning technologies, but the principle remains that the
primary reference is what gives access to geodetic coordinates. We are not really concerned
with this type of reference here, because it is generally not a part of the Geographic Information
that is used in GIS applications, but rather its background. Very often it is even not visible.
If geodesy is the reference for the cartographer and the surveyor, the ‘reference’ of the GI user
is generally more closely related to the real world. It includes concrete themes, such as
infrastructure – roads, railways, power-lines, settlements, etc, or physical features – terrain
elevation, hydrography, etc. It includes also less tangible features that have nonetheless a
significant role in human life: administrative boundaries, cadastral parcels, gazetteer, postal
addresses, etc. All these features are keys that allow one to relate, to ‘refer’, external

information to the real world, through the media of its GI representation. Therefore they may be
considered as comprising a reference for the GI user -- the ‘reference data’.
A different perspective presides over the conceptual approach of the ‘core data’. The core being
the heart, the central part, the fundamental part, it may be also considered as being the
common denominator of all GI data sets, being so because being used by most applications.
We can see that this perspective can bring the specifications of the core very compatible with
those deriving from the concept of the ‘reference data’. Therefore, let’s not lose ourselves in
academic debates, and let’s keep here a simple practical view and terminology.
‘Core data’ when used here, will mean “a set of Geographic Information that is necessary for
optimal use of most GIS applications, i.e. that is a sufficient reference for most geo-located
data.” The relevance of this definition can of course be questioned, and will need to be
improved. Let’s adopt it only for the sake of understanding the following chapters. One obvious
necessary accommodation to the above definition, is that the specifications might be scale-
dependent. Core, then, may refer to the fewest number of features and characteristics required
to represent a given data theme.
We have seen before that the GIS revolution has resulted in a democratisation of GI, but also in
a key problem that is the non-interoperability of the GI produced with the new technologies. We
propose that the concept of the ‘core data’ is one instrumentality to help improving
interoperability, thus increasing GI usability and reducing expenses resulting from the current
duplications.
Interoperability complications exist at different levels, and they can be found in four main types:
• cross-border : edge matching between different data sets

• cross-sector : data sets created for different sector-based applications
• cross-type : e.g. raster- vs. vector-data
• overlap : same features coming from different sources and process
Resolving the related issues will need a mix of three ingredients -- the technology, the adoption
of a common concept of ‘core data’, and of course the political support that will help resourcing
the necessary key implementations.
The concept of the core aims at sharing the core data sets between users in order to facilitate
the development of GIS. Each data item may be provided by a different data provider. Such
data providers produce data through their daily businesses including road management, urban
planning, land management, tax collection, and so forth. Although there may be many data
providers, the data sets they provide must be integrated to develop core data sets. Once these
core data sets are shared between data users, each user does not have to develop the core
data by oneself, and can avoid duplicated efforts of core data development. Consequently, by
sharing the cost of developing the core data, data development cost can be minimised and
shared between users.
Much more than at the time of data set creation, the benefits of the ‘core data’ concept will be
revealed when updating. Since these core data sets are developed by those who produce the
data through their daily businesses, they are updated most frequently. Therefore, the users are
assured of using up-to-date core data sets. In addition, these data producers develop most

detailed geospatial data with high quality based on their business requirements. Another benefit
of using core data sets lies in the fact that these commonly used core data sets enable the
users to easily share other geospatial data with other users.
Achieving Benefits
In order to achieve those benefits described in the previous section, those data producers who
develop and maintain geospatial data sets through their daily businesses are to distribute their
data to the public. Once distributed, GIS users can collect and integrate them in their own GIS
applications. Such data sets would provide GIS users with the most up-to-date and highest
quality data sets publicly available. Hence the users have to spend only a minimum amount of
cost for the core data in their GIS applications.
Global Map is one illustration of ‘core' data sets conceived in a global or at least multi-national
environment. The Japanese Geographical Survey Institute took an initiative in 1992 to develop a
suite of global geospatial data (Global Map) to cope with the global environmental problems.
The goal is to involve national mapping organisations to collaboratively develop global
geospatial data sets. By incorporating national mapping organisations of the world, the collected
information would be most up-to-date and assured of being free of national security issues. The
Global Map could be considered as an initial implementation of the concept of a suite of ‘core
data’ for GSDI in concert with similar framework data sets at regional and national levels.
It is important to recognize that Core data, as represented by Global Map and other national
initiatives, do not comprise the only data available within a national or global SDI. SDI
capabilities enable the documentation and service of all types of geospatial data, such as local
scientific or engineering projects, regional or global remote sensing activities, and environmental
monitoring. Although SDIs as infrastructure enables access to all these types of information,
special consideration is given in this chapter to document issues associated with data of high re-
use potential that may be served by SDIs at local, national, or global levels as traditional base
map themes.
Organisational Approach
At the national level, common spatial data are often defined through community and/or national
agreements on content, known as "framework" or "fundamental" data in various national SDIs.
In the Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure (ASDI), Fundamental describes a dataset for which
several government agencies, regional groups and/or industry groups require a comparable
national coverage in order to achieve their corporate objectives and responsibilities. In other
words, fundamental data are a subset of framework data. Similar concepts exist in other
countries with similar terms, and most identify general themes of interest as "framework"
information, for they provide a framework of base, common-use geospatial information onto
which thematic information can be portrayed. An organisation interested in implementing spatial
data that will be compatible with local, regional, national, and global data sets, must identify, and
potentially reconcile different framework designations across their geographic area of interest.
The framework is a collaborative effort to create a common source of basic geographic data. It
provides the most common data themes geographic data users need, as well as an
environment to support the development and use of these data. The framework’s key aspects
are:

• specific layers of digital geographic data with content specifications
• procedures, technology, and guidelines that provide for integration, sharing, and use of
these data; and
• institutional relationships and business practices that encourage the maintenance and
use of data.
The framework represents a foundation on which organisations can build by adding their own
detail and compiling other data sets. Existing data content may be enhanced, adjusted, or even
simplified to match a national or global framework specification. This is helpful for the purpose of
exchange.
Framework Leverages the Development of Needed Data
Thousands of organisations spend billions of dollars each year producing and using geographic
data. Yet, they still do not have the information they need to solve critical problems. There are
several aspects to this problem:
• Most organisations need more data than they can afford. Frequently, large amounts of
money are spent on basic geographic data, leaving little for applications data and
development.
• Some organisations cannot afford to collect base information at all. Organisations often
need data outside their jurisdictions or operational areas. They do not collect these data
themselves, but other organisations do.
• Data collected by different organisations are often incompatible. The data may cover the
same geographic area but use different geographic bases and standards. Information
needed to solve cross-jurisdictional problems is often unavailable.
• Many of the resources organisations spend on geographic information systems (GIS) go
toward duplicating other organisations’ data collection efforts. The same geographic data
themes for an area are collected again and again, at great expense. Most organisations
cannot afford to continue to operate this way.
Framework initiatives will greatly improve this situation by leveraging individual geographic data
efforts so data can be exchanged at reasonable cost by government, commercial, and non-
governmental contributors. It provides basic geographic data in a common encoding and makes
them discoverable through a catalogue (See Chapter 4) in which anyone can participate. Using
Web mapping and advanced, distributed GIS technology in the future, users can perform visual
cross-jurisdictional and cross-organisational analyses and operations, and organisations can
funnel their resources into applications, rather than duplicating data production efforts.
There are many situations in which the framework will help users. A regional transportation
planning project can use base data supplied by the localities it spans. Government agencies
can respond quickly to a natural disaster by combining data. A jurisdiction can use watershed
data from beyond its boundaries to plan its water resources. Organisations can better track the
ownership of publicly held lands by working with parcel data.
Geographic data users from many disciplines have a recurring need for a few themes of basic
data. While these layers may vary from place to place, some common themes include: geodetic
control, orthoimagery, elevation, transportation, official geographic names (gazetteer),

hydrography, governmental units, and cadastral information. Many organisations produce and
use such data every day. The framework provides basic content for these data themes, and by
defining a common schema, it can also provide a common means of information exchange and
value-adding.
By attaching their own geographic data — which can cover innumerable subjects and themes —
to the common data in the framework, users can build their applications more easily and at less
cost. The common data themes provide basic data that can be used in applications, a base to
which users can add or attach geographic details and attributes, reference source for accurately
registering and compiling participants' own data sets, and a reference map for displaying the
locations and the results of an analysis of other data.
National and global frameworks are a growing data resource to which geographic data
producers can contribute. It will continually evolve and improve. In practice, the content model of
many framework layers may be simple enough that, as a collection target, at certain scales, it
could be made available at virtually no cost. Content providers exist already in the United States
to take and extend free government data with valuable additional attributes of value, e.g.
marketing and demographic information. The core information itself may be given away for free,
but extended information that are anchored to the geometry may have high current value that
declines over time, and may re-enter the public domain after its proprietary nature expire. Thus
commercial providers of information benefit through anchoring to a common framework system
and cross-referencing with other attributes held by other organisations; consumers benefit in
acquiring the framework core geometry, feature definitions, and base attributes as a by-product
of the more advanced data set.
Who are the actors in framework data development?
• users and producers of detailed data, such as utilities

• users of small-scale, limited geographic data, such as street networks, statistical areas,
and administrative units;
• data producers who create detailed data as a product or a service;
• data producers who create low-resolution, small-scale, limited themes for large areas;
• product providers who offer software, hardware, and related systems; and
• service providers who offer system development, database development, operations
support, and consulting services.
Non-profit and educational institutions also create and use a variety of geographic data and
provide GIS-related services. They cover the full spectrum of data content, resolution, and
geographic coverage. Depending on the organisation’s activities, data use may range from high-
resolution data over small areas, as in facility management, to low-resolution data over wide
areas, as in regional or national environmental studies.
Organisations build national and regional framework efforts by coordinating their data collection
and development activities based on intersecting interests within a community. The bounds of
this community, however, given the diversity of types of organisations and individuals involved,
needs to be non-exclusive and open to innovative contributions, exchanges, and partnerships.
The framework should be developed by the entire community, with organisations from all areas
playing roles. For some, the framework will supply the data they need to build applications.
Others will contribute data, and some may provide services to maintain and distribute data.

Some organisations will play several roles in framework development, operation, and use. The
framework will take many years to develop fully, but useful components are being developed
continuously.
Implementation Approach
The ISO TC 211 Geomatics standardisation activity is working on two related areas of
endeavour that will greatly assist in the global specification of content models and feature
models for framework and non-framework data. These include ISO 19109 - Rules for
application schema, and 19110 - Feature cataloguing methodology. In the networked world, the
ability for software to interact with geographic information outside an organisation is virtually
non-existent except where public agreements exist for data structures (also known as a content
model or schema) and the features being mapped. The ISO standards mentioned above
provide a basis for the description of these packages of information that would enable access to
a distributed network of framework data services. Implemented through specific encoding
methods such as Geography Markup Language (GML), ISO 19136 Coupled with catalogue for
discovery (See Chapter 4) populated with metadata (See Chapter 3), the ingredients are coming
together for a configurable deployed architecture.
The scope of ISO 19109 is defined as "… the rules for defining an application schema, including
the principles for classification of geographic objects and their relationships to an application
schema." In principle, using the Unified Modeling Language (UML), software applications that
provide access to geospatial data, such as framework, would be defined in a consistent way so
as to improve sharing of data between applications and even allow for real-time interaction
between applications. Expressing the encoding of an application schema using GML is a new
technique to formalise the packages of information being exchanged between providers and
users of spatial data.
Before one can allow software to reliably access mapped features stored in remote data
systems, there must first be a common understanding about the nature and composition of the
objects being managed. ISO 19109 includes guidance principles for classifying geographic
objects. The usefulness of any information is reduced when the meaning is unclear, especially
and commonly across different application domains. If different classifications are defined using
a consistent set of rules, that ability to map one classification to another and retain the meaning
will be greatly increased. This is also known as the semantic translation of one representation of
an object in one system, for example a road or river segment, to that in another.
These rules will be used by geographic information users when classifying geographic objects
within their applications and when interpreting geographic data from other applications. The
rules and principles could also be used by geographic information system and software
developers to design tools for the creation and maintenance of classification schemes.
Very closely related to the schema definition of ISO 19109 is the standard proposing a feature
cataloguing methodology, ISO 19110. It is intended to define the approach and structures used
for an information provider to store the identity, meaning, representation, and relationships of
concepts or things in the real world as they are managed in online systems. A feature
catalogue, then, acts as a dictionary for feature types or classes that can be used in software.
The definition of a single international, multilingual catalogue would have tremendous value.

Whether this catalogue was used in all applications or only used as a neutral form when moving
data from one application to another, it could simplify the problem of mapping the catalogue of
one application to the catalogue of another. However, the feasibility of such a task is in question
and will be investigated as a part of this work item in the TC 211 work group. The cataloguing
task will use the input from the Rules for Application Schema work item and cannot be
completed before that item is completed.
Publishing an application schema with a feature catalogue for a given data set of common
interest can provide the basis for framework data definitions of use to global, regional, national,
and local data. Done carefully, schemas and feature catalogues could be similarly constructed
for existing framework-like data in order to enable discussion among participants, and
transformation of content into conforming framework data sets.
Several national projects have been undertaken to build standardised framework data content
and/or encoding. A project to develop framework specifications in Switzerland, known as
InterLIS, has had marked success with this approach. Common definitions of data layers exist
as target specifications that are matched to various degrees by participant organisations. As a
result, software that is designed to interact with the InterLIS application model will work against
data sets from different sources and organisations. The application framework is designed to be
a scalable one to allow the participation of minimal data sets with lesser application functionality
and more complex data sets with maximal application functionality. The Master Map of the
Ordnance Survey in the United Kingdom and the Framework Data Content Standards under
development in the United States are also documented as abstract application schemas and
include GML encoding guidance to facilitate the exchange of data and development of
applications that support the published models.
Common Identities of Real World Objects
In many framework implementations, there will not be necessarily one authoritative geometric
representation of a feature in the real world. Several national systems have proposed the use of
a common or permanent feature identifier to be associated with the object in the real world so
that different representations and attributes of that object on maps can be cross-referenced.
Having well-known identities of features established with a coding system within a community
greatly assists in the association of attribute information to real-world objects where such
attributes may not reside in a GIS or spatially-enabled data base. Also, multiple representations
of real world objects may be linked to the identity code, to provide views of an object that is
changed over time or that has different degrees of spatial resolution at different scales of data
collection or representation. This becomes a logical model for organizing related geospatial
information.
The management of a common or "permanent" feature identity needs to be undertaken within

the community with permission granted to certain participant organisations to create or
adjudicate these identities. In Canada, there is an effort to create a data alignment layer of well-
known features or intersections of features to help vertically integrate spatial data from different
sources. These features and intersections will have published identifiers, some sense of
positional accuracy, and source information. In the United States, the National Hydrography
Data set includes a permanent feature identifier for segments of river and water bodies between
points of confluence. In other national, regional, and global settings, agreement on management

and assignment of feature identifiers -- building upon a sound feature cataloguing approach --
will be essential in building up compatible framework data across political boundaries.
Candidate National Framework Categories
A variable number of data layers may be considered to be common-use and of national or trans-
national importance as "framework" data. Framework layers commonly nominated in national
context include:
• cadastral information
• geodetic control
• geographic feature names
• orthoimagery
• elevation
• transportation
• hydrography (surface water networks)
• governmental units
It is likely for this list to grow as custodians of data identify and promote their data as necessary
to increasingly advanced applications and user environments.
Candidate Global Data Categories
The Global Mapping concept was articulated by the Ministry of Construction of Japan as a
response to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Brazil in
1992. Agenda 21 is an action program drawn up by the conference, and it clearly makes the
case that global baseline spatial data is important to society's interaction with the environment.
The Global Mapping Project, also known as Global Map, is addressing the compilation of
suitable spatial data products from existing international and national sources. This provide a
public set of reference data at trans-national to global scales to assist decision-makers and
society in depicting global environmental concerns.
Progress is being made in selecting and enhancing these general purpose spatial data layers
originally based on VMAP Level 0 (also known as Digital Chart of the World) for vector themes,
Global Land Cover Characteristics Database from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for land
cover, land use and vegetation, and the 30-second GTOPO30 product also hosted by the
USGS. Global Map Version 1.0 specifications for data organisation were adopted at the
International Steering Committee for Global Mapping (ISCGM) meeting held in conjunction with
the Third GSDI Conference in Canberra, Australia in November 1998. As of February 2000, 74
countries are participating in the collection or aggregation of large-scale map products to update
and package the above data sources.
Recommendations
The development of common data specifications is an arduous task to undertake by oneself or
by a single organisation. For the development of the GSDI the following recommendations are
made:

• The Cookbook authors recommend that interested parties participate in or be aware
of existing framework initiatives at the sub-national, national, and international scale.
Data appropriate to a given type of geospatial analysis will require information at a range of
resolutions and degrees of detail.
The Cookbook authors recommend that Global Map specification be adopted for trans-national
applications requiring land cover/use, vegetation, transportation, hydrography, administrative
boundaries, populated places, and elevation data.
The global map content specification defines a simple content model with a small number of
feature types and attributes suitable for the construction of base cartography at regional scales.
Evaluate the level of detail with respect to a given GIS or mapping application. It may require
extension to suit your base requirements.
• The Cookbook authors recommend that Core and non-Core data be modeled and
shared in the designs of national SDIs using emerging ISO standards by following the
rules for application schema, publishing a feature catalogue, and standardising the
encoding of the data.
The ISO 19109 and 19110 draft standards and the use of GML per ISO 19136 formalise the
description and encoding of features and feature collections for individual applications that can
facilitate the proper access and transformation of geospatial data held in online systems in near
real time. This extends the capabilities of the individual in working with dynamic information held
in distributed locations, as will be discussed in Chapter 6 in greater detail. National and global
framework data, as well as non-framework data will be made more accessible and semantically
correct through such technologies.
References and Linkages
Harmonised Data Manual - The Harmonised Data Model (Australia)

http://www.icsm.gov.au/icsm/harmonised_data_manual/harmonised_data_model.htm
Framework Home Page, U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee

http://www.fgdc.gov/framework/framework.html
Geospatial One-Stop Framework Standards Development (U.S.)

http://www.geo-one-stop.gov/Standards/index.html
Global Map Specifications - Version 1.1

http://www.iscgm.org/html4/index_c5_s1.html#doc13_3741
Interlis Project Home Page (Switzerland)

http://www.interlis.ch/content/index.php

Ordnance Survey Master Map in GML
http://www.g-intelligence.co.uk/webadmin/data/files/36.pdf

Chapter Three: Metadata -- Describing geospatial data
Editor: Mark Taylor, Department of Land Affairs, Western Australia

This document has been developed from input by FGDC, EUROGI, ANZLIC and NGDF and is
predominantly based on the various sources cited at the end of the chapter.
Introduction
We often hear the phrase "information is power," but with increasing amounts of data being
created and stored (but often not well organised) there is a real need to document the data for
future use - to be as accessible as possible to as wide a "public" as possible. Data, plus the
context for its use (documentation, metadata) become information. Data without context are not
as valuable as documented data. There are significant benefits to such asset management:
• Metadata helps organise and maintain an organisation's investment in data and provides
information about an organisation's data holdings in catalogue form
• Coordinated metadata development avoids duplication of effort by ensuring the
organisation is aware of the existence of data sets
• Users can locate all available geospatial and associated data relevant to an area of
interest
• Collection of metadata builds upon and enhances the data management procedures of
the geospatial community
• Reporting of descriptive metadata promotes the availability of geospatial data beyond
the traditional geospatial community
• Data providers are able to advertise and promote the availability of their data and
potentially link to on line services (e.g. text reports, images, web mapping and e-
commerce) that relate to their specific data sets
A number of studies have established that although the value of geospatial data is recognised
by both government and society, the effective use of geospatial data is inhibited by poor
knowledge of the existence of data, poorly documented information about the data sets, and
data inconsistencies. Once created, geospatial data can be used by multiple software systems
for different purposes. Given the dynamic nature of geospatial data in a networked environment,
metadata is therefore an essential requirement for locating and evaluating available data.
Metadata can help the concerned citizen, the city planner, the graduate student in geography, or
the forest manager find and use geospatial data, but they also benefit the primary creator of the
data by maintaining the value of the data and assuring their continued use over a span of years.
Over thirty years ago, humans landed on the Moon. Data from that era are still being used
today, and it is reasonable to assume that today's geospatial data could still be used in the year
2020 and beyond to study climate change, ecosystems, and other natural processes. Metadata
standards will increase the value of such data by facilitating data sharing through time and
space. So when a manager launches a new project, investing a small amount of time and
resources at the beginning may pay dividends in the future.

The word metadata shares the same Greek root as the word metamorphosis. "Meta-" means
change and metadata, or "data about data" describe the origins of and track the changes to
data. Metadata is the term used to describe the summary information or characteristics of a set
of data. This very general definition includes an almost limitless spectrum of possibilities
ranging from human-generated textual description of a resource to machine-generated data that
may be useful to software applications. More recently, the term metadata has even been
applied to services as a description of published service characteristics.
The term metadata has become widely used over the past 15 years, and has become
particularly common with the popularity of the World Wide Web. But the underlying concepts
have been in use for as long as collections of information have been organised. Library
catalogues represent an established variety of metadata that has served for decades as
collection management and resource discovery tools. The concept of metadata is also familiar
to most people who deal with spatial issues. A map legend is one representation of metadata,
containing information about the publisher of the map, the publication date, the type of map, a
description of the map, spatial references, the map's scale and its accuracy, among other
things. Metadata are also these types of descriptive information applied to a digital geospatial
file. They're a common set of terms and definitions to use when documenting and using
geospatial data. Most digital geospatial files now have some associated metadata. In the area of
geospatial information or information with a geographic component this normally means the
What, Who, Where, Why, When and How of the data. The only major difference that therefore
exists from the many other metadata sets being collected for libraries, academia, professions
and elsewhere is the emphasis on the spatial component - or the where element.
The Benefits of Metadata
Metadata helps people who use geospatial data find the data they need and determine how
best to use it. Metadata benefit the data-producing organisation as well. As personnel change in
an organisation, undocumented data may lose their value. Later workers may have little
understanding of the contents and uses for a digital database and may find they can't trust
results generated from these data. Lack of knowledge about other organisations' data can lead
to duplication of effort. It may seem burdensome to add the cost of generating metadata to the
cost of data collection, but in the long run the value of the data is dependent on its
documentation.
Metadata is one of those terms that is conveniently ignored or avoided. However there is an
increasing recognition of the benefits and requirement for metadata for our data as we continue
to increase the use of digital data. Whereas cartographers rigidly provided metadata within a
paper map’s legend, the evolution of computers and GIS has seen a decline in this practice. As
organisations start to recognize the value of this ancillary information, they often begin to look at
incorporating metadata collection within the data management process.
Levels of Metadata
There are different levels that metadata may be used for:

• Discovery metadata - What data sets hold the sort of data I am interested in? This
enable organisations to know and publicise what data holdings they have.
• Exploration metadata - Do the identified data sets contain sufficient information to enable
a sensible analysis to be made for my purposes? This is documentation to be provided
wit the data to ensure that others use the data correctly and wisely.
• Exploitation metadata – What is the process of obtaining and using the data that are
required? This helps end users and provider organisations to effectively store, reuse,
maintain and archive their data holdings.
Each of these purposes, while complementary, requires different levels of information. As such
organisations should look at their overall needs and requirements before developing their
metadata systems. The important aspect is for agencies to establish their business
requirements first, the content specifications second and the technology and implementation
methods third.
This is not to say that these levels of metadata are unique. There is a high degree of reuse of
the metadata for each level and an organisation will design its metadata schema and
implementation based on its business needs to accommodate these three requirements.
Discovery Metadata is the minimum amount of information that needs to be provided to convey
to the inquirer the nature and content of the data resource. This falls into broad categories to
answer the ”what, why when who, where and how” questions about geospatial data.
What - title and description of the data set.

Why - abstract detailing reasons for the data collection and its uses.
When - when the data set was created and the update cycles if any.
Who – originator, data supplier, and possibly intended audience.
Where - the geographical extent based on latitude / longitude, co-ordinates, geographical
names or administrative areas.
How – how it was built and how to access the data.
The broad categories are only few in number to reduce the effort required to collect the
information whilst still conforming to the requirement to convey to the inquirer the nature and
content of the data resource.
Online systems for handling metadata need to rely on their (metadata is plural, like data) being
predictable in both form and content. The level of metadata detail that will be documented is
dependent on the type of data held and the methods that it is being accessed and used.
Different types of data (e.g. vector, raster, textual, imagery, thematic, boundary, polygon,
attribute, point, etc.) will require different levels and forms of metadata to be collected. However
there is still a high degree of compatibility between most of the metadata elements required.
Similarly, organisations will manage their data in mission-defined ways. Some organisations
manage information as a data set, tiles of data sets, series of data sets, or manage the
information down to the feature level. Again there is still a high level of compatibility between the
levels of metadata required, particularly as the data is cascaded from the feature level to the
data set or data series level.

Thus, not only can metadata content vary according to purpose; it can also vary according to
scope of the data being defined. Discovery metadata usually, but not exclusively, relates to
collections of data resources or data set series that have similar characteristics but relate to
different geographic extents or times. A map series is the commonest example but it can equally
be applied to statistical surveys. More detailed metadata may be applied to a collection or series
but may apply to an individual data set (e.g. one map tile). Transfer metadata applies
exclusively to that transfer.
Exploration metadata provides sufficient information enable an inquirer to ascertain that data fit
for a given purpose exists, to evaluate its properties, and to reference some point of contact for
more information. Thus, after discovery, more detail is needed about individual data sets, and
more comprehensive and more specific metadata is required. If the data are transferred as a
single data set then quite specific and detailed metadata is needed possibly down to the feature,
object or record level. Exploration metadata include those properties required to allow the
prospective end user know whether the data will meet general requirements of a given problem.
Exploitation metadata include those properties required to access, transfer, load, interpret, and
apply the data in the end application where it is exploited. This class of metadata often includes
the details of a data dictionary, the data organisation or schema, projection and geometric
characteristics, and other parameters that are useful to human and machine in the proper use of
the geospatial data.
These roles form a continuum in which a user cascades through a pyramid of choices to
determine what data are available, to evaluate the fitness of the data for use, to access the
data, and to transfer and process the data. The exact order in which data elements are
evaluated, and the relative importance of data elements, will not be the same for all users.
Linkages between geospatial data and metadata
Until recently, metadata have been created or derived with little or no automation. In fact, it is
only with the recent development of metadata standards, and the development of metadata
software based on these standards, has the consistent management of metadata been given
any consideration by those collecting geospatial data. With an increased focus of incorporating
geospatial data into corporate information systems, the development of an international
standard for metadata, and the OpenGIS catalogue service specifications, new versions of
commercial GIS software are now facilitating a close linkage between geospatial data and
metadata.
Regardless of style of metadata, there is nominally one collection of properties or metadata

associated with a given data set or feature collection. The 1:1 rule expresses the notion that a
discrete resource should have a discrete metadata record. Although it seems simple enough, it
isn't always so neat because resources are often not so discrete. For example, should each
photograph in an article have its own record? How do you manage collections of articles? Can
the collection be thought of as a resource? What about multi-media objects? Thus, one of the
first tasks in metadata management is the identification of the data product or entity to be
documented.
Metadata may exist at the collection level (e.g. satellite series), at a data product level (an
image mosaic), at a data unit level (a vector data set), a group of features of a given type

(certain roads), or even at a specific feature instance (a single road). Regardless of the level of
abstraction, these associations of metadata to data objects should be maintained.
In practice, most metadata are currently collected at the data set level, and a metadata entry in
a catalogue refers the user to its location for access. Increasingly sophisticated providers of
geospatial data are including metadata at other levels of detail so as to preserve information
richness. Metadata standards such as ISO 19115 allow different levels of metadata abstraction,
and catalogue services will also need to accommodate this richness without confusing the user
in its complexity.
Metadata Standards
Why use Standards?
Ideally, metadata structures and definitions should be referenced to a standard. One benefit of
standards is that they have been developed through a consultative process (with other
"experts") and provide a basis from which to develop national or discipline-oriented profiles. As
standards become adopted within the wider community, software programs will be developed to
assist the industry in implementing the standard. The consistency in metadata content and style
is recommended to ensure that comparisons can be made quickly by data users as to the
suitability of data from different sources. This means for example when comparing metadata
about property or hazardous waste there is an indication of the dates to which the information
refers or if comparing metadata about different map sources the relevant scales are shown.
Without standardization, meaningful comparisons are more difficult to derive without reading
and learning many metadata management styles.
Predictability is also encouraged through conformance to standards. However the problem has
been that there are a number of “standards” in use or development. Detailed metadata
standards that provide for an exhaustive definition of all aspects of various types of geospatial
data are currently under preparation by a number of bodies, as are profiles of these standards
as reference models to be adopted for international use.
Geospatial Metadata Standards
Considerable debate across the world centres on metadata and those characteristics that
should be chosen to best describe the data set. There are discussion groups, seminars and
conferences and quantities of paper generated in the debate about the subject. Standards have
been generated by a number of organisations all designed to ensure that a degree of
consistency exists within a given application community.
Three main metadata standards exist or are in development that are of broad international
scope and usage and provide detail for all levels of metadata mentioned earlier:
The Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata, U.S. 1994, revised 1998
http://www.fgdc.gov/
In the USA the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) approved their Content Standard
for Digital Geospatial Metadata in 1994. This is a national spatial metadata standard developed
to support the development of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure. The standard has also

been adopted and implemented in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom through
the National Geographic Data Framework (NGDF) and its successor the AGI. It is also in use by
the South African Spatial Data Discovery Facility, the Inter-American Geospatial Data Network
in Latin America, and elsewhere in Asia.
A CEN Pre-standard adopted in 1998

http://forum.afnor.fr/afnor/WORK/AFNOR/GPN2/Z13C/indexen.htm
In 1992 the Comité Européen de Normalisation (CEN) created technical committee 287 with
responsibility for geographic information standards. A family of European Pre-standards have
now been adopted including 'ENV (Euro-Norme Voluntaire) 12657 Geographic information -
Data description - Metadata'. CEN TC 287 was reconvened in 2003 to address the development
of European profiles of ISO TC 211 standards.
A number of national and regional initiatives have also developed metadata standards. These
include initiatives managed by The Australian and New Zealand Land Information Council
(ANZLIC) and two completed European Commission financed projects (LaClef and ESMI) now
being assimilated by the INSPIRE project. These initiatives have taken similar approaches in
promoting a limited set of metadata (described as "Core Metadata" or "Discovery Metadata" that
organisations should use, as a minimum, to improve the knowledge, awareness and
accessibility of the available geospatial data resources.
ISO 19115 (International Standard) and ISO 19139 (Draft Technical Specification)
An ISO standard for standard metadata was published and approved in 2003
(http://www.isotc211.org).1 The ISO standard was derived from inputs from the the various
national bodies and their implementations of the respective metadata standards assisted by
metadata software. Indeed, most of the existing standards already have a great deal in common
with each other, and a robust international discussion has ensured that the ISO standard has
accommodated most of the various international requirements. ISO 19115 provides an abstract
or logical model for the organization of geospatial metadata. It does not provide for rigorous
compliance testing as there is no normative guidance on formatting the metadata included in the
standard. A companion specification, ISO 19139, standardises the expression of 19115
metadata using the Extensible Markup Language (XML) and includes the logical model (UML)
derived from ISO 19115. In North America, work is beginning to create a North American Profile
of Metadata based on ISO 19139 for Canada, the United States, and Mexico. This will allow for
the compliance testing of metadata files using XML.
Metadata also forms an important part of the OpenGIS Abstract Specification. The OpenGIS
Consortium (OGC) http://www.opengis.org is an international membership organisation
engaged in a co-operative effort to create open computing specifications in the area of
geoprocessing. As part of its draft 'OpenGIS Abstract Specification' OGC has adopted ISO
1
In 1994 the International Standards Organisation created technical committee 211 (ISO/TC
211) with responsibility for Geoinformation/Geomatics. They are finalizing a family of standards;
this process involves a working group, the development of one or more committee drafts, a draft
international standard, and finally the international standard. Many common work items now
exist between the OpenGIS Consortium and ISO TC 211 that will lresult in OGC specifications
being balloted as International Standards or Technical Specifications.

19115 as the abstract model for metadata management within the consortium. OGC is working
closely with FGDC and ISO/TC 211 to develop formal, global spatial metadata standards. At
their plenary meeting in Vienna, Austria in March 1999, ISO/TC 211 welcomed the satisfactory
completion of the co-operative agreement between the OpenGIS Consortium and ISO/TC 211
and endorsed the terms of reference for an ISO/TC 211 / OGC co-ordination group.
Each of the initiatives is promoting the standards and use of discovery metadata as a foundation
of their respective metadata directory initiatives. This discovery metadata provides sufficient
information to enable an inquirer to ascertain that existence of data fit for purpose exists and to
reference some point of contact for more information. If, after discovery, more detail is needed
about individual data sets then more comprehensive and more specific metadata is required. It
is possible that organisations may wish to develop metadata at different but complementary
levels - at one level discovery metadata for external use and for in-house / internal use more
detailed metadata. And to avoid duplication of effort those elements common to both are
flagged. These guidelines have been developed with recognition of the importance of more
extensive metadata required for data management and each of the organisations is promoting
the adoption of ISO Metadata Standard.
General Metadata Standards
Other standards exist in the broader topic of metadata that do not specifically apply to
geospatial information. These conventions are listed here for informational purposes. They may
be useful references for linking or integrating non-geospatial resources into a geospatial
framework.
The Dublin Core is a metadata element set intended to facilitate discovery of electronic
resources. Originally conceived for author-generated description of Web resources, it has
attracted the attention of formal resource description communities such as museums, libraries,
government agencies, and commercial organisations.
The Dublin Core Workshop Series has gathered participants from the library world, the
networking and digital library research communities, and a variety of content specialists in a
series of invitational workshops. The building of an interdisciplinary, international consensus
around a core element set is the central feature of the Dublin Core. The progress represents the
emergent wisdom and collective experience of many stakeholders in the resource description
arena. Dublin Core metadata is specifically intended to support general-purpose resource
discovery. The elements represent one community's concepts of core elements that are likely to
be useful to support resource discovery. Unfortunately, the formal use of the Dublin Core
metadata model does has not always recognized the inclusion of qualified elements such as
“Coverage.” This metadata element thus may contain text that represents a date or time, a
description of a place name or time period, or coordinates, without a means to declare what
type of content is present in the text element. As such, the Dublin Core unqualified elements are
inadequate for even basic geospatial resource description and discovery, though they may be
applied to web and library resources with a loose geospatial definition. Qualified Dublin Core
elements can be derived from more detailed metadata models (such as ISO 19115) and can
support discovery of lightly documented ancillary information such as books, reports, and other
Web objects of potential interest to geospatial investigations.

The Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) and the Vector Product Format (VPF) Digital
Exchange Standards (DIGEST) were developed to allow the encoding of digital spatial data sets
for transfer between spatial data software. Both of these standards support the inclusion of
metadata elements in an exchange, but remarkably have not until recently considered support
for standardised the encoding of relevant geospatial metadata standards in their export or
archival formats.
While other general-purpose metadata standards exist, it is recommended that a

comprehensive geospatial metadata standard should be used to document geospatial data. It is
easier to produce simplified metadata from a more robust collection of metadata, but it is
impossible to do the opposite. Eventually, the integration of data content and exchange
standards will converge with those in metadata content and exchange so that spatial data
encoding efforts will provide a comprehensive solution for archive and documentation.
Who should create metadata?
Data managers tend to be either technically literate scientists or scientifically literate computer
specialists. Creating correct metadata is like library cataloguing, except the creator needs to
know more of the scientific information behind the data in order to properly document them.
Don't assume that every professional needs to be able to create proper metadata. They may
complain that it is too hard and they may not recognise the benefits. In this case, ensure that
there is good communication between the metadata producer and the data producer; the former
may have to ask questions of the latter to collaboratively develop adequate documentation.
The form for maintaining metadata will depend on a number of factors:
• the size of the data holdings,

• the size of an organisation and
• the patterns of data management within an organisation
If the metadata holdings are fairly modest, then it has been the convention to store the metadata
in discrete documents by using any available software (e.g. word-processor, spreadsheet, and
simple database). Historically, organisations have built up folders of single documents that may
be in either paper or digital formats. Many organisations will start to investigate the use of more
complex systems as they realise the benefit of the metadata, and as they gain greater data
holdings and start to provide broader access to the data.
Indeed many organisations will start with a basic audit of their data holdings that will alert them
of the vast wealth of data that they possess and where it is being used, replicated or improved
across the organisation. As the data holdings become larger and the access to the data
becomes distributed, then organisations would look at more advanced methods for maintaining
metadata of their data holdings. These advanced tools may consist of commercial or self-
developed forms based systems that may also form part of the operational GI systems to extract
aspects of the metadata automatically from the data itself.
How does one deal with people who complain that it's too hard? The solution in most cases is to
redesign the workflow rather than to develop new tools or training. People often assume that

data producers must generate their own metadata. Certainly they should provide informal,
unstructured documentation, but they may not need to go through the rigors of fully structured
formal metadata. For scientists or GIS specialists who produce one or two data sets per year it
may not be worth their time to fully learn a complex metadata standard. Instead, they might be
asked to fill out a less- complicated form or template that will be rendered in the proper format
by a data manager or cataloguer who is familiar (not necessarily expert) with the subject and
well-versed in the metadata standard. If twenty or thirty scientists are passing data to the data
manager in a year, it is worth the data manager's time to learn the complex metadata standard.
With good communication, this strategy complements the existing combination of software tools
and training.
The first data set documented is always the worst. The other aspect to "It's too hard" is that
documenting a data set fully requires a (sometimes) uncomfortably close look at the data and
brings home the realisation of how little is really known about its processing history.
"Insufficient time" to document data sets is also a common complaint. This is a situation in
which managers who appreciate the value of GIS data sets can set priorities to protect their
data investment by allocating time to document it. Spending one or two days documenting a
data set that may have taken months or years to develop at thousands of dollars in cost hardly
seems like an excessive amount of time.
These 'pain' and 'time' concerns have some legitimacy, especially for agencies that may have
hundreds of legacy data sets which could be documented, but for which the time spent
documenting them takes away from current projects. At this point in time, it seems much more
useful to have a lot of 'shortcut' metadata rather a small amount of full-blown metadata. So what
recommendations can be made to these agencies with regard to a sort of 'minimum metadata'
or means to reduce the documentation load?
In some operations, small amounts of metadata, or “notes” are collected sporadically during the
data processing flow. These hints can then be assembled more readily later into a clear
statement of the history and processing of the dataset. This can present a less daunting task at
the end of a project as most of the details are already documented, a little at a time.
Increasingly, GIS and image processing software are capable of collecting and reporting
quantitative metadata that can be filled-in for the user rather than expecting human input. These
procedures can amount to significant savings in overall time and effort over a single manual
metadata preparation process at the conclusion of a project.
Don't invent your own standard. Select a supported international standard wherever possible.
Try to stay within its constructs. Subtle changes from an international standard such as collapse
of compound elements may be costly in the long run - you won't be able to use standard
metadata tools and your metadata may not be directly exchangeable or paresable by software.
Don't confuse the metadata presentation (view) with the metadata itself. There is a temptation to
lump form and content into the same bin (e.g. "What I see in my database is what I print").
However, the ability to differentiate the contents of the metadatabase (the columns or fields)
from its presentation (writing formatted reports) is now commonplace in desktop database
software packages. This allows users to consider more flexibly how to present what information.
There are typically three forms of metadata that should be recognized and supported in
systems: the implementation form (within a database or software system), the export or

encoding format (a machine-readable form designed for transfer of metadata between
computers), and the presentation form (a format suitable to viewing by humans). By recognizing
the connections between these dispositions of metadata, one can build systems that support
mission requirements, standard encoding for exchange, and permit many “report” views of the
metadata to satisfy the needs and experience of different user constituencies.
The Extensible Markup Language (XML) provides two solutions to this metadata problem. First,
it includes a capable markup language with structural rules enforced through a control file to
validate document structure. Second, through a companion standard (XML Style Language, or
XSL), an XML document may be used along with a style sheet to produce standardised
presentations of content, allowing the user to shuffle field order, change tag names, or show
only certain fields of information. Used together XML and style sheets allow for a structured
exchange format and for flexible presentation. Thus, a metadata entry can be rendered in many
ways from the same, single structured encoding.
XML is a widely accepted encoding methodology with international software support. It is

supported by a lot of software, both free and commercial. However, the metadata-producing
community doesn't have much experience using it to solve problems yet. Through reference
implementations of software and experimentation, local Spatial Data Infrastructures can share
their successes and failures in applying this new technology to fullest community benefit.
Consider data granularity. Can you document many of your data sets (or tiles) under an
umbrella parent? Prioritise your data. Begin by documenting those data sets that have current
or anticipated future use, data sets that form the framework upon which others are based, and
data sets that represent your organisation's largest commitment in terms of effort or cost.
Document at a level that preserves the value of the data within your organisation. Consider how
much you would like to know about your data sets if one of your senior GIS operators left
suddenly in favour of a primitive lifestyle on a tropical island.
How do I create metadata?
First, one should understand both the data you are trying to describe and the standard itself.
Then one must decide how you to encode the information. Historically, one creates a single text
file for each metadata record; that is, one disk file per data set. Typically a software program is
used to assist the entry of information so that the metadata conform to the standard.
Specifically:
• Define exactly what data packaging is to be documented.

• Assemble information about the data set.
• Create a digital file containing the metadata, using a standard format whenever possible
• Check the syntactical structure of the file. Modify the arrangement of information and
repeat until the syntactical structure is correct.
• Review the content of the metadata, verifying that the information describes the subject
data completely and correctly.
A digression on conformance and interoperability

The various metadata standards are truly content standards. They may not dictate the layout of
metadata in computer files. Since the standard is so complex, this has the practical effect that
almost any metadata can be said to conceptually conform to the standard; the file containing
metadata need only contain the appropriate information, and that information need not be easily
interpretable or accessible by a person or even a computer. This is the case even with the ISO
19115 International Standard.
This rather broad notion of conformance is not very useful. Unfortunately it is rather common.
To be truly useful, the metadata must be clearly comparable with other metadata, not only in a
visual sense, but also to software that indexes, searches, and retrieves the documents over the
Internet. To accomplish this, there are several encoding standards that specify the content of a
metadata entry for exchange between computers, For real value, metadata must be both
parseable, meaning machine-readable, and interoperable, meaning they work with software
used in services such as the FGDC Clearinghouse through OpenGIS Catalogue Services.
Fortunately, the companion ISO 19139 Technical Specification provides normative guidance in
the form of an annotated XML Schema Document (XSD), and by example, as to how the
metadata must be structured as XML for validation and exchange.
Parseable
To parse information is to analyse it by disassembling it and recognising its components.

Metadata that are parseable clearly separate the information associated with each element from
that of other elements. Moreover, the element values are not only separated from one another
but are clearly related to the corresponding element names, and the element names are clearly
related to each other as they are in the standard.
In practice this means that your metadata are usually arranged in a hierarchy, just as the
elements are in the standard, and they must use standard names for the elements as a way to
identify the information contained in the element values.
Interoperable
To operate with metadata service software, your metadata must be readable by that software.
Generally this means that they must be parseable and must identify the elements in the manner
expected by the software.
There is a general consensus that metadata should be exchanged in Extensible Markup

Language (XML) conforming to a Document Type Declaration (DTD) or, even more rigorous, its
more modern successor, the XML Schema Document. Support for XML in parsing and
presentation solutions is widespread on the Web and is presumed in current draft standards of
the ISO TC 211 and OpenGIS specifications.
What software is available to create and validate metadata?
No tool can check the accuracy of metadata. Moreover, no tool can determine whether the
metadata properly include elements designated by the Standard to be conditional, or

'mandatory if applicable.' Consequently, some level of human review is required. But human
review should be simpler in those cases where the metadata is known to have the correct
syntactical structure.
Software cannot be said to conform to the Standard. Only metadata records in a given encoding
form can be said to conform or not. A program that claimed to conform to the Standard would
have to be incapable of producing output that did not conform. Such a tool would have to
anticipate all possible data sets. Instead, tools should assist you in entering your metadata, and
the output records must be checked for both conformance and accuracy in separate steps. At
best one can describe or anticipate compatibility testing among software components.
Issues in Implementation
Vocabularies, Gazetteers and Thesauri
When searching for information, the inquirer may not find any references based on the words
used to describe the information sought. This problem can be overcome by use of a thesaurus.
In the context of metadata and other electronic documents, a thesaurus is a tool for the
organisation and retrieval of information in electronic materials. It allows data to be indexed and
retrieved in a consistent manner. It permits the display of hierarchies of concepts and ideas,
leading the user, whether as indexer or information seeker, to define his or her search in terms
that are most likely to lead to the retrieval of relevant information.
For example, it will allow improved information retrieval by providing successful searching on
synonyms - if the user enters the term "farming" the thesaurus will find the term "agriculture".
Hierarchies of meaning can be shown - the term "Great Britain" may retrieve data indexed with
that term but could also expand the search to retrieve data on England, Wales and Scotland
which have been indexed under those three terms. The term "meals on wheels", although in a
hierarchy of terms related to food, could also be linked to concepts relating to personal social
services and to the different categories of recipients and a user can elect to follow and retrieve
these related terms. Consistent searching for metadata will be achieved if all those who prepare
metadata use the same thesaurus.
Minimum collaboration with users during the definition and implementation phases: a
user-friendly focus is needed
For a non-professional user, finding the information wanted is very difficult. Even if 'Help' or
'Tutorial' can be found in some metadata services, it is not very easy to understand what to do
and where to type. Efforts must be made to explain what to ask for and to develop user-friendly
and multi-lingual interfaces. If it takes too much time to understand how to react to metadata
services, users will not stay long and will immediately complain! A dictionary, multilingual
thesauri or catalogues with keywords, should be provided to users to ensure that the same
vocabulary is used. One of the most important things is to develop services that are not
technology dependent and technology driven. Projects must be done in collaboration with users
(who must first be identified).
User-expected content

Given the complex metadata models deployed, we can be reasonably certain that the metadata
that is now presented from catalogue services is almost always more than is expected by end
users. It seems that the current tendency is to propose a complex database approach that
seems to be very 'data producer oriented'. One can imagine that users are more interested in
examples and benefits on how to use the proposed data sets than a detailed description of its
structure and content. This can be accomplished through special presentations of metadata.
It is important to separate the content of spatial metadata with its means of presentation.
Through applications such as the Extensible Markup Language (XML), documents with
extensive detail can be rendered through different style sheets from one content source into
many presentation forms suitable to different audiences. Further work on developing
presentation methodologies is required to simplify the burden of understanding metadata by all.
Metadata for applications
There is a tendency to adapt the metadata structure and content to applications, for example,
electronic commerce or data management within an organisation. Metadata that is created to
satisfy a real need, rather than because it is seen as something that should be done in the
general interest, is more likely to be well-written and maintained.
The OpenGIS Consortium and ISO TC 211 have developed metadata structures and fields to
describe software interfaces, exposed as "services" for external use. ISO 19119 describes the
structure of services metadata to help intelligent software, through brokers known as service
catalogues, to discover available services that could ultimately be chained together to form new
composite operations. The World Wide Web Consortium and Oasis XML groups have specified
service and resource discovery mechanisms that exploit a published set of metadata fields. Two
of these efforts are known as the ebXML with its Registry Information Model (ebRIM) and the
Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration of Web Services (UDDI). The suggested
interaction between ebXML, ISO metadata, and OGC catalogue service interfaces is being
harmonized in OGC Catalog Services Version 2.0.
A geographic information product identification mechanism
There is no current mechanism to provide identification numbers (ID) to the different GI products
produced and offered to users. This missing element is a very important issue for those who are
implementing in parallel a metadata service and an e-commerce solution.
To make the e-commerce of GI a reality a study on how a GI numbering system could be

organised and implemented and by whom should be made. This system could be similar to the
ones used for other products, such as books. It would be extremely helpful if the Global Spatial
Data Infrastructure activity could develop initial guidance on the technical and political issues
involved in establishing a data product identifier system that will work globally on digital and
non-digital geospatial information.
Incentives for metadata development
The impressive list of incentives which includes financial resources, knowledge and expertise,
standard and tools provided by the FGDC (U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee -
http://www.fgdc.gov) to stimulate the creation and maintenance of metadata content and

services within the concept of the Clearinghouse appeared to be a key success factor of the
U.S. metadata initiative. It is important that national and regional governments evaluate,
recognize, and provide such incentives to metadata builders and managers. Some have started
– France, Canada, Australia, Spain, Ethiopia, the United States and other countries develop and
provide free software and to metadata builders. It is anticipated that the widespread adoption of
the ISO 19115/19139 metadata standards will further encourage the development of an
international base of free and commercial tools around a common standard.
Envisage legislation for public sector metadata content
In countries where legislation is the main engine for creating new or adapting existing public
sector activities, new laws may be needed to encourage or require the collection and distribution
of standards-based metadata by the GI public sector and by commercial enterprises that collect
geospatial data for the public sector.
Recommendations
• The Cookbook authors recommend that you don't invent your own standard. Adopt or
build a national profile of the ISO 19139 Technical Specification based on the abstract
ISO 19115 metadata standard.
Standards are very expensive to create and build implementations for. National standards
should be adopted with the intention of supporting the ISO 19115 metadata content standard
and its companion, Technical Specification ISO 19139, when it becomes available. This will
provide the greatest interoperability rewards in a global environment.
• The Cookbook authors recommend that you prioritise your data.
Begin by documenting those data sets that have current or anticipated future use, data sets that
form the framework upon which others are based, and data sets that represent your
organisation's largest commitment in terms of effort or cost. Framework layers and special,
unique layers of great interest should be adequately documented for use within your
organisation and by those on the outside. Of course, all published data warrant documentation
this way, but through setting priorities you will know what work you have ahead of you.
• The Cookbook authors suggest collecting metadata a little at a time.
For detailed metadata such as FGDC and ISO, an enormous amount of possible information
can be collected. Although all fields are never filled in, it provides an opportunity to store specific
properties in their correct location within the standard structure. This facilitates their storage
and discovery in catalogues (See Chapter 4). If certain types of metadata are collected during
the data collection process as part of the current workflow, then many 20-second notes can
amount to a substantial story later on. This type of information cannot be easily collected after
the fact.
• The Cookbook authors recommend the development of a coordinated spatial data

product identifier system for use globally

The GSDI Technical Working Group with policy assistance from the Steering Committee should
develop initial guidance on the technical and political issues involved in establishing a data
product identifier system that will work globally on digital and non-digital geospatial information.
Uniquely identifying metadata records themselves is a practice from the library community in
which a single metadata record may be shared to reflect its availability in many locations.
• The Cookbook authors suggest that research into a common thematic classification
system for geospatial data be conducted by the Technical Working Group of the
GSDI.
Whereas ISO TC 211 is developing general specifications and methodologies, and the
OpenGIS Consortium is building software interfaces, no convened global organisation is known
to be co-ordinating a common classification system for geospatial data. As a result, the use of
competing thematic thesauri make distributed search difficult.
References and Links

Chenez, Christian and Gaël Kermarrec, "On-going Metadata Initiatives in Europe", 1999, 5th
EC-GIS Workshop, Stresa, ITALY http://www.eurogi.org/geoinfo/publications/5thgeo.html
Metadata Home Page, US Federal Geographic Data Committee

http://www.fgdc.gov/metadata/metadata.html
Metadata Home Page Australia and New Zealand Land Information Council
http://www.anzlic.org.au/infrastructure_metadata.html
Metadata (MetaGenie) Home Page UK Association for Geographic Information (AGI),

http://www.askgiraffe.org.uk/datalocator/metadatatool.html
Reference Data and Metadata, INSPIRE Initiative, European Commission,

http://inspire.jrc.it/about/reference.cfm

Chapter Four: Geospatial Data Catalogue -- Making data discoverable
Editor: Doug Nebert, US FGDC
Introduction
An increasing volume of information is now considered critical to everyday decision making in

modern society -- a large portion of this information is essentially related to "place" in the
context of position on the Earth. As more online information includes some geographic context,
the ability to describe, organise, and access it has become increasingly difficult. The ability to
discover and access geographic data resources for use in visualisation, planning, and decision
support is a requirement to support societies at the local, regional, national, and international
levels. Common solutions have been developed and will be described in this Chapter by
evaluating organisational approaches, comparing definitions of community, identifying common
architectural solutions, and sharing a base of techniques that are implemented in available non-
commercial and commercial standards-based software.
This Chapter presents the concepts, current practices, and designs for geospatial data
discovery. It is intended as a guide to those interested in the management, development, and
implementation of compatible discovery services in environments where the cross-domain
publication of geographic information is desired. Organisational issues and roles are presented
that are critical to the understanding and maintenance of the services within a larger spatial data
infrastructure. The principles described herein can be interpreted and applied in a range of
information management conditions from non-digital collections of map information, through
small digital catalogues, to integrated repositories of data and metadata. Relevant standards
and software are identified for evaluation and application.

Although the Internet is becoming the world’s largest repository of knowledge, its navigation is
hindered by the lack of a surrogate and comprehensive catalogue. As a result, one is delivered
tens of thousands of candidate documents in response to a reasonable query from today’s
search engines. Fortunately, geographic information frequently has signatures of location in the
form of coordinates or place names and even may have a reference date or time associated
with the data. These metadata provide a key to a solution that can and does operate in an
international context.
The library has long formed the primary metaphor for accumulation and management of
knowledge about people, places, and things. Since the construction of the ancient library in
Alexandria, Egypt to its modern day equivalents, libraries have employed classification systems,
specialisation, and discipline to information in all forms. A central feature in this virtual library –
and a critical part to its navigation and use – is the catalogue. In the context of geospatial
information management, we use the descriptions of geospatial data, or metadata, as described
in Chapter 2 as the common vocabulary to frame the structured fields of information that we
seek to manage and to use in search and retrieval. These metadata elements are stored and
served through a user-accessible catalogue of geospatial information.

Support of a discovery and access service for geospatial information is known variously within
the geospatial community as "catalogue services" (OpenGIS Consortium), "Spatial Data
Directory" (Australian Spatial data Infrastructure), and "Clearinghouse" and the “Geospatial
One-Stop Portal” (U.S. FGDC). Although they have different names, the goals of discovering
geospatial data through the metadata properties they report are the same. For the purpose of
consistency within this document, these services will be referred to as "catalogue services."
Further integration of these services with web mapping, live access to spatial data, and
additional services can lead to exciting user environments in which data can be discovered,
evaluated, fused, and used in problem-solving. Whereas this chapter will focus on finding spatial
data and services, combination of the practices described here with those in other chapters can
expand the capabilities of your spatial data infrastructure.
Distributed Catalogue Concepts
The Catalogue Gateway and its user interface allows a user to query distributed collections of
geospatial information through their metadata descriptions. This geospatial information may
take the form of “data” or of services available to interact with geospatial data, described with
complementary forms of metadata. Figure 4.1 shows the basic interactions of various
individuals or organisations involved in the advertising and discovery of spatial data. The boxes
are identifiable components of the distributed catalogue service; the lines that connect the
boxes illustrate a specific set of interactions described by the words next to the line.
A user interested in locating geospatial information uses a search user interface, fills out a
search form, specifying queries for data with certain properties. The search request is passed to
the Catalogue Gateway and poses the query of one or more registered catalogue servers. Each
catalogue server manages a collection of metadata entries. Within the metadata entries there
are instructions on how to access the spatial data being described. There are a variety of user
interfaces available in this type of Catalogue search in various national and regional SDIs
around the world. Interoperable search across international Catalogues can be achieved
through use of a common descriptive vocabulary (metadata), a common search and retrieval
protocol, and a registration system for servers of metadata collections.

uses User Interface
that posts a query to
user
searches
Catalog Directory of
Gateway Servers
searches multiple
Catalog
Server(s)
deliver entries of
has reference to
Metadata Spatial Data
Figure 4.1 - Interaction diagram showing basic usage of distributed

catalog services and related SDI elements from a user point of view.
The Distributed Catalogue environment is more than just a catalogue of locator records. The
Distributed Catalogue includes reference and/or access to data, ordering mechanisms, map
graphics for data browsing, and other detailed use information that are provided through the
metadata entries. This metadata acts in three roles: 1) documenting the location of the
information, 2) documenting the content and structures of the information, and 3) providing the
end-user with detailed information on its appropriate use. A traditional catalogue, as found in the
modern library, provides only locational information. In the era of digital data, the edges
between the data or services and the catalogue can become blurred and permit the
management of extended information called metadata that can be exploited by computer
software and human eyes for many uses.
Who are the individuals or actors involved in the publication and discovery of geospatial
information? By defining the roles and responsibilities that these actors play, one can
understand the essential functions that human or computer-assisted services should be able to
conduct in the interest of resource discovery for the GSDI.
Terminology:

Data Set – a specific packaging of geospatial information provided by a data producer or
software, also known as a feature collection, image, or coverage.
Metadata - a formalised set of descriptive properties that is shared by a community to include
guidance on expected structures, definitions, repeatability, and conditionality of elements.
Metadata Entry - a set of metadata that pertains specifically to a Data Set.
Catalogue - a single collection of Metadata Entries that is managed together.
Catalogue Service – a service that responds to requests for metadata in a Catalogue that
comply with certain browse or search criteria.
Catalogue Entry - a single Metadata Entry made accessible through a Catalogue Service or
stored in a Catalogue.
Service Entry – the metadata for an invokable service or operation, also known as operation or
service metadata.
Roles
Figure 4.2 shows interactions between the Actors, the functions they perform, and the objects
they interact with. The illustration uses Unified Modeling Language (UML) notation to picture
processes from a functional point of view.
Originator of the Metadata Entry -- The responsibility of this Actor is to generate conformant
metadata elements packaged so they accurately reflect the contents of the information being
described. The role and credentials of the person responsible for the creation of this metadata
may vary among organisations. In some situations the originator may be the scientist involved in
building the data set being described. In others, the originator may be a contractor or second
party who was directed to create the data or the metadata based on some project requirements,
or it may be a generic description created by a production-oriented organisation without mention
of the names of individuals involved in its creation. Given the rarity of metadata still, it is also a
common practice for a third party to interpret or derive a metadata entry from available
information where formal metadata has not yet been created.
Contributor to the Catalogue -- The responsibility of this Actor is to provide one or more
conformant metadata entries to a Catalogue. Metadata entries may be delivered in proper
format, derived from other formats, or developed from information stored in data and software
systems. S/he interacts with the management functions of the Catalogue Service that permit a
metadata entry to be entered, updated, deleted, or to assign levels of access or viewing
privilege.
Catalogue Administrator -- The responsibility of the catalogue administrator is to manage the

metadata for access by the Users. The maintainer or keeper of the metadata may be the same
as the contributor, it may be a collecting organisation acting on the authority of an entire
organisation (e.g. librarian or web site content manager), or it may be a different party who has
acquired metadata in some form and is providing public access to it. The Custodian authorises
access to the Catalogue Service for Management functions including entry, update, or deletion,
manages authorisation details, and may perform some quality assurance evaluation on entries.
The Custodian may also manage external (client) access to the Catalogue if it is not publicly
accessible.
Catalogue User -- The responsibility of this user is to define criteria by which geographically-
related information could be located and used through use of Browse categories or posing a

fielded or full-text query. This user may or may not be GIS-literate, but with the Internet is likely
to not be familiar with or possess GIS or image processing software. This User may have a
weak understanding of geography. Another common method of catalogue access may be
through a program to discover and work with Catalogue information. The interaction occurs at
the software level and assumes a documented interface (e.g. application programming
interface) for submitting requests to and receiving responses from a Catalogue.
Gateway Manager -- the responsibility of the manager is to develop, host, and maintain the
distributed search capabilities within the user community. This may also include management of
or contribution to a directory of servers (registry) that participate in the national or regional SDI.
uses User Interface

posts a query to
user
searches Directory of
Catalog Servers
Gateway/Portal (Registry)
searches multiple
maintains Catalog manages

manages
Server(s)
catalog gateway
deliver entries of
administrator manager
has reference to
compiles Metadata Spatial Data
metadata
contributor
Figure 4.2 - Interaction diagram showing basic usage of

catalog services and related SDI elements.
Using the actors from Figure 4.2 as described in the text, the following sections will describe the
organisational or operational management requirements for distributed catalogue services
compatible with the GSDI based on the following areas of interest
Catalogue Service development

Catalogue gateway and access interfaces
Registering participants
Each section will include a Use Case to focus on the roles and actions that should be
considered in creating a discovery component of your SDI.

Catalogue Server/Service Development
The Distributed Catalogue services assume some degree of distributed ownership and
participation. Similar activities on the Internet have taken a fully centralised approach to
metadata management by placing all metadata in an index on one server, or in several
replicated servers. In an increasingly dynamic data management environment, the
synchronisation between detailed metadata and such an index becomes increasingly difficult.
This problem is experienced on a daily basis when conducting searches on Web search
engines and getting a “404: File not found” error when a document has been moved or
changed. In addition we are seeing a migration toward treating metadata and data as
interrelated and even being managed together within a single database. To duplicate this
metadata in an external index can be costly and invites problems with synchronisation of the
data, its metadata, and the externally indexed metadata. Organisations who already manage
spatial data and are interested in publishing it are often the most capable candidates for
publishing and maintaining the metadata. Metadata co-located with data on a server tend to be
more current and detailed than metadata published to an external index (harvested and indexed
off-site).
The construction of a catalogue service capability for geospatial information is built upon on the
commitment to collect and manage some level of geospatial metadata within an organisation.
The following Use Case scenario describes the publishing of a metadata entry.
A contributor of metadata receives the description of a new spatial data set developed by
other professional staff. This metadata is generated in a transferable encoding format to allow
exchange of the metadata without loss of context or information content.
This metadata entry is passed to a catalogue administrator for consideration and loading to
the catalogue.
The catalogue administrator applies any acceptance criteria on the quality of the metadata as
required by the organisation. If the metadata are acceptable it is inserted into the catalogue.
The catalogue administrator then updates the catalogue to reflect the new entry as available
for public access.
This data set is now considered advertised because its metadata provide a searchable and
browseable record of its background, its temporal and spatial extent, and many other
searchable characteristics.
There are several models for where Catalogue services might be installed within or among
organisations. Generally speaking, a catalogue server is usually installed at the level of
organisation appropriate to the nature of the data or metadata, the organisational context or
mandates, and the level at which a catalogue can be operationally supported.
Consortium Approach -- The consortium model is one where a single metadata catalogue is
built and operated at one location and is shared by multiple organisations with a common
discipline or geographic context. Metadata are exported from contributors and are forwarded to
the common site where they may be evaluated, loaded, and made publicly accessible. This
model may work well where there are personnel and computer access constraints and a shared
service provides or extends outreach. The consortium approach also encourages collaboration
between participants in building a collective data and metadata resource base across the
organisations. The liabilities of this approach may include managing complexity and
contributions from many sources and being sure that metadata provided stay synchronised with

the data being described. Data might not be co-located with the catalogue service but may be
referred to at contributor locations.
Corporate Approach -- The corporate model assumes that all metadata are forwarded within an
organisation to a single service at which time corporate issues of quality, publication, style, and
content may be evaluated. This model allows personnel and networking resources to be
focused on developing and managing a single service and computer within an organisation.
Some degree of policy must be established within the organisation for the collection and
propagation of the metadata to the corporate host. This model is well-suited to organisations
who may be restricted to providing a single public access computer for security reasons. The
liabilities of this approach may include managing contributions from many sources within the
organisation and being sure that metadata provided stay synchronised with the data being
described. Data may be co-located with the catalogue service or may be referred to at
contributor locations.
Workgroup Approach --The workgroup model assumes that a service would be established at
each place within an organisation where data are collected, documented, managed, and served.
This follows the trend on the Internet in which virtually anyone on a connected network can be
considered a "publisher" of information. The workgroup model also assumes that the
individuals and groups most closely associated with the collection and revision of the
information are also involved in its catalogue and service. This can lead to a high degree of
synchronisation between the data and their metadata -- in some cases, data and metadata
warehouses could be completely integrated. The liabilities of this approach may include
technical expertise in catalogues at the local level and coordination issues across a given
organisation.
Because of the nature of the distributed catalogue and its ability to search many servers, all of
the suggested models listed are equally viable. In fact, close reading of the model descriptions
will show that they represent a continuum of organisational choices that vary in complexity,
governance, and the degree of integration with the data being described.
Alternative Approaches
The operational design of a distributed catalogue as described above, depends in large part on
the ability for clients to use the proposed services. Globally, access to computers and
communications networks supporting Web applications is still available to a small minority of the
population. While this is changing in almost all regions through providing community public
access points, building and subsidizing network construction and interconnection, the distributed
catalogue may not be well suited to conditions in many developed and developing countries
where the Internet is not yet common or bandwidth is lacking. There are two solutions that have
been prototyped and are suitable for public information access in such environments.
For organisations and clientele who have limited access to computers or networks, metadata
can be reprocessed and printed and distributed as paper catalogues. Printing and distribution
costs may be significant but a wide audience can be reached through public libraries and
organisations interested in using spatial data in decision making. Synchronisation with current
data content and holdings in such paper catalogues may also be an issue. Paper distribution of
catalogues can always be considered a supplement to digital information service methods.

If Internet services are present and available to the public but network bandwidth within the
region of interest is limited, individual catalogues may wish to support harvesting of metadata
from remote sites in "mirror" catalogues, or “metadata caches”. A good example of this would be
for supporting regional data discovery across multiple servers in different locations whose
connections are low-speed. If each catalogue posted its metadata in a Web-accessible
directory, a crawler or harvester program could retrieve and index metadata from other sites into
a regional or replicate index. This methodology is being demonstrated in the United States to
provide a single synchronized point of access to metadata that are fetched from a small to
moderate number of sites. Note that this still suggests that the combined collection itself is still
behind a server with a common interface, but potentially fewer standing servers are required in
this architecture. At the extreme end of this design one could envision a few large metadata
repositories with common search interfaces. Primary concerns about the scalability of this
approach include supporting extremely large searchable metadata indexes and the
synchronization of the indexes with remotely held metadata and data. It is not likely that this
approach would scale to support a single global collection of metadata using current
technologies although Web search engines are capable of such searches but lack geographic
awareness.
In environments where both data providers and clients have access to computers but not
reliable networks, the creation of CD-ROM or DVD media with searchable metadata (and
perhaps even data) is another outreach mechanism. Creation of digital media with metadata
and data will be of greatest benefit where standard metadata and data approaches are followed,
and a catalogue (software and data) could be placed on the media to minimise the cost of
deployment where a catalogue already exists.
These alternatives should be viewed as approaches that supplement the catalogue services
recommendations described in this Chapter until such time as the information is accessible to
the majority of intended clients via the Internet. Use of the catalogue services will immediately
enable international academic, commercial, and governmental use of such information for
regional analysis issues.
Catalogue Gateway and Access Interface Development

Within a given geographic or discipline-based community, the need will exist to build relevant
search capabilities that facilitate intuitive search across many servers. This problem can be
divided into two related parts that must interrelate -- a user interface (Search/Browse Interface,
fig 4.2) and a query distributor (Catalogue/Gateway Portal, fig 4.2). When performed across the
Internet, these functions may be logically deployed in different locations although they tend to
be coupled together in server-based or client-based search solutions.
Client A Client B Client C

User
local Interface
Gateway
User
User Interface
Interface
Gateway
Internet Gateway
Servers Servers Servers
Figure 4.3 -- Configuration options for Gateway and User Interfaces

to Distributed Catralog
Figure 4.3 shows the possible configurations of a catalogue gateway and the user interface.
Client A accesses a user interface that is downloaded (as forms or an applet) from a host on the
Internet that is also managing multiple connections to servers. Client B is accessing a user
interface from a location that is different from that of the Gateway supporting the construction of
customised user interfaces for a community. Client C is a client-side "desktop" application that is
fully self-contained and includes the user interface and distributed query capabilities for direct
connection to remote servers. What is not known on this diagram is the dependence on or
reference to a registry or Directory of Servers, as shown in Figure 4.2, which is further explained
in the next section. All three styles of interaction are known to exist in various SDIs. Because
they all depend upon distributed catalogue servers the three approaches are fully compatible.
Two styles of interaction are known to exist in Web search interfaces that are equally well
applied to distributed catalogue access. The first style is query in which the user specifies
search criteria for search using simple to advanced interfaces. The second style is a browse
interface in which the user is presented with categories of information and selects paths or
groupings, often in hierarchical form, to traverse.

The search approach to interaction with distributed catalogues can provide extra precision for
advanced users in selecting spatial data of interest. It often is implemented in iteration to
discover what effects individual parts of a query have on the pattern of results returned. The
browse approach has great appeal to novice users who may wish to navigate by reference
without knowing proper search words or fields a priori. The challenge of constructing and
supporting browse mechanism across a global collection of servers is the work required in
building and supporting a universal vocabulary for classification and its hierarchy or word space,
known as an ontology. As this service lies at the intersection of many disciplines of interest, the
construction of a single classification system is an extremely daunting and improbable task.
Intelligent classification systems that are run externally on collections using neural networks,
Bayesian probablitiies, and other estimates of "context" may be available in the coming years to
help users navigate through heterogeneous geospatial information.
A Use Case scenario for a query user is as follows:
1. A User uses client software to discover that a distributed catalogue search service
exists.
2. User opens the user interface and assembles the query elements required to narrow
down a search of available information.
3. The search request is passed to one or more servers based on user requirements
through a gateway function. The search may be iterative, repeating or refining queries
based on new interactions with the user.
4. Results are returned from each server and are collated and presented to the User.
Types of response styles may include: a list of "hits" in title and link format, a brief
formatting of information, or a full presentation of metadata. Visualisation of multiple
results may also be available through display of data set locations on a map, thematic
groupings, or temporal extent.
5. User selects the relevant metadata entry by name or reference and selects the
presentation content (brief, full, other) and the format (HTML, XML, Text, other) for
further review.
6. User decides whether to acquire the data set through linkages in the metadata. By
clicking on embedded Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) the user can directly access
online ordering or downloadable resources, whereas distribution information lists
alternate forms of access.
A User Case scenario for a browse user is as follows:
exists. This may be done through a search of Web resources, a saved bookmark,
reference from a referring page, or word-of-mouth referral.
2. User opens the user interface and selects the parameters required to narrow down a
search of available information based on topics/subjects, organisations, geographic
location, or other criteria. Parameters are usually grouped into hierarchies for the user to
navigate.
3. Requests are made to each server through a distributed request mechanism.
4. Results from each server are collated and presented to the User. Form of organisation of
results is controlled by the user interface and gateway collaboration to present a uniform
result space.

further review.
Registering Catalogue Servers
The nature of distributed catalogues requires that the knowledge of the existence and properties
of any given catalogue participating in a community be known to the community. In support of
GSDI concepts, the need for a dynamic and comprehensive directory of services including
catalogue servers is ever more important. The directory of servers concept allows an individual
catalogue operator to construct and register service metadata with a central authority. This
registry is then a searchable catalogue in its own right so that software may discover suitable
catalogue targets based on their predominant geographic extent, descriptive words or
classification, country of operation, or organisational affiliation, among other properties. Already
national listings of compatible catalogue servers have been built, but the operation of a global
network of catalogue servers within GSDI will require that a common directory of servers be
built and managed to assure current content, distributed ownership, and authoritative reference
to servers.
The features of the directory of servers may include:
• One descriptive entry per service collection (server metadata)
• Ability for a donor to contribute or update a record in the directory
• Ability to validate access to a server, as advertised
• User browse access of online server metadata
• Software search access of server metadata
• Management of active/inactive records, accessibility statistics
Several national distributed catalogue activities support management services for server-level
metadata and contain references to servers predominantly in their country. The GSDI now
sponsors a global directory of catalogue servers for all countries to utilise, with delegation of
authority made to participating countries to manage and validate host information for their
servers (http://registry.gsdi.org/registry) but it does not provide for the cataloguing of all service
types at this time. The UDDI (http://www.uddi.org) offers the potential of a public, replicated
“universal business registry” hosted by IBM, Microsoft, and SAP, that could be used by SDI
publishers to advertise the existence of their services. Research into the use of the UDDI as a
service directory for the GSDI is underway.
Relevant Standards
The GSDI distributed catalogue has been designed with maximum reliance on existing
technologies and standards. Because of this, existing software can be re-utilised or adapted to
support geospatial information without requiring special investment in new technologies. Key
standardisation efforts in access to catalogues are found in the ISO 23950 Search and Retrieve
Protocol, the OpenGIS Consortium Catalogue Services Specification Version 1.0, and relevant
standards or "recommendations" of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

ISO 23950, also known as ANSI Z39.50, is a search and retrieval protocol developed initially in
the library community for access to virtual catalogues. Key features of the ISO 23950 protocol
include:
• Support of registered public "field" attributes for query across multiple servers where
they may be mapped to private attributes
• Platform-independent implementation over TCP/IP using ASN.1 encoded protocol data
units
• Ability to request both content (known as Element Sets or groups of ‘fields’ such as Brief
or Full) and presentation format (Preferred Syntax, e.g. XML, HTML, text)
• GEO (Geospatial Metadata) Profile with registered implementation guidance for current
FGDC and ANZLIC metadata and soon to include ISO 19115 metadata elements
The use of a generalised query protocol on ISO 23950 permits a migration from national forms
of metadata to future forms being developed through international consensus under ISO
Technical Committee 211 and their draft metadata standard 19115. Even though the metadata
standard will change, the GEO Profile specifies the meaning of search fields in a way they can
be mapped to multiple metadata schemas where compatible elements exist. Under the GEO
Profile search of international metadata can be achieved today across collections in the United
Kingdom, the United States, Africa, Canada, Latin America, and Australia in a single search,
even though different underlying local metadata models exist.
The OpenGIS Consortium published a Catalogue Services Specification in 1999 that provides a
general model for geospatial data discovery through a catalogue that includes management,
discovery, and data access services. These general services are described for implementation
in the OLEDB, CORBA, and ANSI Z39.50 (ISO 23950) environments. The management
functions include the ability to specify interfaces for creation, entry, update, and deletion of
metadata entries to a catalogue. The discovery functions include the ability to search for and
retrieve metadata entries from a catalogue with embedded references within the formal
metadata to on-line data access, where available. The access functions support extended
access to or ordering of spatial data based on references established in the metadata. Only the
discovery functions are deemed mandatory in the Catalogue Services implementations;
guidance is provided for implementation of optional management and access (really ordering) in
interoperable ways.
At the OGC meeting in Southampton, U.K., a common catalogue services approach was
presented and demonstrated that built upon the essential search and retrieval model of ISO
23950. Initial implementation specifications in Version 1.0 of the Catalogue Services
Specification were submitted for CORBA, OLEDB, and ISO 23950. Distributed parallel search
across these different protocols was demonstrated through an extension of commercially-
available gateway software.
A Web-based HTTP Protocol Binding for Catalogue search is being published in Version 2.0 of
the OGC Catalogue Service Specification. OGC Testbed activities have shown the popularity of
the HTTP-based approach to catalogue services that still applies the basic tenets of ISO 23950.
Known variously as the “Stateless Catalog” and the “Web Registry Service” this protocol binding
will be known as the “Catalogue Service – Web (CS-W)” and will complement the CORBA and
ISO 23950 bindings defined in Version 1.1.1.

The International Standards Organisation (ISO) has a Technical Committee, TC 211, dedicated
to the standardisation of abstract concepts relating to geospatial data, services, and the
geomatics field in general. The International Standard for metadata (ISO 19115) provides a
comprehensive vocabulary and structure of metadata that should be used to characterise
geographic data. The companion Technical Specification ISO 19139 defines the encoding of
this metadata. The development of national and discipline-oriented profiles of ISO 19139 will
facilitate exchange of information using common semantics and syntax.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is a group of implementing organisations interested in
developing common specifications, known as "recommendations' for wide support on the Web.
One key set of recommendations and work items focus on the Extensible Markup Language
(XML), a markup language specifically geared to encoding structured content of information.
Companion topics include the XML-Schema activity, working on defining the schema and data
types for XML documents and XML-Query -- at present only a design activity for a request
syntax for XML-structured documents. The XML 1.0 Recommendation is in general use now,
and is seeing wider application in the geographic software field as an increasingly richer means
to encode and transfer structured information of all types. XML-Schema has recently been
approved by the W3C and supports more rigorous validation of XML files.
The development of operational distributed catalogue services has been taking place in a
number of countries including the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, and South Africa as
primary examples. The software systems used to implement the ISO 23950 and Web based
services has been developed largely through governmental support, resulting in both open
source and commercial software solutions. The evolution of protocols and industry practices are
difficult to predict, but this section provides a review of available solutions.
Let's review a technical use case scenario for access to a distributed catalogue:
exists. This may be done through a search of Web resources, a saved bookmark,
reference from a referring page, or word-of-mouth referral.
2. User opens the user interface and assembles the parameters required to narrow down a
search of available information.
3. The search request is passed to one or more servers based on user requirements
through a gateway service. The search may be iterative, repeating or refining queries
based on new interactions with the user.
4. Results are returned from each server and are collated and presented to the User.
Types of response styles may include: a list of "hits" in title and link format, a brief
formatting of information, or a full presentation of metadata. Visualisation of multiple
results may also be available through display of data set locations on a map, thematic
groupings, or temporal extent.
further review.

The Distributed Catalogue is implemented using a multi-tier software architecture that includes a
Client tier, a middleware or “Gateway” tier, and a server tier, as is illustrated in Figure 4.4.
Web Native Search

Client Tier Client Client (e.g. Java)
User Interface
http
User Interface
Middleware Tier Registry
Gateway Server
ISO 23950,
CORBA,
or OLEDB
Server Tier Server Server Server
XML index RDBMS OODB
Figure 4.4 -- Implementation view of distributed catalog services
The client tier is realised by a traditional Web browser or a native search client application. The
Web browser uses conventional HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP) communications,
whereas the native search client uses the ISO 23950 protocol directly against a set of servers. It
is possible to also collapse this multi-tier architecture into two tiers where middle-tier
functionality is present in the client.
The middle tier in the architecture includes a World Wide Web to catalogue services protocol
gateway. A Gateway effectively converts an HTTP POST or GET request into multiple
catalogue service clients that run either in series or in parallel. Gateway solutions provide
parallel distributed search of multiple catalogue servers from a single client Web session. At
present, Gateways have been installed in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Australia to
provide regional points of access. The forms and interfaces installed at each are identical, and
each hosts parallel search of all servers. In order to track a large number of Distributed
Catalogue servers, a list of known, compatible servers called a Directory of Servers or Registry
must also be managed. This service contains server or collection-level metadata that can itself
be searched as a special catalogue. In this way, an intelligent one pass search of eligible

servers can be performed instead of requiring the user to select servers from a list, or to have all
queries passed to all servers.
At the bottom tier of the service architecture are the catalogue servers. These servers can be
accessed using the GEO Profile of the ISO 23950 protocol, although CORBA implementations
also exist. The GEO Profile of ISO 23950 is available to implementors in the geospatial
community as an extended set of the traditional bibliographic fields that can be searched. GEO
includes geospatial coordinates (latitude and longitude) and temporal fields in addition to free-
text (e.g. search for the word anywhere in the metadata entry). ISO 23950 servers may be
implemented on top of XML document databases, object-relational, or relational database
systems in which structured metadata are stored for search and presentation.
The ISO 23950 protocol was selected for use in the Distributed Catalogue for several reasons.
First, the library catalogue service community existed with relevant software and specifications
that could be enhanced for geospatial search. By adopting compatible terms, library catalogues
can be searched with GEO catalogues. Second, the ISO 23950 protocol specifies only client
and search behavior and does not specify the native data structures or query language used to
manage the metadata behind the server. Abstraction of query allows for a public query on “well
known” fields that can be translated at each server into local equivalents. This lets one keep
current database structures and names but supports alternative access through this geospatial
public "view," expressed in XML or HTML reporting forms. This common search functionality
across hundreds of servers is a prerequisite to distributed search. It allows for local database
management autonomy yet supports federated search. Third, the protocol is independent of
computer platform. ISO 23950 search clients and servers exist for many types of UNIX and
Windows platforms, and Java libraries are available for additional client and server
programming.
This separation between local and public metadata search fields has allowed for the ISO 23950
search of many different types of metadata collections that support the GEO Profile, even
though they may not support the same metadata model. For example, The Australia and New
Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC) metadata contains different tag names than FGDC
metadata in the US. Through standard translation tables in the server, search against ANZLIC's
"Data Set Name" field is associated with "Title" (the query labels this as attribute number 4) in
the registered public fields. As a result, Australian catalogue servers can be searched through
the FGDC Clearinghouse Gateways but return metadata records of a different structure. The
same approach could be applied to other community metadata services, such as those
employed by the Directory Interchange Format (DIF) files used in the space and global change
disciplines or other metadata standards with similar content. Ideally, metadata formats should
be delivered in such a structure that they could be converted or translated for consistent
presentation, even if they come from different communities. The Extensible Markup Language
(XML) and translator software is starting to enable the transformation of different XML
documents in different schemas.
Catalogue Server/Service Development
To encourage widespread participation in the Clearinghouse, catalogue service software has

been developed under direction of the FGDC and other coordination organisations around the
world. Reference implementations of software exist to provide a free or low-cost example of
metadata management and Distributed Catalogue service that can be quickly implemented. The

software can also be used as reference by commercial developers to test anticipated
functionality and interoperability and to develop value-added products.
A catalogue service that participates in a distributed catalogue should fulfill the following
requirements:
• Support of a standard protocol (ISO 23950 preferred) for search and retrieval on an
Internet-accessible server. When conformance testing for OGC Catalogue Services
profiles is available, servers should be certified as OpenGIS-compliant (no conformance
test methodology exists as of February 2000).
• Linkage to an indexed metadata management system that supports multi-field queries
on text, numeric, and extended (e.g. "bounding box") data types, supports AND and OR
constructs, and can return entries in a structured form that are or can be converted into a
requested report in HTML, XML, and text. This may be a relational database, an object-
relational database, or an XML database, or even a request to a remote catalogue to
perform cascading catalogue services.
• Ability to translate public fields/attribute structures into names and structures used in the
metadata management system using a national or international vocabulary (ISO 19115,
when available)
• Ability to add, update, or delete metadata entries in the metadata management system
Available Software Implementations
The Isite software suite is a reference implementation of the Catalogue server that includes an
XML document database and an ISO 23950 server supporting the GEO Profile for use on
Windows and UNIX platforms. The U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee is one of several
sponsors that continue to support the development of this open-source software code. Isite
supports document types conforming to the ANZLIC (Australia/New Zealand), Directory
Interchange Format (DIF), Federal Geographic Data Committee's (FGDC) Content Standard for
Digital Geospatial Metadata, and the draft ISO 19115/19139 interpretations, and is used in a
number of countries that support these content standards.
Several commercial catalogue services supporting the OpenGIS Consortium Catalogue

Services Specification Version 1.0 Web Profile via ISO 23950 are available on the market today.
Links to known commercial solutions are posted on the Federal Geographic Data Committee
web site (http://www.fgdc.gov/clearinghouse). When Version 2.0 of the OGC Catalogue
Services specification is released and conformance testing methodologies are available,
validated OGC-compliant software will also be listed from the OpenGIS web site
(http://www.opengis.org).
Catalogue Gateway and Access Interface Development
As depicted in Figures 4.3 and 4.4, there is often a need for an intermediary to provide
application integration for an end user. Known as "application servers" or middleware, these
hosts allow for the storage, construction, and download of user interfaces to end users and
communicate with multiple catalogue servers simultaneously -- a feat not supported by many
web browsers due to security settings.

Software systems, such as application servers, that integrate catalogue search and other GIS
and mapping functions benefit from the community development of software development kits
(SDKs) based on standards. SDKs can provide client and server libraries for catalogue search
and other services based on standard interfaces. Through component architecture, these SDKs
expedite development of advanced software by combining appropriate pieces of software
together as needed, reducing the need for a programmer to learn the intricacies of a given
service.
A UNIX-based reference implementation gateway from the World Wide Web to multiple ISO
23950 targets is available for non-commercial use from IndexData in Denmark, known as ZAP
(http://www.indexdata.dk). A perl-based programming client library to ISO 23950 is also
available from the Joint Research Centre in Italy (http://perlz.jrc.it/download). A Java-based
distributed search module to multiple ISO 23950 targets from common web servers is also
being commissioned as open source software by the US FGDC as is a client-side Java library.
Registering Catalogue Servers
The operation of a growing network of distributed catalogue servers requires the management
of server-level information in a central location. This registry server, shown in Figure 4.4,
essentially houses server or collection-level metadata for search and retrieval and use in
distributed query. In this way a search may be first made of the registry of servers to identify
candidate servers to target the query, and as a broker, the registry returns the list of likely
targets based on criteria such as geographic and temporal extent and other search limits. A
registry facility greatly improves the scalability of a national, regional or global network of
catalogues.
In the context of the GSDI, a coordinated registry of catalogue (and other) services is needed. If
all catalogues were registered into a common and distributed registry akin to the way the
Domain Name System (DNS) works, resolution of appropriate hosts of geospatial information
globally will be enabled.
The GSDI hosts a global, seachable registry of catalogue servers using Isite fed by XML
generated from an Access database. All geospatial catalogues conforming to FGDC, ISO, or
ANZLIC metadata profiles should be registered here. This will be replaced with a conformant
OpenGIS Catalogue solution supporting ISO metadata in the coming year
(http://registry.gsdi.org/registry). A coordinated registry between the U.S. and Canada is
proposed through an interagency agreement between the FGDC/GSDI Secretariat and
Geomatics Canada as a model for other countries to follow in managing and cooridnating their
own national catalogue entries with the global system.
Recommendations
• The Cookbook authors recommend that organisations publish their metadata using
OpenGIS Consortium Catalogue Services Specification.
The use of this specification, and in particular the Web Profile (ISO 23950), has increasing
support from information locator activities on the Web. Existing reference implementation
software allows organisations to participate at a very low cost; commercial implementations
allow organisations to grow their collections and applications.

• The Cookbook authors recommend that participants register their catalogue servers
at the GSDI coordinated registry for geospatial catalogue services.
The operation of a global service registry is not within the scope of an individual national
organisation or consortium such as OpenGIS. The GSDI is a logical coordinator for such a
service registry and provides a policy forum for adjudication of the policies associated with such
a registry. By placing ones catalogue references in such a system they can be discovered in a
trans-national context. Guidance on using the public UDDI as a directory of geospatial services
is envisioned as a next step in coordinating global services discovery.
Catalog Services Specification Version 1.1.1, 2002, Open GIS Consortium,

(http://www.opengis.org/specs/?page=specs)
Z39.50 International Standard Agency Home Page, (http://lcweb.loc.gov/z3950/agency/)

Chapter Five: Geospatial Data Visualisation -- Web
Mapping
Contributors: Steve Blake, Australia; Frank Lochter, Germany; Allan Doyle, USA
Introduction
This chapter documents simple web mapping concepts and tools that enable the visualization of
geospatial information from various organisations and servers across the World Wide Web. The
linkages with Chapter 4 – Geospatial Data Catalogues, are also explored. Discussed are the
current best practices related to on-line mapping, and the progress of the OpenGIS
Consortium’s (OGC) Interoperability Program2 (IP) to realize the dream of true inter-operability
and disseminating a web mapping specification for the vendors to adopt and promulgate.
Consider these desires:
• Do you want to view your information on a map online? Perhaps either as a simple (one
map at a time) view or to overlay views from other sources together to produce a
customized map product on your computer screen?
• Do you want to post a map layer from your in-house GIS or image processing system
onto the Web for others to see? Do you want to provide views of your metadata so that
your clients can picture the data or product you are responsible for?
If the answer to these questions is yes, then you are probably interested in Web Mapping.
The rise of the Internet and specifically the World Wide Web (WWW) has created expectations
for ready access to geospatial information on the Web through a common web browser.
Mapping on the Web includes the presentation of general purpose maps to display locations
and geographic backdrops, as well as more sophisticated interactive and customizable mapping
tools. The intention of online or Web Mapping is to portray spatial information quickly and easily
for most users, requiring only map reading skills. Web mapping services can be discovered
through online directories that serve both spatial data (through metadata) and services
information (see for example the OGC Catalogue Services draft specification). In fact, web
mapping services are often used to assist users in geospatial search systems, showing
geographic context and extent of relevant data against base map reference data.
Web Mapping implemented as a set of proprietary systems works fine as long as everyone you
deal with both internally within your organisation and externally utilizes this same proprietary
software. Because of this obvious particular limitation the Open GIS Consortium developed a
non-proprietary web mapping approach based on the concept of interoperability. The topic of
2
The OGC Interoperability Program began as the OGC Web Mapping Testbed or WMT. Since
then it has expanded to encompass a number of activities and is often referred to as IP 2000 or
IP 2001, etc. depending on which year the activity falls under.

this chapter is not complex on-line GIS, but simple web mapping concepts and tools, i.e. part of
a portrayal service to show spatial information on-line when the information originates from
several discrete data/ map servers (commonly from different organisations).
Open GIS Web Mapping Activities
The sudden rise of web mapping over the last several years (cf. GIS Online : Information
Retrieval, Mapping, and the Internet by Brandon Plewe - OnWord Press; ISBN: 1566901375) is
demonstrated in the interoperability vision
held by the Open GIS Consortium’s Interoperability Program initiatives. In the OGC, expert GIS
and web mapping technology users work with GIS software vendors, earth imaging vendors,
database software vendors, integrators, computer vendors and other technology providers to
reach agreement on the technical details of open web mapping interfaces that allow these
systems to work together over the Web.
Consensus among vendors in the OGC’s Web Mapping Testbed has created ways for vendors
to write software that enables users to immediately overlay and operate on views of digital
thematic map data from different online sources offered though different vendor software. The
Web Mapping Testbed has delivered, among other specifications, a set of common interfaces
for communicating a few basic commands/ parameters that enable automatic overlays. This set
of interfaces is known as the OpenGIS® Web Map Server Interfaces Implementation
Specification3 and was developed by over 20 participating organisations. A step-by-step
cookbook dedicated to the implementation of WMS is available from the OGC:
http://www.opengis.org/resources/?page=cookbooks .
The Web Map Server (WMS) specifications offer a way to enable the visual overlay of complex
and distributed geographic information (maps) simultaneously, over the Internet. Additionally,
other OGC specifications will enable the sharing of geoprocessing services, such as coordinate
transformation, over the WWW (See Chapter Seven). Software developers and integrators who
develop web mapping software or who seek to integrate these capabilities into general purpose
information systems can add these open web mapping interfaces to their software.
"Web Mapping" refers, at a minimum, to the following actions:

• A Client makes requests to one or more Service Registries (based on the OpenGIS
Catalogue Services Specification) to discover URLs of Web Map Servers containing
desired information.
• Service Registries return URLs and also information about methods by which the
discovered information at each URL can be accessed.
• The client locates one or more servers containing the desired information, and invokes
them simultaneously.
• As directed by the Client, each Map Server accesses the information requested from it,
and renders it suitable for displaying as one or more layers in a map composed of many
layers.
3
The latest version (1.1.1) of the OGC Web Map Service specification can be found at
http://www.opengis.org/docs/01-068r2.pdf

• Map Servers provide the display-ready information to the Client (or Clients), which then
display it. Clients may display information from many sources in a single window.
The OpenGIS Web Mapping Specifications address basic Web computing, image access,
display, and manipulation capabilities. That is, they specify the request and response protocols
for open Web-based client / map server interactions. The first of these specifications, described
below, are the product of OGC’s successful Web Mapping Testbed. They complement the
already-available OpenGIS Specifications such as Simple Features and Catalogue Services, as
well as ISO metadata standards to provide the foundation on which pending OpenGIS
Specifications will build an increasingly robust open environment for Web mapping. Subsequent
interoperability initiatives (IP 2000 and IP2001) have defined Web Feature Services, Web
Coverage Services, and extensions to the Web Map Servers that allow a higher degree of
control over the symbolization4.
The WMS 1.1.1 specification defines three interfaces that support Web Mapping: GetMap,
GetCapabilities and GetFeatureInfo; these were demonstrated at the conclusion of Phase 1
(May – September 1999) of the Web Mapping Testbed and were released to the public in April
2000. GetMap specifies map request parameters that allow multiple servers to produce different
map layers for a single client. GetCapabilities explains what a map server can do (so
integrators know what to ask for). GetFeatureInfo specifies how to ask for more information
about web map features..
These interfaces provide a high level of abstraction that hides the "heavy lifting" in the Web
Mapping scenario. The heavy lifting includes finding remote data store servers, requesting data
from them in specifically defined structures, attaching symbols intelligently, changing coordinate
systems, and returning information ready to be displayed at the client – all in a matter of
seconds.
Servers conforming to OpenGIS WMS 1.1.1 will geo-enable Web sites and mobile devices for
many new applications of geospatial technology. Consider any of the application domains listed
below. Wherever the purchasers of the technology have chosen not to limit their users to a
solution based on single vendor client/server pairs, these uses of geospatial data will depend on
interfaces that conform to the OpenGIS Web Map Interface Specification:
• Business siting, market research, and other business geographic applications

• Cable, microwave, and cellular transmission installation planning
• Civil Engineering
• Education/training, distance learning, multi-disciplinary research collaboration
• Electronic libraries, electronic museums and galleries
• Emergency road services and 911 emergency response systems
• Environmental monitoring, global and local
• Facilities management
• Global disaster/emergency/crisis management
4
The OGC Styled Layer Descriptor (SLD) specification defines symbology for features:
http://www.opengis.org/docs/02-070.pdf. The OGC Context Specification allows one to define
and re-use selected layers in a mapping interface: http://www.opengis.org/docs/03-036r2.pdf.

• Health care: telemedicine, better/faster care for rural trauma victims, patient monitoring,
etc.
• Intelligent vehicle highway systems (IVHS)
• Maintenance of one’s information context and connection (personal logical network) as
one moves through space, bridging media and modality; mapping electronic locations of
addresses to their physical locations; using concepts of reach space, co-location, and
near-by.
• Military applications: surveillance, planning, training, command/control, logistics,
targeting
• Municipal public works maintenance and administration
• Natural resource discovery, exploitation, and management
• Navigation
• Precision farming (GPS-guided controlled delivery of nutrients and chemicals based on
Earth imagery or automated GPS-located soil or crop sampling)
• Product distribution/warehousing optimization
• Public safety - fire and police departments
• Recreation: hiking, boating, etc.
• Science: climate research, agronomy, biology, ecology, geology, and others
• Security monitoring and intrusion response
• Special wayfinding for elderly and disabled
• Telecommunications network planning -- mobile communications
• Transportation planning
• Urban and regional planning
• Water resource management
There is a productive recent trend within the OGC to use Interoperability Initiatives like the Web
Mapping Testbed to rapidly produce OpenGIS Specifications, as opposed to creating all of them
through a traditional committee process. IP2000, completed in late 2000, focused on map
authoring and publication, integrating graphical data and data elements (legends, symbolization,
etc.), clients that can exploit XML-encoded information, further work on catalogue and discovery
services, and work on transporting XML encoded data over the Internet.
Web based mapping provides the functionality to help discover and visualize spatial information
referenced from Catalogue Service Systems. A Catalogue Service System (described in
Chapter 4) is implemented through Internet-based software that allows users to inventory,
advertise, and access metadata and associated geospatial information within a global
framework of servers. Figure 5.1 shows one scenario of a client accessing a Catalogue
(actually the catalogue implements a Service Registry) to discover data and web mapping
services and then requesting and displaying maps from different servers.

query Catalog
data/service
descriptions
map
request
and
response
Provider A Provider B Provider C
data data data
Figure 5.1 : Interaction of web map client with catalogue and map servers
A catalogue service that provides only references to raw geospatial data would be of use to only
GIS experts and their software. By making map displays of geospatial information, casual users
can interact with and see spatial data that was previously only available to GIS experts.
Figure 5.2 shows one example of a user interface for a Catalogue Service System. Many
different GUIs can be built to provide special access for different categories of user. All the GUIs
must use the same protocol agreements to interact with the map server software.
The Map Frame in figure 5.2 illustrates the value of specifying the bounding geometry (box or
polygon) for the spatial part of the query for retrieval within the Catalogue Service System.
Typical dimensions for the query include spatial, temporal, paleotemporal and thematic values.
The user also has the option to specify specific servers, or to search all registered servers for
the geospatial data of interest.

The Map Frame can also be used for the presentation of the spatial component of the metadata
in maps. The result presentation in a Catalogue Service System can be installed as a hidden
search variable for further processing, or as List or Map in a web browser for visual
presentation. The resulting presentation should be within the bounding geometry that was
specified by the user for the Spatial Query. Often users like to interact with the objects on the
maps. They like to have links on an object in a map connect to its metadata and then use a link
in the metadata to connect to the real data. This can be accomplished via the GetFeatureInfo
interface of the Web Map Server specification.
The success of Web Mapping depends on the use of consistent metadata standards (See
Chapter 3). Historically, there have been a great variety of metadata standards developed and
implemented across communities. Thanks to the contributions of many mapping organisations
worldwide, an ISO standard 19115 for metadata was published in 2003. Over time,
organisations will see the value of migrating to a consistent ISO metadata format based on ISO
Technical Specification 19139 so that consistent global scale search and access of geospatial
data can occur to support on line mapping.

Map Servers
For the concept of Web Mapping to be successful, a near global, truly inter-connected series of
map servers must be established through the use of common protocols whether it be in an
intranet, an extranet, or an internet scenario. Figure 5.3 provides a notional view of such a
server network. Servers supporting on line web mapping will be registered to a Catalogue
Service System as noted above.
Figure 5.3: Notional View of Web Mapping Server Network
By way of introduction to implementations of Web Map Servers, the following is excerpted from
the WMS 1.0 specification5:
5
The specification is under revision at the time of this publication, WMS 1.2 is expected to be
published by mid 2004.

A Map Server can do three things. It can:
• Produce a map (as a picture, as a series of graphical elements, or as a packaged set of
geographic feature data),
• Answer basic queries about the content of the map, and
• Tell other programs what maps it can produce and which of those can be queried
further.
A standard web browser can ask a Map Server to do these things just by submitting requests in
the form of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs). The content of such URLs depends on which of
the three tasks is requested. All URLs include a Web Mapping Service specification version
number and a request type parameter. In addition, to produce a map, the URL parameters
indicate which portion of the Earth is to be mapped, the coordinate system to be used, the
type(s) of information to be shown, the desired output format, and perhaps the output size,
rendering style, or other parameters. To query the content of the map, the URL parameters
indicate what map is being queried and which location on the map is of interest. To ask a Map
Server about its holdings, the URL parameters includes the "capabilities" request type. Each of
these will be described in further detail later. We first provide some sample URLs and their
resulting maps on the next two pages. Requests to multiple servers can be made to return
results that overlap in the same coordinate system so that map data can be viewed together
even though it may be hosted and served in different organisations.

The following requests a US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration AVHRR
image, shown below:
http://map.com/mapserver.cgi?VERSION=1..1.1&REQUEST=getmap&
SRS=EPSG%3A4326&BBOX=-97.105,24.913,78.794,36.358&
WIDTH=560&HEIGHT=350&LAYERS=AVHRR-09-27%3AMIT-mbay&STYLES=default&
FORMAT=PNG&BGCOLOR=0xFFFFFF&TRANSPARENT=TRUE&
EXCEPTIONS=INIMAGE&QUALITY=MEDIUM
Figure 5.4 NOAA AVHRR Image of the Gulf of Mexico
This requests three layers, “built up areas”, political boundaries, and coastlines shown below:
http://maps.com/map.cgi?VERSION=1.1.1&REQUEST=getmap&
SRS=EPSG%3A4326&BBOX=-97.105,24.913,78.794,36.358&
WIDTH=560&HEIGHT=350&LAYERS=BUILTUPA_1M%3ACubeWerx,
COASTL_1M%3ACubeWerx,POLBNDL_1M%3ACubeWerx
&STYLES=0XFF8080,0X101040,BLACK&FORMAT=PNG&BGCOLOR=0xFFFFFF&
TRANSPARENT=FALSE&EXCEPTIONS=INIMAGE&QUALITY=MEDIUM

Figure 5.5 Political, Coastline, and Populated Areas, Southeastern United States
Notice that in both of these URLs the spatial information is identical:
SRS=EPSG%3A4326&BBOX=-97.105,24.913,78.794,36.358& WIDTH=560&HEIGHT=350
Because both maps were produced with the same bounding box, spatial reference system, and
output size, the results can actually be overlaid by placing the latter map on top of the former.
By enabling the use of image formats that provide for transparency information, maps that are
meant to be overlaid over other maps can be produced by Map Servers. In this example,
background areas of the second map are transparent (because the URL parameter
"TRANSPARENT=TRUE" was supplied). Figure 5.6 shows the result of overlaying Figure 5.5 on
top of Figure 5.4 to produce a map from the result of two separate Map requests. Finally, note
that in this example the two maps were requested from different Map Servers. By standardizing
the way in which maps are requested, clients of Map Servers can tailor which layers to request
from which servers, thus building up maps that would not have been practical to assemble
without the Web Mapping Interface Specification.

Figure 5.6 Combined AVHRR Image and Political/Cultural Map
If either of these maps were queryable, a client could request information about a feature on the
map by adding to the map URL two additional parameters specifying a location (as an X, Y
offset from the upper left corner).
Because each Map Server is likely to have different kinds of information for which it can produce
maps, each Map Server must be able to provide a machine-parseable list of its capabilities.
That enables the construction of searchable catalogues that can direct clients to particular Map
Servers.
Available Software
As a result of the Web Mapping Testbed, a number of GIS integrators and vendors have
developed prototype versions of web mapping servers and compatible interfaces. The NASA-
coordinated Digital Earth project includes software support for mapping NASA data using the
specification (http://digitalearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/). OGC Web Mapping Service-compatible
interfaces for ESRI Map Objects Internet Map Server version 1.1.1 and the University of
Minnesota "mapserver" product (http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu) have been available as open-
source implementations of WMS. An exhaustive list of software that supports the WMS
specifications is available from the OGC: http://www.opengis.org/resources/?page=products.
Recommendations
The state of Web Mapping is best illustrated by the progress made in the Open GIS Consortium
Interoperability Program Activity. As the result of potentially competing vendors and software
producers coming together and identifying a common set of functionality, a non-proprietary

specification for rendering geo-referenced graphics has emerged. This allows one to establish
a connection to multiple map servers and generate a stack of images that can be used in visual
analysis and basic interrogation.
• The Cookbook authors recommend the use of the OpenGIS Web Mapping Services
Specification, Version 1.1.1, or later
Although further work needs to be done in the discovery, encoding, and exchange of 3-
dimensional geospatial information in support of more advanced analysis and visualization, the
basic Web Mapping Service functions provide an excellent starting point in the visual
combination of distributed spatial data.
• The Cookbook authors invite all prospective organisations to participate in the

development, prototyping, and establishment of next generation web mapping
services in collaboration with the OpenGIS Consortium.
References and Links
NASA Digital Earth Web Map Resources Page, (http://www.digitalearth.gov/wmt).
International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP). (http://www.icdp-online.de/)
OpenGIS Consortium Initiatives Page

(http://www.opengis.org/initiatives/)
Open GIS Consortium Interoperability Program Page

(http://ip.opengis.org)
OpenGIS® Web Map Server Interfaces Implementation Specification Revision 1.1.1

(http://www.opengis.org/docs/01-068r2.pdf)

Chapter Six: Geospatial Data Access and Delivery – Open access to
data
Editor: Brian McLeod, Canada
Access to geospatial data from the consumers point of view is a part of a process of that goes
from discovery to evaluation, to access and finally to exploitation. Discovery (find, locate)
involves the use of services such as metadata catalogues to find data of particular interest over
a specific geographic region. Evaluation involves detailed reports, sample data and
visualisation (e.g., in the recent form of web mapping through gifs or simple vector
representations of the data) to help the consumer determine whether the data is of interest.
Access involves the order, packaging and delivery, offline or online, of the data (coordinate and
attributes according to the form of the data) specified. Finally exploitation (use, employ) is what
the consumer does with the data for their own purpose.
Typically in the past, the focus of geospatial data access was supplier side with a strong
emphasis on technology and community based standards and specifications. With the growth
of the Internet, in particular Web based technologies, access has become a demand driven
operation. Consumers expect simple discover and access to cheap (or free) data in simple
standard formats that can be used in desktop applications. Increasingly non-traditional
suppliers are offering geospatial services, an example being Terraserver
(http://terraserver.microsoft.com. The ability to leverage off other major developments such as
the World Wide Web, and in some cases electronic commerce, has allowed broader
participation in the Industry. The further democratisation of access to geospatial data thus
enables value-added suppliers to create new data products and services.
The range of issues from an organisational point of view can be categorised two ways: 1) how
broad is the client group; 2) how broad is the supplier group. In both cases issues tend to
appear and grow as the groups become broader. In general issues revolve around copyright,
licences (end user vs. reseller), cost, privacy, data formats and standards.
For example, if the client group is only internal staff then issues such as cost and copyright
might not play a factor. As the scope of the client group grows to a limited number of known
clients then there are straightforward mechanisms to control access. However, providing broad
access to large group of potentially anonymous clients.
Similarly, as the size of the supplier group grows then issues appear. It is easier to establish a
common policy for one or two organisations than it is for many. Typically each organisation has
a business model (or non-business model!) that reflects its mandate and environment. The
types of data and services it provides, the form and representation of the data, the quality and
standards for the data all reflect this business model. Trying to bridge these issues between
disparate organisations is an exponential problem.
The overlap between information managed by subject-specific communities in possibly parallel

infrastructures can compound problems of data discovery and access. This can be viewed from
either the consumer or supplier perspective. For example, as individuals in communities such

as biodiversity or geosciences attempt to leverage a combined spatial data infrastructure to
support their own goals they introduce new factors. These could be new standards or
convention that they commonly require, it could be a new attribution requirement on the data not
previously realised, or it could be the need to provide common access to data not otherwise
visible from a spatial data infrastructure.
Several trends can be noted in the treatment and handling of geospatial data. Typically in the
past the first concern of a data custodian has been what format the data is stored or managed
in. Increasingly the trend is to move one level up and only worry about the interfaces to the
data. This allows the data to be managed in the best manner possible, while providing open,
standards based access. A consequence of this, however, is that the content of the data must
be of a sufficient quality to support these interfaces. Often existing data is not accurate enough,
up to date or lacking in attribution.
Another trend is in the organisation of the data itself. There is an evolution that starts back with
traditional paper products. These migrated into discrete digital files that were typically stored
offline, e.g., on a tape rack. As mass storage became more affordable these files found
themselves living on online media (magnetic or optical) for easier access. This last step is an
important one when you couple it with the developing of ubiquitous, wide area internetworking,
i.e. the Internet. At this point a supplier was empowered to deliver data online.
More recently the trend has been to merge all the discrete data sets together into a single,
seamless data warehouses that have spawned the development of direct data access services.
This has been enabled by developments in mass storage and spatial database technology.
This step is also proving to be hard on the data, revealing inconsistencies in data accuracy and
quality. Recent infrastructure developments allow the creation of virtual data warehouses that
federate multiple instances of a data warehouses into a single logical entity.
As in any development it is important to understand who the stakeholders are and what roles
each will play. For example in most national infrastructures government suppliers are key
stakeholders. How they will play in the development and operation of the data access
component of the infrastructure depends strongly on government policies regarding data
distribution, cost recovery, etc.
Commercial entities will generally play a strong role as providers of tools and services but may
also be suppliers of primary and value added data. It is important to understand the relationship
between the commercial sector and the infrastructure as whole, e.g. will the commercial sector
have a role in planning the infrastructure? What types of business arrangements will be
supported in the infrastructure?
The final category of stakeholder is the consumer or end-user. Their use of the data access
element infrastructure is dependent on a number of factors including: the functionality of the
infrastructure tools, the amount and quality of the content accessible, operating policies,
infrastructure business model (will consumers be charged for access?), etc..
In the early stages of the development it is important to specify and review the long term vision
for the entire infrastructure to determine where the access components fits and how it ties into

other infrastructure elements. At this stage it is helpful to develop some scenarios and use
cases that can be presented to the stakeholders and refined as required.
The importance of developing a supportive policy/organisational environment should not be

underestimated. Potential stakeholders will only become active participants if they see
advantages for their organisations and if they do not feel threatened by the infrastructure. This
policy/organisation environment will vary from country to country and will need to be worked out
closely with the stakeholder community. The buy-in and commitment from senior management
of all stakeholders is critical to the success of the infrastructure as a whole and to that of the
access element in particular. The Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure
(http://www.geoconnections.org/) is an example of an infrastructure implementation that has
developed an organisation based on broad stakeholder participation.
Some of the issues that need to be considered in the development of the supportive
policy/organisational environment are:
• Distributed/autonomous suppliers
• The management of the data should be done as close as possible to source. This
ensures the accuracy and quality of the data.
• Non threatening to mandates
• Commercial and government stakeholders need to feel comfortable as active
participants in the infrastructure. They should not feel threatened by infrastructure
business models or policies.
• Multiple levels of “buy-in”; low barrier to entry
• The access component of the infrastructure must provide multiple levels of buyin from a
low cost option with limited benefits, e.g. basic advertising of products and services, to
higher cost options that offer increased benefits, e.g. distributed search connections to
the supplier’s inventory. This allows suppliers to choose a level of participation that best
meets their business and operational objectives. This is especially important in the early
operation of the access component as many suppliers will want to “try” it out and hence
may not be prepared to expend much effort until they see how it works.
• Sustainable long term business models
• The access component of an infrastructure must provide an environment that supports a
variety of supplier business models. The development of a sustainable business model
for the operation of the access component is critical to the long term success of the
entire infrastructure.
1. Role of the private sector

The role the private sector as suppliers of data, services, and technology and as potential
operators of the access infrastructure must be clearly defined.
2. Marketing and promotion

The access component of an infrastructure must develop a marketing and promotion plan to
build up the level of awareness and participation as quickly as possible. It is important to get
a critical mass of suppliers so potential participants will see the benefits of joining the
infrastructure. Potential benefits to suppliers include:
• Economies of data collection, closest to the source

• Reduced operational costs

• New clients (national and international)
• Data reuse (reuse vs recollection or conversion)
• Common tool and service reuse
• Advertising
• Benefits of “free” portrayal
• Enabling/supporting broad new applications, e.g.disaster management , value added
Definitions and Overview
Data Sets
Data sets are described by metadata and maintained within a data store. Foundation and
Framework data sets represent fundamental or core data that may be present within a spatial
data infrastructure (See Chapter 2). Data sets are composed of collections of features (e.g.
roads, rivers, political boundaries, etc.) and/or coverages (e.g. satellite/airborne imagery, digital
elevation models, etc.).
Data Stores
Data stores are used to manage data sets. Data stores may be offline or online repositories.
Traditional online data stores are file-based repositories, setup for the delivery of pre-defined
data sets. Data stores also contain text and attribute data related to a data set. Data
warehouses are datastores that provide seamless access and management of data sets.
Spatial Data Warehouse
A spatial data warehouse provides storage, management and direct access mechanisms.
Typically, data warehouses ingest data from legacy file-based or data production systems.
Key characteristics of a spatial data warehouse include:
• the access and delivery of arbitrary features, layers, etc.

• seamless repository
• common data model
• application neutral, supporting a heterogeneous application environment
• support of large volumes of data
• multi-temporal support
• common repository for spatial and non-spatial data
• efficient access to large volumes of data

Examples of commercial data warehousing and service solutions for geospatial data include:
Cubestore from Cubewerx (http://www.cubewerx.com/), the Oracle Spatial solution,
(http://otn.oracle.com/products/oracle9i/datasheets/spatial/spatial.html) and ESRI Spatial Data
Engine (http://www.esri.com/) .
Data Access Service
Implementations of data access services include the following:
• Offline (e.g. packaging and physical delivery of data sets in either hardcopy or softcopy)
• Direct to datastore (e.g. softgoods delivery via ftp, specified via e-commerce order
request)
• Brokered - provide specification of data access request to secondary (online or
offline)access service
• Online data service (e.g. stateful request/response access protocol to data warehouse)
supporting online operations such as:
• Drill down
• Aggregation
• Generalisation
In OpenGIS (http://www.opengis.org/) Project Document 98-060: "User Interaction with

Geospatial Data” the Portrayal model is described. Figure 6.1 describes this model, which
illustrates an simple features-based access and portrayal services pipeline.
Device
Cha racteristics Disp lay
Image Format
Image
Im ag e
Ren der
Co nstrain ts
D isplay R aster/V ector

E lem ents D escriptions
S tyle Disp lay
E lem en t
G enerato r
Features
O penG IS ® Sp ecification
fo r Sim ple F eatures
Q ue ry Select
Co nstrain ts
D ata
S ource
Figure 6.1 - OGC portrayal model
Data Access Client

Online implementations of data access clients include:
• “thin” Internet/Web – client is provided by standard Internet/Web tools (no Java – e.g.
Web browser, e-mail, ftp client, etc.)
• “medium” client provided by Web browser with Java, or ActiveX controls
• “thick” client provided by a Web browser plugin, or standalone application (network
access via a distribution computing platform such as Corba, DCOM, Java RMI, etc.)
• Traditional GIS type client - access to previously downloaded data set, and direct
network access to data warehouse
• “middleware” client – transparent access to consumer via a middleware infrastructure or
applications service
• Geoprocessing service – direct access to data for use by a geoprocessing service (e.g.
Web mapping in Chapter 5 with interactive portrayal service)
Data Formats
Common spatial data formats include the following:
GIS proprietary (e.g. ESRI, MapInfo, Intergraph, etc.) A good overview of GIS formats can be
found at http://www.gisdatadepot.com/helpdesk/formats.html
International and community Efforts have recently been made to minimise the number of
geodata formats and to converge towards a reduced set. The Spatial Data Transfer System
(SDTS), ISO TC/211 and the DIgital Geographic Exchange STandard (DIGEST) are examples
of this trend. There are also exchange formats that allow the use of data outside of closed
environments (e.g. Geography Markup Language - http://www.opengis.org/docs/02-023r4.pdf).
Typical native data formats for most GIS applications contain only enough information for the
originating GIS application to be able to use it properly. The data formats usually carry the
features and maybe some basic projection information. Data Exchange formats are usually
more robust. They usually carry information that would allow the use of the data in a variety of
systems. Exchange formats usually also carry some minimum metadata to describe the data
set as well as data quality statements. Data exchange formats are typically used by producers
of data. Due to lack of consensus on specific format standards, spatial data infrastructures often
support access to multiple spatial data formats through data access services. However, if it is
feasible, the definition of a single community format based on ISO and OGC specifications is
ideal to promote information exchange (See Chapter 2).
In the past, supporting a multitude of GIS data formats was very problematic. Currently, most
GIS and related access systems support format translation. Examples of commercial support for
format translation include: the Feature Manipulation Engine from Safe Software
(http://www.safe.com/) and Geogateway from PCI (http://www.pci.com/) An online data access
service that combines data access with format translation is the Open Geospatial Datastore
Interface (http://ogdi.sourceforge.net).
Unfortunately format translation systems do little to support translation of semantics. The real
problem for interoperable data access services, and formats is the lack of common semantics.
Semantic translation and multi use feature coding catalogues (e.g. Digest) attempt to address
the cross domain semantic support issue (See Chapter 2).

Web Implementation formats
Vector Files A vector file has many advantages that will prove useful for WWW spatial
interfaces:
A vector file can be delivered to the client where it can be zoomed and panned without the need
to expensively conduct every operation on a WWW server. It is composed of layers that might
represent roads, rivers, or boundaries. The layers can be switched on or off. A vector file often
allows a mechanism to limit the level of zoom so that spatial data is not displayed as accurate
beyond its level of reliability. The size and efficiency of a simple vector file will help with network
services and response times. Fortunately, most GIS software programmes can directly produce
vector files. A vector file supports functions such as an interactive mapping, symbolization, and
coordinate transformation.
There are a three candidate file formats for encoding vector information on the WWW: Simple
Vector Format (http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/), Web Computer Graphics Metafile
(http://www.cgmopen.org/webcgmintro/paper.htm) and XML-based encoding formats (e.g.
Geography Markup Language – GML) that allow for Web-based transfer of feature information,
for subsequent styling and rendering via Web client, or client plug-ins. Only GML is specifically
designed for the encoding of vector geographic information; the other formats are designed for
the exchange of vector graphic information but may have little or no reference to real world or
mapped coordinate systems or feature content.
Raster Files Web/internet delivery of GIS raster formats such as ADRG, BIL and DEM
(http://www.gisdatadepot.com/helpdesk/formats.html) is often problematic due to the large size
of such files, combined with general lack of Internet bandwidth. Typically compressed raster
files predominate Web-based portrayals for both vector and raster data. Common compressed
Web formats include GIF, JPEG and PNG (http://www.w3.org/Graphics/PNG/) to move single
variable panchromatic or color images as raster files.
Relationship to other spatial data infrastructure services
Figure 6.2 illustrates the relationship role of data access in an end-to-end resource discovery,
evaluation and access paradigm. Successive iterations of resource discovery via a metadata
catalogue, followed by resource evaluation (such as Web mapping) lead to data access either:
direct as a data set, or indirect via a data access service.

Resource
Resource Resource
Resource Resource
Resource
Discovery
Discovery Evaluation
Evaluation Access
Access
Products Services
Browse Price Invoke

Browseand
and View
View Price Invoke
Search Detailed On-line
On-line Remote
Remote
Search Detailed
Directory Metadata Services
Services
Directory Metadata
Order
Order
Search Visualise On-line
On-line Run
Search Visualise Run
Remote
Remote Data
Dataand
and Interactive
Interactive
Databases
Databases Metadata
Metadata Services
Services
Purchase
Purchase
On-line
On-line
Subscribe
Subscribetoto View
ViewUser
User Chain
Chainand
and
Services
Servicesofof and
andTechnical
Technical Deliver Integrate
Integrate
Deliver
Interest
Interest Guides
Guides On-line Services
Services
On-line
Figure 6.2 – Geospatial Resource Access Paradigm
Mature spatial data infrastructure will allow both application and human exploitation of the
resource access paradigm. A key element of future spatial data infrastructures is the ability to
broker requests for services, based on discovery and real-time access to online geoprocessing
and related services. Future capability for chaining of distributed geoprocessing services is also
expected.
A system context for data access is given in Figure 6.3. A data access service provides network
access to a data set stored within a data store. Data sets are discovered (and later accessed)
via metadata queries from a catalogue client to a data catalogue service (See Chapter 4).
Data sets can be visualised (and later accessed) via Web Mapping services [See Chapter 5],
which are complementary to the data catalogue service.

contains
UI UI Metadata
Metadata UI UI
managed managed
through through are derived for each managed
through
Metadata
Metadata Data
DataCatalog
Catalog Catalog
is exposed Catalog
Metadata
Metadata are
DB/Index
DB/Index to the Internet Service
Service
Registry/
Registry/
enter/update
loaded through a Broker
Broker
to or
stored in queries
may be may reference
coupled instances queries for relevant
to or data catalogs
are
derived integrated is exposed API
from with to the Internet
through a Catalog
may send Catalog
Data
Dataaccess
access data to Client
Client feeds
makes Service
Service server info
Data
Data stored in maps to
Data
DataStore
Store from distributes to
set
set and collates
Web from multiple
draws
layers
WebMapping
Mapping
Service enhances API API
managed from Service
through query
API Gazetteer
Gazetteer
with
UI Gateway
Gateway enhances
Other
Other query
Service with
Service provides API Thesaurus
Symbols application 1 2 3 Thesaurus
access
through
current
current planned
planned Software/Service 1. builds query screens for
2. submits queries/requests to
API UI 3. returns search responses
Information
Data/Process
Flow Diagram interacts with
API UI Interface
for Clearinghouse
now: planned.: Function V1.0 Jan 6, 2000
DDN
Web
WebClient
Client
Figure 6.3 – System context for Geospatial data access services
Standards
In general, standards related to geospatial data access are still in their infancy. The standards of
most relevance to access components of spatial data infrastructures include those from
ISO/TC211, Open GIS Consortium (OGC) and Internet-related bodies including the World Wide
Web consortium (W3C) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
ISO/TC211
The primary mandate of ISO/TC211 (http://www.isotc211.org) is international standardisation in

the field of digital geographic information.
“This work aims to establish a structured set of standards for information concerning objects or
phenomena that are directly or indirectly associated with a location relative to the Earth.
These standards may specify, for geographic information, methods, tools and services for data
management (including definition and description), acquiring, processing, analyzing, accessing,
presenting and transferring such data in digital/electronic form between different users, systems
and locations.

The work shall link to appropriate standards for information technology and data where possible,
and provide a framework for the development of sector-specific applications using geographic
data.”
Emerging work on services is currently underway in both ISO/TC211 and the OGC. The
definition of services interfaces will allow a wide range of applications access and use of
geospatial resources. The OGC Simple Features Access model for SQL has been submitted to
ISO for standardisation.
ISO SQL/MM
The purpose of the Draft Spatial Database Standard SQL/MultiMedia (SQL/MM) Part Three
Spatial is to define multimedia and application specific objects and their associated methods
(object packages) using the object-oriented features in SQL3 (ISO/IEC Project 1.21.3.4).
SQL/MM is structured as a multi-part standard. It consists of the following parts:

Part 1: Framework
Part 2: Full-Text
Part 3: Spatial
Part 4: General Purpose Facilities
Part 5: Still Image
SQL/MM Part 3: Spatial is aimed at providing database capabilities to facilitate increased

interoperability and more robust management of spatial data.

Open GIS Consortium (OGC)
The Open GIS Consortium has achieved consensus on several families of interfaces, and some
of these have now been implemented in Off-The-Shelf software. All OGC consensus interface
specifications carry a pledge of commercial or community implementation by their submitting
teams. Phase 1 of the initial OGC sponsored Web Mapping Test (WMT) bed initiative [ref:
Chapter 5] was successful in “Web mapping” portrayal of spatial data. An XML-based encoding
scheme (Geography Markup Language or GML) for OGC Simple features was also an
important output of the Testbed process.
The publication of the OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) Specification in 2002 provided a
solution for the standardised request and delivery of vector data. Supporting the OGC “Feature
Model” shown in Figure 6.4, the WFS specification (http://www.opengis.org/docs/02-058.pdf)
defines the dialogue required to interact with geographic Features via vector data service. GML
is used as the primary encoding for vector information returned from the OGC WFS. The use of
WFS with various GML application schemas allows for the publication and exchange of spatial
data in full vector detail. A detailed OGC Cookbook is published on the OGC website to help the
interpretation and implementation of the WFS specification.
Figure 6.4 – UML Model of the OGC Feature Model

Whereas the WFS provides access to vector information, the request and service of raster
information requires a separate specification. The OGC Web Coverage Specification (WCS)
was published in 2003. It extends the Web Map Server (WMS) interface to allow access to
geospatial "coverages" that represent values or properties of geographic locations, rather than
WMS generated maps (pictures). Thus one would receive an array or surface of data values
instead of color values. This is useful for keeping the data value behind raw or interpreted
imagery, other remotely sensed information, or other more or less continuously varying surfaces
of data (e.g. elevation, temperature, constituent concentration). The WCS document is available
at: http://www.opengis.org/docs/03-065r6.pdf.
Three Open GIS Simple Feature Access (SFA) interface specifications have also been released
to support feature access in relational database environments: one each for SQL, COM-based,
and CORBA distributed computing platforms. The SFA and interfaces provide access to and
control over GIS features. At the primitive level, the interfaces provide for the establishment of
linear and angular units, spheroids, datums, prime meridians, and map projections that give
semantics to coordinates. At the intermediate level, they enable the construction and
manipulation of geometric elements such as points, lines, curves, strings, rings, polygons, and
surfaces, as well as the topological and geometric and other relationships between them.
Included are support for common geometric and topological constructs, such as convex hull,
symmetric difference, closure, intersection, buffer, length, distance, and dozens of others. At the
GIS feature level, the interfaces provide for access to feature collections using geometry or
attributes for selection.
Web and Internet related
The Internet Engineering task force (http://www.ietf.org/) develops and maintains specification
for many Internet related application, transport, routing and security standards (Request for
Comments – RFCs) many of which are related to data access (e.g. http, ftp, smtp).
The World Wide Web consortium, or W3C (http://www.w3.org/) is responsible for the
development of common protocols and specifications to further the evolution of the World Wide
Web. Activities of the W3C that related to spatial data access include work on Web graphic file
formats, XML and metadata.
Related Services
Many services are related to data access. A brief listing follows:
• Discovery and catalogue services [ref Chapter 4]

• Webmapping [ref Chapter 5]
• Electronic commerce related (e.g. http://www.commerce.net/)
• Authentication
• Payment
• Confidentiality (e.g. Secure Socket Layer)
• Public Key Infrastructure
• Delivery and Packaging
• Compression
• Subsetting and subselection

• Container-based delivery systems (e.g. http://www.paradata.com/)
• Data subscription services
• Data and file transport
• HTTP
• FTP
• SMTP/MIME
• Geoprocessing services (e.g. as defined by OGC)
• Distributed Computing Platforms
• CORBA (http://www.omg.org/)
• COM (http://www.microsoft.com/)
• Web/Java/XML
Best Practice Application
GeoGratis (http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/)
One common problem with online access to data through a single infrastructure is the variety of
policies and practice in place by the different data custodians. In order to support these
different access policies one approach is to develop services to support different basic
paradigms. These cases include:
• Custodians who restrict access to particular users would benefit from common user
authentication/authorisation services;
• Custodians who charge for data or services would benefit from electronic commerce
services;
• Custodians who distribute data free of charge would benefit from an inexpensive
mechanism (both time and money) to distribute data.
One example of services to support the third paradigm is GeoGratis that provides common
services to support the distribution of freely available geospatial data. GeoGratis provides a
single ftp/web access point where consumers can discover and download freely available data
sets. As a common online service GeoGratis can be viewed from different perspectives:
• The types of data it makes available;

• The services it provides;
• The distribution model it offers.
GeoGratis makes many types of geospatial data available to the consumer. These data may be
national or local in scope, raster or vector, or current or legacy data.
Small-scale national data sets are commonly made publicly available. In the case of GeoGratis,
base map data from the National Atlas of Canada is available for download. Additionally many
national scale framework data sets are available through GeoGratis. At the other end of the
spectrum are data from local test studies/sites that are nominally available free of charge. By
offering basic download capabilities GeoGratis supports a wide variety of data types, including
raster, vector and tabular. The only restriction is on any value-added service above the basic
download capability. A final characteristic of the data available through GeoGratis is the

availability of many legacy data sets such as the Canada Land Inventory. These data are
typically data sets that suffered through some measure of cost cutting or program termination
and as a result are no longer supported. GeoGratis provides a facility to make these data
available albeit without background support.
In addition to freely available data GeoGratis provides value-added services. As a basic service
GeoGratis provides the download of freely available data. Other basic services that GeoGratis
provides is the discovery of available data through a search interface, the evaluation of data
sets through detailed metadata and visualisation. Additionally, extra services are provided in
support of data download – these include data subsetting, reprojection and reformating for all
types of data available through GeoGratis. More advance services include the provision of data
warehousing capabilities that support seamless access to large area data sets available through
GeoGratis
Finally, GeoGratis offers a cost avoidance data distribution model. Since GeoGratis is provided
as one of many common services supporting data access, this distribution model does not
preclude other models, i.e., private access or fee based access. Similarly, GeoGratis does
assert that all data should be freely available, but provides an effective service for data that is
freely available.
One example of this is the National Atlas of Canada digital data. Originally these data were sold
for a nominal fee. However it did not prove cost effective to continue this strategy due to the
costs of selling and supporting the data compared to the limited return. Therefore a strategy of
cost avoidance was adopted where the data was placed on GeoGratis for free download and
support was removed. Access by any other means (such as distribution of the data on CD) was
left to the value added private sector community. The result was a dramatic increase in the
access and use of these data.
From an implementation and standards perspective, Geogratis provides an excellent “data rich”
environment in which to implement emerging spatial data infrastructure standards, in an
operational environment. Geogratis currently supports Catalogue-based discovery services via
the Z39.50 Geo profile, and is expected to provide future online OGC Web mapping and direct-
access spatial data warehouse access services. The new reprojection and reformatting
services provided by Geogratis will also be used to exercise the emerging OGC service
specifications within an Intranet environment.
Summary and Readiness Analysis
Key organisational issues, related to data access in development of a spatial data infrastructure
include:
• Ensuring key government, commercial, and value-added data/related service providers

are represented as key stakeholder in the development and implementation of a national
spatial data infrastructure
• Collaboration of government data suppliers on coordinated, supportive policies that
relate to spatial data access and distribution including: availability of free data, pricing,
copyright, and use/integration of electronic commerce
• An access infrastructure and policy that is non threatening to stakeholder mandates

• Support for multiple levels of “buy-in” to the data access infrastructure with a low barrier
to entry
• Sustainable long term business models
• Early and clear indication of the role of the private sector
• Early marketing and promotion of the entire spatial data infrastructure program
• Awareness and adoption of international standards

Recommendations
The matrix below illustrates the evolution of data access and related spatial data services.
Migration from “classic” towards “infrastructure enabled; standards based; and full functioned” is
required to bootstrap a national spatial data infrastructure. Both “top-down” and “bottom-up”
implementation strategies are suggested. Early adoption and “best practices” should be
followed by key government data providers.
Infrastructure enabled;
Classic Move to Standards-based;
online Full functioned
Ad hoc FGDC - based ISO TC211 - based
Metadata
Offline, Database Semantic interoperability
Metadata hardcopy enabled; Web via search/retrieval protocol
Catalogue Compact disk accessible OGC catalogue
Offline: fax, Web – accessible, Visual evaluation via OGC
Visualisation hardcopy, Map enabled WMS
Compact disk
Phone, fax E-mail Web-based, integrated with
Ordering e-commerce payment
Predefined Geographic and Selection of arbitrary
Product products layer-based features, layers and feature
selection subsetting of collections from seamless
predefined data warehouse, using OGC
products WFS and Filter Encoding
Offline: Offline: softgood Online:
Delivery hardcopy (e.g. Compact File-based for network
disk) download (note: file may be
generated dynamically)
OGC WFS
Offline: Online: user Online: support for user-
Packaging/ hardcopy or specified format specified softgood format via
formatting softgoods from selected from pre- dynamic format translation
predefined generated OGC GML
formats softgoods
Offline: Online credit- Online e-commerce based,
Payment traditional based payment to supporting “previously
consumer registered list of unknown” customers (e.g.
consumers online credit-card payment)
GeoGratis (http://geogratis.cgdi.gc.ca/)

International Organisation for Standards, ISO/TC211 (http://www.isotc211.org)
Internet Engineering Task Force (http://www.ietf.org/)
World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C (http://www.w3.org/)

Chapter Seven: Other Services
Editor: Nadine Alameh, Global Science & Technology, Inc., USA
Over the past decade, GIS technologies have evolved from the traditional model of stand-alone
systems, in which spatial data is tightly coupled with the systems used to create them, to an
increasingly distributed model based on independently-provided, specialized, interoperable GIS
services. This evolution was fueled by various factors including the growing role of GIS in
today’s organizations, the increasing availability of spatial data and its inherent conduciveness
to reuse, the maturity of Web and distributed computing technologies, and the key role GIS is
expected to play in a promising location-based services market. Furthermore, most users of
traditional GIS systems only use a small percentage of their systems’ functionalities; Services
can provide users with just the functionality and data they need at any time, bypassing the need
to install, learn, or pay for any unused functionalities.
Services can be defined as self-contained, self-describing, modular applications consisting of

collections of operations, accessible through interfaces, which allow clients to evoke behaviors
of value to the user. Clients can invoke services from across a network using standardized
protocols independently of platform, language, or object model on which the services or the
client were deployed.
By building applications to common service interfaces, applications can be built without a-priori
or run-time dependencies on other applications or services. Applications and services can be
added, modified, or replaced without impacting other applications. In addition, operational
workflows can be changed on-the-fly, allowing rapid response to time-critical situations. This
loosely coupled, standards-based approach to system development can produce very agile
systems- systems that can be flexibly adapted to changing requirements and technologies
The preceding chapters of this cookbook have discussed three types of services that are
fundamental to any Spatial Data Infrastructure: data catalogues, online mapping, and access.
As described in the OGC Service Framework, a broad range of other geospatial services may
exist in SDIs. The OGC Service Framework (shown in Figure 7.1) identifies services, interfaces
and exchange protocols that can be utilized by any application. The framework, which can be
implemented in different ways, primarily provides a basis for coordinated development of new
and extended geospatial services.

Mobile
Discovery Map Viewer
Imagery
Exploitation
Value-Add Sensor Web
Location
Organizer
Location Bind
Service
Application Services
Find
GML XIMA SLD
Service Obs
Data Service Device Style Metadata
SensorML
& Meas
Catalog Catalog Catalog Catalog
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Catalog Services *XLS Metadata
LOF
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Publish
CAS SCS Coord.

FAS MPS CPS Chaining Geocoder
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*Directory *Gateway IAS *Mobile *Route *Reverse

TPS Determin. Geocoder
Gazetteer
Present.
Data Services Portrayal Services Processing Services
= OpenGIS Service Interface

* = OpenLS Service/Encoding
Figure 7.1 - The OGC Service Framework

The OGC Service Framework groups geospatial services into five categories (shown below)
corresponding to the OGC services taxonomy top-level domains described in OGC’s Service
Architecture Abstract Specification (also ISO 19119). By providing a summary of these
categories, this section is intended to help you decide on the right mix of services that you need
in your applications. When available, applicable implementation specifications for these services
will be highlighted.
Service Framework Service ISO 19119 Service Categories

Categories
Application Services Geographic Human Interaction
Catalog Services Geographic Information
Management
Data Services Geographic Information
Management
Portrayal Services Geographic Human Interaction
Processing Services Geographic Processing Interaction
Geospatial Application Services
Application services operate on user terminals (e.g. desktop, notebook, handset, etc) or servers
to provide access to the various services described here. They are used by users to access
Catalog, Portrayal, Processing and Data services depending on the requirements and the

designed implementation of the application. They often provide user-oriented displays of
geospatial content and support user interaction at the user terminal.
Catalogue Services
Catalogue Services are described in detail in Chapter Four.
Geospatial Data Services

Geospatial Data services provide access to a wide range of collections of geospatial data stored
in distributed repositories and databases. Examples of data services include
• Feature Access Services: provide access and management of feature stores. Applicable
implementation specification: OGC Web Feature Service (WFS;
http://www.opengis.org/docs/02-058.pdf)
• Coverage Access Services: provide access and management of coverage stores.
Applicable implementation specification: OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS;
http://www.opengis.org/docs/03-065r6.pdf)
• Sensor Collection Services: provide access, manipulation and collection of sensor
observations. Applicable implementation specification: OGC Sensor Collection Service
(SCS; http://www.opengis.org/docs/02-028.pdf)
• Image Archive Services: provide access and management of large sets of digital images
and related metadata
Data services also provide access to location-based data in the form of the following services
(Applicable implementation specification: OGC Location Services OLS;
http://portal.opengis.org/files/?artifact_id=3418):
• Directory Services: provide access to online directories to find the locations of specific or
nearest places, products or services
• Geocoding Services: transform a description of a location (placename or street address)
into a normalized description of the location
• Navigation Services: determine travel routes and navigation between two points
• Gateway Services: fetch the position of a known mobile terminal from the network
Portrayal Services
Portrayal services provide visualization of geospatial information. Given one or more inputs,
portrayal services produce rendered outputs (maps, perspective views of terrain, annotated
images, etc). They can be tightly or loosely coupled with other services such as the Data and
Processing services, and can transform, combine, or create portrayed outputs. Examples of
such services include:
• Map Portrayal Services: described in detail in Chapter Five.

• Coverage Portrayal Services: Applicable implementation specification: OGC Coverage
Portrayal Service (CPS; http://www.opengis.org/docs/02-019r1.pdf)
• Mobile Presentation Services

Processing Services
Unlike data services, processing services are not associated with specific datasets. Instead,
they provide operations for processing or transforming data in a manner determined by user-
specified parameters. Processing services can be tightly or loosely coupled with other services
such as the Data and Processing Services. The most common examples of processing services
are:
• Coordinate Transformation Services: convert geospatial coordinates from one reference

system to another. Applicable implementation specification: Coordinate Transformation
Services (CTS; http://www.opengis.org/docs/01-009.pdf)
• Image Processing Services, detailed in OGC’s Abstract Specification Topic 15, include:
o Image Manipulation Services: manipulate images (resizing, changing color and
contrast values, applying various filters, manipulating image resolution, etc.) and
are used for conducting mathematical analyses of image characteristics
(computing image histograms, convolutions, etc.).
o Image Exploitation Services: support the photogrammetric analysis of remotely
sensed and scanned imagery and the generation of reports and other products
based on the results of the analysis.
o Image Synthesis Services: create or transform images using computer-based
spatial models, perspective transformations, and manipulations of image
characteristics to improve visibility, sharpen resolution, and/or reduce the effects
of cloud cover or haze.
• Geospatial Analysis Services: exploit information available in a Feature or Feature
Collection to derive application-oriented quantitative results that are not available from
the raw data itself.
• Gazetteers: provide access to geospatial data indexed by placename rather than by
coordinate locations. Applicable implementation specification: Gazetteer service profile
of a WFS (http://www.opengis.org/docs/02-076r3.pdf)
Service Chaining
Chaining services can be considered as a special case of processing services, enabling the
combination or pipelining of results from different services in response to clients’ requests.
Efficient service chaining is critical to your ability to leverage and combine multiple information
sources hosted by various service providers. The key to achieving such efficiency relies on the
use of standard interfaces and encodings in the design of the underlying services. Service
chaining is required when a task needed by a client cannot be provided by a single service, but
rather by combining or pipelining results from several complementary services.

Indeed, most GIS applications will require the chaining of multiple geospatial and non-geospatial
services. Figure 7.2 shows a typical service chaining scenario where a Coverage Portrayal
Service (CPS) fetches several GIS coverages from different
Figure 7.2
– A typical
service
chaining
example
WCS
services,
then
mosaics
them to
portray the
resulting
composite
image of
Cambridge
,
Massachus
etts. A
processing
service
reprojects
the
resultant
coverage to another spatial reference system. An overlay service then supplements the
coverage with features extracted from a WFS, and sends the result to the client as a rendered
map.
Approaches and technologies to efficiently and scalably construct and express service chains
are still areas of active research. In addition, several issues surround the execution and tracking
of a typical service chain such as the one shown above, including:
• Transparency: How much should the client be exposed to the service chaining
complexities? How much should the client be involved in constructing, validating,
executing and managing service chains?
• Tracking: How should the service chain track and relay to the client the sources of
geographic data used along the chain, and the various transformations applied to it?
Keeping track of metadata is important because users cannot often trust the data unless
they have some information about its resolution, orthorectification parameters, remote
sensing origin, etc. Such information is also critical in evaluating the fitness of use of
returned data in various applications.
• Error reporting: How should services handle errors and report them along a chain to the
client? Precise error reporting is particularly critical in the case of synchronous chains
(such as the one depicted in Error! Reference source not found..
To date, three general service chaining methods have been identified according to ISO 19119:

• User-defined transparent chaining, where the user defines and controls the order and
execution of the individual services. This service chaining method requires deep
involvement of the client, which may hinder a wide-base adoption of geospatial web
services.
• Opaque chaining, where the chaining of service is performed by a new aggregate
service. The services appear as a single service which handles all coordination of the
individual services behind the aggregate service. Aggregate services bundle static (pre-
defined) chains of services and present them to the client as one. The client, however,
loses all control over the service chaining process.
• Workflow-managed translucent chaining where the execution of the chain is managed by
a mediating service. Mediating services can act as gateways to other services by
coordinating between multiple services without necessarily storing any data of their own
(Alameh, 2003). Mediating services combine the simplicity of aggregate services with
the flexibility and control inherent in client-coordinated service chaining. Mediating
services can use pre-specified client preferences to search for appropriate data and
processing services. With the wide range of possible GIS applications and the different
semantics needed in different fields, it is likely that the internal mediating services rules
will be tuned to specific application domains. The need for such specialization will likely
enable the emergence of a variety of mediating value-adding service providers in the
GIS market.
Chaining of geospatial (possibly in conjunction with other non-geospatial services) is still

considered an area of active research both from the conceptual and implementation
perspectives.

While specific GIS software packages may offer one or more of the services discussed so far in
a proprietary fashion, there are few existing standards and protocols for providing geospatial
domain services in an interoperable manner. Consequently, if you need to implement any of
these services in your production environment, it is advisable that you first try to reuse existing
interfaces to the extent possible. You should also work with others in your field and with
applicable standards bodies to design standard interfaces that can meet your needs. By
ensuring that new services fit within the described OGC Service Framework and are consistent
with existing standards and abstract specifications, you contribute to the sustainability and
extensibility of architectures based on that framework. Furthermore, this enables you to more
easily respond to new requirements and quickly deploy new applications while providing a wide
range of clients with the flexibility of mixing and matching services when building their own
customized applications.
In terms of supporting technologies, work is underway within OGC to define a suite of web
service interfaces that have explicit bindings for both HTTP GET and POST (e.g. the WMS,
WFS and WCS specifications). In this case, XML is very fundamental as it provides the
extensibility and vendor, platform and language independence that are key to the loosely
coupled standards-based interoperability. XML is also being used for defining several methods
of encodings (e.g. the SLD, GML specifications).
As for service chaining, work is still under way to enable it using existing and emerging XML
technologies, such as
• The Web Services Description Language (WSDL; http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl), which

provides a way to describe the messages and operations of a service in an abstract way
and bind them to a concrete protocol and message format. A Web service described
with WSDL enables programs, also known as proxy generators, to automatically
construct a request to that service. By not requiring the calling party (client or another
service) to know a priori the interface to any WSDL-described service, WSDL makes
both transparent and workflow-managed chaining easier to implement.However, it
should be noted that in the case of GIS services, describing the service interfaces is
often not enough. In a data-centric field such as GIS, a mechanism is needed to
describe the data characteristics that various GIS services can serve or process. Within
the OGC, this is currently achieved by requiring each GIS Web service to support a
getCapabilities operation which returns, among other information, details about the data
supported by that service.
• The Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI; http://www.uddi.org) which

enables businesses to quickly and dynamically find and transact with each other. The
major obstacle slowing down the adoption of UDDI within the geospatial community is
attributed to the fact that UDDI registries do not currently support any type of spatial
queries. With spatial queries being at the heart of any GIS application, the ability of not
being able to search for services or data by bounding box constitutes a real limitation for
users. It remains to be seen whether future versions of UDDI will support such
functionality.

• The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP; http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/) which
provides a simple and light-weight mechanism of exchanging structured and typed
information between peers in a decentralized distributed environment.
• DAML-based Web Service Ontology (DAML-S; http://www.daml.org/services) which

supplies Web service providers with a core set of markup language constructs for
describing the properties and capabilities of their Web services in unambiguous,
computer-interpretable form. DAML-S’ support for automatic selection, composition and
interoperation of Web services is of particular relevance to service chaining. Such
support is possible because DAML-S provides declarative specifications of the
prerequisites and consequences of individual service use that are necessary for
automatic service composition and interoperation. These specifications have the
potential of being used to dynamically identify which services can be chained to each
other, and which ones can be substituted for one another for the purpose of answering a
specific request.
• The Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS; http://www-
106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-bpel/) which defines a notation for
specifying business process behavior based on Web Services. It is a standard promoted
by Microsoft, IBM, Siebel, SAP and BEA for orchestrating discrete services into end-to-
end business processes. Processes defined in BPEL can export and import functionality
by using Web Service interfaces exclusively. BPEL provides a language for the formal
specification of business processes and business interaction protocols. By doing so, it
extends the Web services interaction model and enables it to support business
transactions. BPEL defines an interoperable integration model that should facilitate the
expansion of automated process integration in both the intra-corporate and the
business-to-business spaces.
It remains to be seen how the listed technologies (and others) can be leveraged for service
description, discovery and chaining within the geospatial domain. The sooner a tested and
reliable approach is crafted, the faster the benefits of geospatial services can be reaped.
Interoperable geospatial services will be especially beneficial for scientific research and
engineering modeling as well as state and federal government settings where tightly coupled
hierarchical systems are unlikely to provide the desired breadth and flexibility. Services allow
users to freely combine services to create customized solutions with minimal programming,
integration and maintenance efforts.

Figure 7.3 – Potential value chain for a service-based GIS marketplace
In such a service environment, having expertise in certain fields or industries can provide you
with the advantage of uniquely supplying customized solutions to your partners and clients. As
shown in Figure 7.3, in this environment, it will not be necessary for players to build
comprehensive systems in order to gain a share of the market. The new environment can open
the door to small niche players to enter this market with application specific offerings that
leverage their understanding of particular industries or processes.
Recommendations
In light of the described organization and implementation approaches and the importance of
interoperability in sustaining a scalable SDI, the Cookbook authors recommend the following:
• Comply with existing standard interfaces and encodings when implementing your
geospatial services (to maximize other people’s access to your data holdings and
service offerings);
• Require that your COTS providers support existing standard interfaces and
encodings (to enable you to maximize your access to outside data sources and
geospatial services);
• Refer to the OGC Service Framework and ISO 19119 Service Architecture when
designing new services, in order to make sure that your services fit well within the
existing reference architecture;
• When designing new services, try to reuse existing interfaces to the extent possible;
You should also work with others in your field as well as with applicable standard
bodies (such as ISO, OGC, W3C) to design standard interfaces that can meet your
needs;

• Leverage and build on general IT and Web services technologies in order to ensure
wider acceptance and use of your geospatial services. In most cases, the more
general technologies will need to be extended to address requirements that are
unique to the geospatial community. Communication with the general IT and Web
services standards bodies is needed when working on these geospatial-specific
extensions.

[1] Alameh, Nadine. Chaining Geographic Information Web Services, IEEE Internet
Computing (2003), Volume 7, Number 5
[2] Percivall, George (ed.), OpenGIS Abstract Spec Topic 12: OpenGIS Service
Architecture, version 4.3 (2001): http://www.opengis.org/docs/02-112.pdf
[3] Kottman, Cliff (ed.), OpenGIS Abstract Spec Topic 15: Image Exploitation Services,
version 5 (2000): http://www.opengis.org/docs/00-115.pdf
[4] Kottman, Cliff (ed.), OpenGIS Abstract Spec Topic 16: Image Coordinate Transformation
Services, version 4 (2000): http://www.opengis.org/docs/00-116.pdf
[5] Daly, Martin (ed.), Coordinate Transformation Services, version 1 (2001):

http://www.opengis.org/docs/01-009.pdf
[6] Mabrouk, Marwa (ed.), OpenGIS Location Services (OpenLS): Core Services, version 1
(2003): http://portal.opengis.org/files/?artifact_id=3418
[7] Buehler, Kurt (ed.), OpenGIS Reference Model (ORM), version 0.1.2 (2003):
http://www.opengis.org/docs/03-040.pdf

Chapter Eight: Outreach and Capacity Building
Editor: Uta Wehn de Montalvo, UK
Introduction
This chapter describes the 'softer' elements of a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI), focussing on
the outreach and capacity building activities that accompany the more technical elements of
building a SDI dealt with in previous chapters. Nevertheless, the aspects of implementing a SDI
discussed here often present considerable challenges because they depend on the willingness
of people in different organisations and institutions to co-operate.
The chapter considers when it makes sense to develop a Spatial Data Infrastructure, how this
relates to regional efforts and the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure and how outreach and
capacity building activities can be used in the implementation of a SDI.
Contributions from both developed and developing countries have been drawn upon. These are
placed along different ends of the spectrum of SDI development; some of these countries have
gained much experience in implementing a SDI while others are just beginning.
Several people have contributed with their input or comments to this chapter. Thanks go to Mark
Reichardt, FGDC, United States; Liz Gavin, NSIF, South Africa; Camille A.J. van der Harten,
SADC Regional Remote Sensing Unit, Zimbabwe; Rita Nicolau, CNIG, Portugal; Bob Ryerson,
Kim Geomatics Corporation, Canada; Terry Fisher, CEONET, Canada; Ian Masser, EUROGI;
Hiroshi Murakami, Ministry of Construction, Japan; and Steve Blake, AUSLIG, Australia.
Acknowledgements go also to the Program on Environment Information Systems in Sub-
Saharan Africa (EIS-SSA) for making available the best practice reports on environmental
information systems for several countries.
When does a Spatial Data Infrastructure make sense?
The continued advances in remote sensing, mapping and geospatial technologies, including an
increasing variety of data acquisition capabilities and low cost and more powerful computing
capacity, coupled with the development of geographic information system technology, have
enabled and increased the demand for geographic information. As the importance of geographic
information in addressing complex social, environmental, and economic issues facing
communities around the globe is growing, the establishment of a Spatial Data Infrastructure to
support the sharing and use of this data locally, nationally and transnationally makes increasing
sense.
Without a coherent and consistent SDI in place, there are inefficiencies and lost opportunities in
the use of geographic information to solve problems. Furthermore, as spatial technologies are
increasingly being used by diverse organisations in developed and developing countries, a
number of obstacles add up to a geographic information bottleneck (see Example 1). Lack of
institutional co-ordination, insufficient flow of information, overlapping of initiatives, duplication of
field activities and results, poor management of resources and insufficient qualification of the

technical staff are some of the most pressing problems. In addition, there is a lack of
standardised metadata and poor documentation on who is doing what and the types of available
information. This has a double negative effective. On one hand, potential data and information
users have difficulty finding or having access to needed relevant information and, on the other
hand, information suppliers do not know what they have which in turn prevents better
organisation of information for dissemination and enhanced value of the information.
It is important to take into account that the longer the harmonisation of stand-alone databases is
post-poned, the more difficult it will be to make them interoperable. Costs for integrating stand-
alone systems into a SDI concept are increasing exponentially with time and the number of data
sets. This suggests that a co-ordinated initiative based on SDI principles should be considered
as soon as possible. A feasibility study carried out in Malaysia prior to the implementation of a
national SDI concluded that a SDI would present an opportunity with dynamic benefits that
would grow over time, culminating in accelerated socio-economic development the nation
combined with a reduction in delays in the implementation of projects
(http://www.nalis.gov.my/laman/kertas6e.htm).
However, the development of a SDI will rely heavily upon opportunities provided by the socio-
political stability and the legal context of a country as well as other important institutional set-ups
that might become instrumental while installing a dynamic process of information creation and
exchange (see Example 1).
Example 1
Summary of Current Conditions in Developing Countries Around the Globe
Awareness of the value of geographic information and applications is growing quickly, in the
public and private sectors.
Growing awareness of the potential of GIS among public sector institutions, non-governmental
organisations as well as the private sector means that the use of geographic information
systems is increasing every year. However, often the existing spatial data systems are not
technically linked and institutional co-ordination is still weak. Most GIS developments started
with the implementation of an information component for specific projects. Systems are not
designed to ensure smooth data sharing but primarily to respond to specific needs of the host
organisation. Although this has helped to design systems with a demand driven approach, this
evolution did not create a favourable context for straightforward data exchange.
Co-operation and co-ordination between public sector organisations is limited.

Due to the lack of co-ordination, the different data structures will not be compatible to facilitate
data exchange. Although networking relationships exist between people, these are based on
individual contacts and are not reflected in an operational co-ordination of activities. There is
usually no nation-wide SDI and usually no lead agency has started activities to create one.
Many of the systems are still in their installation phase. Where there is metadata at all, different
agencies maintain it using different formats and tools. More generally there is a lack of common
elements that could facilitate data exchange such as same working scales, same GIS software,
and the completion of a national database which could be used as standard basic information
layers. In many instances, there is no copyright law and most public agencies need to market
their product in order to find additional resources to maintain and update their data. Only very
few institutions have already started to define clear data exchange policies to disseminate their
information.

Development and implementation are very internal, stove-piped and do not favour data sharing
collaboration.
The spatial databases being built up are "stand alone systems", using individual philosophies
and technologies (concepts, structures, hard and/or software). Most of these implementations
are technology and/or donor driven and as such are isolated implementations, insular
databases under construction, and related to specific environmental issues. The whole problem
is exacerbated in developing countries since different agencies are often supported by a
different donor. Each donor tends to encourage its own solution – often resulting in interagency
competition instead of co-operation. Few of them are ready to deliver some outputs, none of
them are fully operational yet. Communication between the different implementations is usually
not possible technically because common communication standards for data exchange are
missing. The exchange of information between institutions and teams ranges from limited to
non-existent. Often the relation between the implementations is characterised by competition
rather than co-operation. Existing systems primarily serve the purpose and mandate of their
host organisations, who are only now beginning to co-operate and co-ordinate. There is very
limited co-operation and co-ordination between public sector organisations.
Most of the motivation to employ geographic information and tools is still internal to institutions
to serve their primary needs. Outreach and education are not being emphasised.
The majority of the institutions are motivated by their own mission and therefore to a great
extent do not subscribe to national policy objectives. Existing systems serve primarily their own
clientele, without concern for the needs of other potential users. This leads to the duplication of
efforts and sometimes inefficient use of resources, both financial and human. Sharing
information in a fully transparent manner is not the main characteristic of the usual
communication culture. Communication is instead linked to hierarchy and authority. Since the
success of a SDI is based to a large extent on cross-sectoral networking and access to
information, the inherent organisational "communication culture" impedes the build- up of an
efficient SDI.
There are few national policy initiatives underway to encourage sharing and collaboration on
geographic data and practices.
There are only a few formalised institutional links to share data. Practically every organisation
has its own way of producing digital data. Some departments are developing their own data
standards including classification schemes for their own use. The awareness of copyright issues
is rising, but there is often a complete lack of policy around information management - it has not
been addressed simply because it is not seen as a priority.
Vertical organisation within government and administration is limiting cross sectoral

communication.
Due to the strong vertical organisation culture of government and administration, there is no real
encouragement of cross sectoral communication. Each ministry or department undertakes its
own mandate, trying to create it's own database and information system, following it's own
needs, point of views and priorities. Information is handled in a strictly vertical direction,
following hierarchies. Information seems always to be linked to persons and their status within
the hierarchy. Cross sectoral information exchange is strictly limited to informal organisation.
The handling of information is a political issue, a cultural topic.
Access to information is hindered by a lack of transparency

Access to information is not only a question of ownership and attitude to communication.
Transparency is not yet the main characteristic of communication culture and remains a major
problem. Nobody really knows who disposes of what, where what is available or who is in
charge to produce what. Without an overall information concept, without clear mandates, tasks
and responsibilities, without a metadata-database, access to information remains a casual
event, a question of personal relationships and good or bad luck. Users of information have to
know about and in some cases hunt for information. To collect precise information one needs
either a very good personal network, based on personal relationships, or a lot of time and good
nerves. The major technical obstacles to data sharing reside in the lack of application of a
national standard for spatial data, incompatible classification schemes and the almost total
absence of data documentation or metadata. Additional difficulty stems from restrictions on
spatial dissemination for maps of border areas.
These problems are not exclusive to developing countries. A fundamental problem underlying
data sharing and distribution is the belief that one gains power and influence from withholding
information and controlling it. In fact, true power is held by those who distribute the information
and whose information is used by senior political levels. Once this leap of faith is taken, as it has
been in several countries, data sharing becomes remarkably easy.
Example 2
The national SDI in the US: Much of what is today’s U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee
(FGDC) and the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) have roots in the concern by
Presidential Administrations since the 1950’s to better co-ordinate the operations of agencies
engaged in surveying, mapping and related GIS functions across government. Two major
activities to drive co-ordination were the Office of Management and Budget published Circular
A-16 in the late 1950’s, and the activities of a federal mapping task force convened in the early
1970’s. The Task Force was charged with studying the possibility of consolidating geographic
information (GI) functions across the federal government to reduce potential duplication and
overlap, and to potentially reduce costs. Pressures to consolidate Government GI functions
continued and in the early 90's the US Government recognised the need to establish a
sustaining spatial data infrastructure as part of its National Information Infrastructure. With the
advancement of technology and the increase in the personal computers, there was an
accelerated explosion of digital information production from a multitude of federal, state, local,
other public and private sources. The need for a compatible infrastructure to find, share, and
exploit information across jurisdictions became a common goal of many organisations to reduce
duplication and improve support to users, and better co-ordinate the operations of agencies
engaged in surveying, mapping and related GIS functions. The FGDC was created in 1990. The
Committee was created to "promote the co-ordinated development, use, sharing, and
dissemination of geographic data". Specific support was requested from several key federal
agencies involved with geospatial missions. Today, the FGDC has added more key federal
departments, agencies and others will soon become a member as well. The role of other
Federal Agencies is expanding as they realise the spatial significance of their social,
environmental, economic data, and the FGDC focus now is moving toward getting these data
types (such as crime and health data) recognised as national spatial data infrastructure
components. The FGDC has also expanded its partnerships to include state, local, tribal
governments, and representatives from the GIS industry and academia.
The national SDI in Australia: In Australia, the initial impetus came from the Australia New
Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC), the peak inter-governmental body for spatial data

issues. Each State and Territory and the Commonwealth were represented but there were no
industry stakeholders. Some 3 years of the ASDI was spent scoping the size of the tasks ahead
and allocating jobs and lead agency status for specific tasks. The recent 12 months have seen
the operationalisation of the SDI programs in each of the States and Territories.
Survey of national and regional SDI’s: A global survey of many national and regional SDI's
can be found at http://www.spatial.maine.edu/harlan/GSDI.html gathering baseline information
on the nature and characteristics of the national SDI’s that are currently being developed. For
each national or regional entry, the following information is provided:
• the type of organisation(s) taking the leadership in the co-ordination and development of
the SDI,
• the types, categories or forms of spatial digital data made available through the SDI,
• the technical and organisational access mechanisms of the SDI
• private sector involvement in the SDI
• public domain data sets
• legal mandate or formal orders behind the establishment of the SDI
• the components of the SDI
• most pressing challenges.
Another important resource considering different SDI development strategies can be found at
http://www.gsdi.org/canberra/masser.html More infrastructure developments are provided at
http://www.gsdi.org/
These sources suggest that the concepts of core data (or framework data), data standards,
clearinghouses and metadata are well accepted as parts of SDI’s in many nations around the
world. From the standpoint of global SDI development, these are areas where we collectively
should place our near term efforts in gaining international agreement where possible.
A SDI makes sense at the local, national, regional and global level where the overlap and
duplication in the production of geographic information is paralleled by insufficient flows of
geographic information among different stakeholders due to a lack of standardisation and
harmonisation of spatial data bases. Once the importance of providing geographic information
as an infrastructure similar to road and telecommunication networks is recognised, it makes
sense to ensure that a consistent Spatial Data Infrastructure at the local, national and global
level is developed.
The 'ideal' SDI: The characteristics of what may be described as an 'ideal' SDI are outlined
below;
There is a common spatial data foundation organised according to widely accepted layers
and scales (or resolution) that is available for the entire area of geographic coverage
(parcel, neighbourhood, city, county, state, nation, etc.) to which other geospatial data can
be easily referenced.
The foundation (or core) data is readily accessible and available at no or little cost from
user-friendly and seamless sources to meet public needs and encourage conformance with
it by producers of other geospatial data.

Both foundation and other geospatial data, as required and specified co-operatively by data
producers and users, is updated according to commonly accepted standards and measures
of quality.
Thematic and tabular data are also available on terms not incompatible with the foundation
data.
Cost-effective, geospatial data produced by one organisation, political jurisdiction, or nation
is compatible with similar data produced by other organisations, political jurisdictions or
nations.
Geospatial data can be integrated with many other kinds or sets of data to produce
information useful for decision makers and the public, when appropriate.
Responsibility for generating, maintaining, and distributing the data is widely shared by
different levels of government and the private sector. Governments take advantage of
private-sector capabilities available at reasonable prices rather than maintaining dedicated
capabilities.
The costs of generating, maintaining, and distributing such data are justified in terms of
public benefits and/or private gains; overlap and duplication among participating
organisations is avoided wherever possible.
(United States National Academy of Public Administration 1998)
Principles of the GSDI
At the 2nd GSDI Conference in 1997 the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) was defined
as ".. the policies, organisational remits, data, technologies, standards, delivery mechanisms,
and financial and human resources necessary to ensure that those working at the global and
regional scale are not impeded in meeting their objectives."
The GSDI is intended to be non-competitive, collaborative, and to build on and unify common
activities in the field of geographic information exchanges and harmonisation. The GSDI is
envisaged to support trans-national or global access to geographic information and it is seen by
many as central to the response to the challenge of global sustainable development. It is an
effective promotion of national and regional Spatial Data Infrastructures.
Examples of how these principles are promoted and implemented at the regional and
international level are given below.
Example 3
Regional collaboration: The European Umbrella Organisation for Geographic Information
(EUROGI) was set up to foster geographic information outreach and capacity building at the
regional level. EUROGI's objectives are to support the definition and implementation of a
European geographic information (GI) policy and facilitate the development of the European
Geographic Information Infrastructure (EGII). It also represents the European view in the
development of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) and is the European regional
contact for GSDI. In a more general sense EUROGI tries to encourage the greater use of GI in
Europe through improved availability of and access to GI, the removal of legal and economic
constraints to use, and the promotion of the use of standards. As an association of associations,
EUROGI works towards the development of strong national GI organisations in all the European

countries with particular emphasis on organisations within the Central and Eastern European
countries.
International collaboration: The United States has been a recognised world leader in the
development and use of geographic information and related technologies. Recently, on behalf
of the organising committee of a conference on Global Spatial Data Infrastructures, the FGDC
conducted a survey of spatial data infrastructure activities around the world. This survey
showed that there are a growing number of nations, which are either developing or planning to
develop spatial data infrastructures. These initiatives, while reflecting the specific needs of the
various nations, were found to have many components in common with each other. These
same components are also part of the United States National Spatial Data Infrastructure, which
is becoming a model that is frequently looked to and used by other nations as they consider
ways in which they can better co-ordinate and use geographic information. The FGDC is
increasing its focus on the international and global community to help assure that NSDI
development is accomplished so that data, practices, and applications can be shared wherever
possible to address transnational, regional, and global economic, environmental, and social
issues. The FGDC is an active supporter of the GSDI, it is pursuing nation to nation
agreements to foster SDI collaboration on topics of mutual interest, and it is a strong proponent
of the formation of a Permanent Committee of the Americas to address the infrastructure issues
specific to the nations in the Americas.
Different levels of international collaboration: GeoConnections, the program responsible for

implementing the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI), believes that international
partnerships are important at many levels. For example, the Canadian clearinghouse is
interoperable with the US and Australian clearinghouses and the Canadian program has
supported the development of access tools that are being reused in the US and Canada.
Canadians have been very active in many of the international standards activities and now, as
the infrastructures are being implemented, there is a significant opportunity to co-operate with
international partners and industry in the development of implementation specifications, such as
the Open GIS Consortium Catalogue Services and Web Mapping Testbed.
Realisation of the GSDI
The stakeholders and interested parties in the development of the GSDI were identified at the
3rd GSDI Conference (1998) in Canberra, Australia:
"The achievement of GSDI will depend upon partnerships among many groups including
industry, consumers, academia and government. GSDI must develop outreach activities to
ensure that institutions and organisations that can and will benefit from an improved global
spatial data infrastructure have an opportunity to participate. At this meeting it was obvious that
national mapping organisations/agencies, state level mapping organisations/agencies, industry,
academia and a variety of governmental agencies are very interested in GSDI development.
National mapping organisations/agencies

National mapping organisations/agencies play a key role in ensuring that accurate, up-to-date
geospatial framework data are developed and maintained. Such data are key to, among others,
the promotion of sustainable economic development, improvement of environmental quality,
resource management, upgrading public health and safety, modernisation of governments

either local, national or regional, and the responses to natural and other disasters. Therefore
such organisations play a vital role in facilitating the development of a GSDI.
Industry
Industry is working to provide technology, data and services in support of GSDI activities. In
particular, industry plays a key role in ensuring that effective information technologies
(consistent with standards and specifications being developed by such groups as ISO and
OGC) exist and that these technologies support GSDI requirements. Therefore it is imperative
that such organisations play an important, proactive role in the development of a GSDI.
Other agencies, organisations and institutions

There are many other agencies, organisations and institutions that collect and use geospatial
data that along with national mapping organisations/agencies and industry can and should play
an important role in GSDI activities. It is important here that ways be sought to encourage
cooperation, collaboration and communication among as many GSDI stakeholders as possible.
National and regional SDI initiatives

There are a growing number of significant SDI initiatives at national and regional level that can
and will act as a stimulus to GSDI development. Several of these initiatives were highlighted at
the 3rd GSDI Conference - national developments in countries such as Malaysia, Hungary,
Australia, New Zealand, USA, UK, Canada -regional developments in areas such as South
America, the Baltic Sea Region, Europe, Asia and the Pacific. These initiatives are now being
documented in several ways and this documentation provides a valuable resource for
proponents of the GSDI."
The GSDI acts as an umbrella organisation that brings together national and regional
committees and other relevant international institutions. As such, it provides an opportunity for
pro-active countries in SDI implementation to be generous with their ideas, knowledge and
experience from implementing SDI at various levels. Rather than imposing a regional or national
SDI overnight, tangible projects such as the SDI Cookbook provide an opportunity to assist
other countries in the development of a SDI. It can be considered a pool of resources that
different countries or regions can tap into and contribute to.
Example 4
Pooling resources: The Global Mapping initiative, Globalmap, promoted by the Geographical
Survey Institute of Japan, is a key pool of resources for GSDI development to exchange
institutional and technological experiences and standards among many countries. The US
FGDC, in collaboration with other nations, has helped to seed many common standards and
best practices. Japan has adopted its National Spatial Data Infrastructure Promoting
Association (NSDIPA) as a reflection of the US NSDI. Other nations have adopted or have
based their NSDI’s on FGDC practices, standards, and framework concepts. Some of the ISO
TC 211 standards are based on FGDC developed standards (for example, Metadata).
Globalmap exemplifies a global “framework”, ISO TC211 the reference standards environment
needed to assure data sharing between jurisdictions.
It is not necessary to implement a national SDI before approaching a regional SDI. Special
attention should also be given to regional and international co-ordination and co-operation with
other countries and with international institutions and donors. A joint approach to SDI within a
particular region, for example, would not only save a lot of energy and expenses. The potential

for synergy would also be considerable, since it would be possible to enable cross-border
exchange of data and information and supporting infrastructure elements such clearinghouse
software and metadata structures.
Standards and models for a common SDI do not have to be reinvented by each country. A
common vision and common standards throughout Southern Africa, for example, would improve
the efficiency of national and regional SDIs. This would entail effective exchange of experiences
and results, a co-ordination and division of work within existing national institutions in the region,
including NGOs and representatives of the donors involved, an efficient partnership with a non
permanent joint steering committee as a co-ordinating body.
How does one build a successful SDI as part of GSDI?
Many success stories can be reported that are encouraging to those just starting out on SDI
development. However, it may be equally helpful to know that they are not alone in
encountering difficulties. It may take some time until efforts bear fruit and different strategies
and approaches may need to be considered to get people on board (see Example 5).
Example 5
Delays in success: As the GI community in South Africa has frequently requested, the
technology for capturing and publishing metadata has been put in place by the National Spatial
Information Framework (NSIF) directorate in charge of implementing the national SDI. For the
users, there are no costs associated with this clearinghouse (the Spatial Data Discovery
Facility). However, despite the best efforts by the NSIF, the fact that the clearinghouse is
available does not seem to be in people's heads yet and they still come out with statements like
"what we really need is ...". Moreover, people do not contribute metadata to be included in the
system.
Yet this lack of awareness and participation is likely to be temporary. In a recent survey of the
South African GI community, about 70% of the participating organisations considered the
clearinghouse provided by the NSIF a very important facility but only a small percentage
indicated that they possessed the necessary metadata skills (Wehn de Montalvo 1999). Once
these skills are in place, the use of, and contributions of metadata to, the Spatial Data Discovery
Facility are likely to increase.
While there is no prescriptive recipe for building a SDI, the following aspects have emerged as
'lessons learned' from the international arena of SDI developments. They may need to be
adapted to the specific political system and social context within which a SDI is being
developed.
Build a consensus process: build on common interests and create a common vision
Clarify the scope and status of the SDI
Exchange best practices locally, regionally and globally
Consider the role of management in capacity development
Consider funding and donor involvement
Establish broad and pervasive partnerships across private and public sectors

Develop clearinghouses and use open international standards for data and
technology
Creating a Common Vision: A common vision can be an extremely powerful management

tool, especially in complex projects, where multiple parties have to co-operate in order to reach
a consensus. A vision of the future nation wide SDI could help to streamline future activities
towards a mutual objective. A mutual objective can open perspectives and offer security in
periods of change.
Even in contexts where the community of technicians involved in GIS development is small
enough to allow all the members to know each other, there often is no apparent willingness at
the institutional level to co-ordinate and harmonise the development of the systems. The
development of a SDI will require cultural and organisational changes so as to manage the
whole shifting process. This entails mobilising resources so that people in different
organisations can adjust.
Example 6
Creating a common vision: The Australian experience in establishing a national SDI
shows that getting people on board has been a long process and has been driven by
ANZLIC in terms of awareness raising and making the major components of the ASDI
more tangible. Informal collaboration is fairly smooth. As the number of Australia's
spatial data stakeholders is quite small, most people know one another, so ideas and
knowledge get exchanged quite easily. Formally, ANZLIC is the formal process to
endorse collaboration activities, but in reality people just go to the individuals or
agencies who have worked in specialist areas to get advice and help. The ASDI is
therefore not too regimented. The States, Territories and the Commonwealth are all
working together on most national implementation projects such as the Australian
Spatial Data Directory (ASDD), Australia's fully distributed metadata directory.
Masser (1999) has summarised the objectives of most national SDI's. These are intending to
promote economic development, to stimulate better government and to foster environmental
sustainability. A selection of SDI vision statements is provided below.
Example 7
Selected vision statements of SDI initiatives:
Colombia (ICDE): http://www.igac.gov.co/indice.html

Europe (EUROGI): http://www.eurogi.org/objectives/
Finland (NGII) http://www.nls.fi/ptk/infrastructure/vision.html
United Kingdom (NGDF): http://www.ngdf.org.uk/
United States (NSDI): http://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/strategy/goals.html
But a common vision for a SDI may be missing or hindered by reasons such as culturally based
resistance. In many instances, information is linked to personal power and tends to be strictly
controlled in a top-down manner. This "personalised" approach to information may be one
important reason for a lack of a shared SDI approach and also hindering the various
stakeholders to produce a shared common vision of a national SDI. High-level commitment and
support may be crucial in implementing a change in culturally-bound attitudes.

A common and shared vision about spatial data collaboration and co-operation may
fundamentally change the landscape for a nation wide exchange of data and information. In
order to get the various stakeholders on board, it may be essential to insist on joint development
of a common vision. This may entail a cultural change in the attitude towards information and
the exchange of information, a new approach how to manage and share information. The
process of getting the concerned parties involved to accept and to actively support the idea of a
SDI will need both a strong lead and a lot of creativity in order to minimise unnecessary
resistance and not to de-motivate or suffocate creative initiatives.
The vision needs to be developed jointly and shared with the conceivable stakeholders and
indicate the incentives for developing a SDI so that people are mobilised to change their
behaviour in accordance with the shared vision.
A participative approach to co-operation and co-ordination should be considered in order to

build on common interests. This also entails initiating a participative process among the
representatives of the already existing database systems. It would make sense to bring the up
to now independent system owners, stakeholders, donors, representatives of international
organisations active in the field of GIS, soft- and hardware suppliers, and database managers,
including their technical staff, to sit together at a round table in order to develop a common
concept of a nation wide SDI.
The common standards and procedures the stakeholders will have to agree on will not
necessarily fit into their actual database set up but a participative approach and a transparent
decision making process will help them to understand the basic questions and to accept the
resulting needs for change. Participative processes and transparent decision making are strong
arguments to motivate the independent parties to invest their resources in a common project.
The vision needs to be communicated widely using various media to reach all stakeholders.
Plans should be developed and implemented regarding the dissemination of information on SDI
activities that are under way, including the information about the SDI components, available
technological best practices, and the promotion of the use of existing technologies and
standards to support the development of a SDI, for example by establishing WWW pages on the
Internet or using printed media or CD-ROM where Internet connections are limited.
SDI Scope and Status Clarification: Two broad categories with respect to the status of a
national SDI can be identified (Masser 1999), i.e. a SDI resulting from a formal mandate (as was
the case in the US, for example) and a SDI growing out of existing spatial data co-ordination
activities (as was the case in Australia). While a formal mandate benefits from the provision of
funds, existing co-ordination activities provide a base for collaboration. The scope of a SDI may
be all-inclusive or focusing on a subset of stakeholders, such as public sector, private sector, or
NGOs, with voluntary or mandatory participation. Regardless of which category a SDI falls into
and regardless of the breadth of its scope, both should be clarified as early as possible.
An active co-ordination body (committee or commission) to co-ordinate tasks and provide

leadership during the process of creating a national SDI should be considered. This would need
to be sufficiently empowered to carry out the co-ordination task. In order to implement a SDI, it
may not be necessary to establish new organisations and institutions. Instead, existing ones
could be strengthened. This would require a revision of the mandates of that institution to
ensure that it is well equipped to deliver.

However, the promotion of an existing institution to the co-ordination body for a SDI needs to be
carefully considered. The institution needs to be chosen carefully so as to be aware of potential
conflicts of interest that may be perceived between the institution's existing mandate and the
additional SDI-related activities. For example, a National Mapping Organisation may end up
carrying out the SDI co-ordination task and policy development while also acting as a major
data producer. This may hamper the support for the SDI initiative from potential participants that
could perceive it as biased. Example 8 demonstrates that although it may take some time for
the co-ordinating body to gain support, a crucial element to success is how its mandate is
perceived.
Example 8
Perceived mandate: In Portugal, the national SDI (SNIG) is co-ordinated by the National
Center for Geographic Information (CNIG). CNIG is not a major data producer, like many
agencies in other countries that are responsible for co-ordinating a national SDI. Development
of the SNIG was slower than expected mainly due to lack of available digital GI and the incipient
computer technologies used by most GI producers. The fact that the CNIG is not a major data
producer facilitated the interactions with the GI producers, as they recognised the role of the
CNIG as being a complementary one that did not harm their own mission.
The task of promoting and developing a SDI is not restricted to the public sector. In Japan, for
example, the private sector is a major driver behind the establishment of a national SDI (see
Example 9).
Example 9
Private sector involvement: In 1995, the Government of Japan established a Liaison
Committee among Ministries and Agencies on GIS that is to provide SDI-like functions in the
Government in implementing a national SDI in Japan. Private companies in Japan set up the
National Spatial Data Infrastructure Promoting Association (NSDIPA), a non-profit organisation
to promote the concept of national SDI in Japan. The activities of NSDIPA are aimed at gaining
wide awareness of the necessity of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure. It is a group that
strives towards the benefits of society and fosters a new information services industry by
demanding activities of the government, municipalities and other organisations and by sharing
this information with both the public and private sectors.
The representatives of all major sectors or interest groups should be involved. The co-ordinating
body, once nominated and appropriately mandated, can then produce a series of activities
which need to be accomplished with deadlines and output milestones. The implementation
process should be approached in a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral way. All related
organisations will have their role to play in the SDI development process.
Working groups constitute the platforms for more collaboration among stakeholders by pooling
resources and harmonising initiatives to avoid duplication. The involvement of stakeholders is a
key issue for the future development of a SDI.
Exchanges of Best Practice and Awareness Creation: Lessons in awareness creation about
SDI can be drawn upon from various countries. These suggest that presentations and
publications are just some of the activities that can be pursued to advocate and advance SDI

development. Networks of communication (see Example 10) can also play an important role. A
list of activities includes:
Outreach through support for SDI from high-profile individuals.

Promotion of SDI principles through presentations.
Education through workshops, training courses and material.
Provide "train-the-trainer" technical workshops to explain the origins, purpose, and
strategies for implementation of the SDI-endorsed standards.
Use pilot projects to demonstrate the value of spatial data and a SDI to improve decision
making in communities.
Establish networks of communication to enable participants to exchange experiences with SDI
implementation.
Facilitate information sharing through newsletters, web pages, and publications: regularly inform
interested parties of SDI-sponsored activities and initiatives.
Provide a forum for debate, analysis and the identification of issues relevant to SDI
development.
Help interested parties or groups to use the spatial data clearinghouse to locate sources of
data, training and expertise.
Offer interested parties the opportunity to participate in Working Groups and
Subcommittees, as appropriate.
Example 10
Networks of communication: EUROGI, the European Umbrella Organisation for Geographic
Information, seeks to raise awareness of the value of GI and improve the sharing of knowledge
between members themselves and between EUROGI and the European Commission.
Communication is facilitated through on-line discussion forums and EUROGI directories where
people are able to tell others about their activities by completing a form to add information to a
directory or search a directory to read about other peoples' activities.
Examples of how demonstration projects can be used to create awareness of the usefulness of
a SDI are detailed in Example 11.
Example 11
Community Demonstration Projects: The FGDC has worked with the Administration and
Federal Agencies to promote several Community Demonstration Projects
(http://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/docs/cdp.html) across the country. These NSDI based pilots are
designed to demonstrate the value of spatial data and the NSDI to improve decision making in
communities. The Demonstration Projects address a number of issues including flood
management, local/regional crime management, Citizen-based land use analysis,
environmental restoration. The NPR and the FGDC jointly queried FGDC membership to seek
interested communities, offering only in-kind federal help (federal staff, training, etc but no
dollars) to maturate the projects. Shortly after the selections, the six selected communities
joined together to apply for a grant under the Government Information Technology Services
Board (GITS). They were awarded over $600,000 dollars as part of their grant request. These
projects are expected to report back in May 2000, with the detail of each effort utilised to help
articulate the value of NSDI to enhance place-based decision-making, and to help communities
understand the costs and processes associated with establishing NSDI operations.
Community-based capacity building: In 1998, the FGDC working with OMB and its federal
agency representatives began a $40M multi-agency budget initiative to accelerate the

application of the NSDI to improve the decision-making power of communities in addressing
livability issues. The Community Federal Information Partnership (CFIP)
(http://www.fgdc.gov/nsdi/docs/schaeferbrief/index.htm) was first announced by the Vice
President as part of a Sustainable Communities Speech delivered in 1998 at the Brookings
Institute. The C/FIP would provide grants to communities to activate capability and tools for
place-based decision-making, and would provide federal agencies with additional funding to
help make their spatial data more available for public access. The outcome of CFIP for fiscal
year 2000 is still being worked through the congressional budgeting process at the time of this
writing.
Exchange of best practice: The FGDC has developed metadata, Clearinghouse, data
Standards training, and has developed and offers metadata tools. Assistance is provided by
FGDC and FGDC trained partners to local, state, federal, tribal, and international organisations
seeking to establish or improve their SDI.
The Role of Management in Capacity Development: An important barrier to change is an

organisation's capacity to adopt new standards and technologies. While the introduction of
specialised software, for example for the creation of a geospatial catalogue, is relatively easy,
its effective use depends on the technical capabilities as well as organisational support.
Awareness creation of SDI components should be considered down to the lowest level and with
strong management support and leadership. Capacity development should be a prime concern
of senior management. It includes the theoretical issues and the practical hands-on capabilities
to implement the SDI components.
This issue of building local capacity will to be a major constraint to the success of a SDI in many
developing countries. As job specific technical competencies will be stipulated, it will be
necessary to review positional titles, remuneration packages and salaries. The staff rotation
system in the "Department of Geological Surveys" in Zimbabwe is a case of "best practice" in
how "brain drain" can be avoided and serves as an example of how staff can be motivated
within a "Learning Organisation". This system is designed to enhance the capacity of personnel
within the department, therefore reducing the need for external recruitment of technical staff.
The personnel resources for SDI in many countries are very limited since most of the GIS
implementations being built up are understaffed. A pool of qualified staff has to be created if the
projects are to become sustainable. What makes it difficult for countries such as Zimbabwe, for
example, is not only the number of specialists required, but also the working conditions offered.
"Brain-drain" is a serious problem: the fact that skilled personnel are leaving their jobs too often,
too soon. Human capacity development and long term career planning should be of prime
concern to senior management. It includes the training, theoretical issues and practical hands-
on capabilities to implement projects and programs, as well as the working conditions. Working
conditions need to be considered not only with respect to salary, but even more importantly with
respect to the work climate, motivation and professional perspectives.
Example 12
Compensating for high staff turnover: One of the US NSDI Community Demonstration
Projects is taking place in the Police Department in Baltimore, Maryland. The Police Department
has come to realise that a SDI is good for managing vital crime data in addition to the classic
mapping data that many rely on for the base mapping. The Baltimore Police budget is tight,
they have a high turnover in staff. By capturing metadata and using clearinghouse capabilities,
they can better assure the proper management of critical crime data used by the department

and throughout the region as part of a regional crime management collaboration between
community police organisations.
Senior management of all concerned institutions should consider the development of standards
a priority. They should closely supervise technical work groups and assure that the desired
results will be produced. Matters like the standardisation of data and the harmonisation of
classification schemes cannot be left to technicians alone because they entail political
decisions. Senior management should be acknowledged as a driving force behind the build-up
of a SDI.
Funding and Donor Involvement: Funding and adequate resources can present a major
constraint to SDI development when awareness of the importance of SDI is lacking at the local,
national or regional level and there is no existing SDI-like initiative or a mandate to develop a
SDI to which sufficient funds have been assigned.
Nevertheless, in order to ensure funding, it may more persuasive to potential funders to have
something to show already (for example, a clearinghouse system) rather than a concept
document alone. This does not have to involve huge costs since clearinghouse components are
available free over the Internet (link to Chapter 4). In addition, justification for the limited cost of
this initial development may well be found within existing projects or initiatives (for example,
documenting data holdings is a part of sound information management).
Innovative use of resources can ensure that funds stretch a long way. For example, with a
'carrot and stick approach', incentives can be created for the adoption of SDI principles. Using
small, non-repeating grants to stimulate the development of the application layer of the SDI can
work well where there is broad base of existing expertise that can be encouraged (see Example
13).
Example 13
Program of Grants: The FGDC in the US has maintained a relatively small but persistent
Cooperative Agreement Program of Grants (CAP) to help communities validate and initiate
NSDI concepts (http://www.fgdc.gov/publications/publications.html). The FGDC initiated the
CAP program to provide seed money to stimulate co-operative activities among organisations to
begin implementing the NSDI. Rooted in the premise that building the NSDI is a shared
responsibility and collaborative efforts are essential for its success, the CAP program has
worked to seed 270 NSDI resource sharing projects across the county involving more than 1300
organisations. These projects have resulted in helping state governments, libraries,
universities, local government organisations, and private sector entities to become stable
contributing sources on the NSDI. While the FGDC funding level for the CAP has been
somewhat limited ($1 - $2M yearly), annual funding has been persistent since 1994, and
recently the number of grants awarded has been increasing – communities appear to be doing
more with less.
Reports of different SDI funding mechanisms from Australia and Portugal suggest that the
provision of central funds is an important contributor to accelerated SDI development (see
Example 14 and 15).
Example 14
Decentralised funding: In Australia, there is no major national funding allocation for the ASDI
(unlike the US and Canada). Each jurisdiction (States, Territories and Commonwealth) are all

financing their own programs. The States and Territories in Australia are each developing their
SDI's, so in fact the ASDI is all the individual jurisdictional SDI's puzzled together. This
approach has some drawbacks. It would be more coherent if a national SDI pool of funds was
available to draw on and bring influence to bear. Industry groups are not really engaged in
Australia yet to the same degree as in the US or Canada. Making the ASDI politically attractive
for large scale national funding has not occurred yet but continuing efforts are under way. One
notable success was the establishment of the Australian WWW Mapping Consortium as a full
member of the OpenGIS Consortium (OGC). 23 Australian industry, R&D and Govt Groups
have all come together to share ideas and work on an "Australian Web Mapping Testbed" which
making good progress, allowing them to provide some new input into the OGC process.
Example 15
Centralised funding: The creation of the Portuguese national SDI, the SNIG, was endorsed by
public funds. The approval by the Portuguese Government and by the European Commission
(at the end of 1994) of a program integrated in the Regional Development Plan 1994-1999 did
cover a specific budget assigned to the support of the SNIG development. Part of the funding
was used to speed up the creation of digital geographic information, namely for conversions of
existent geographic information into digital formats, and for the purchase of satellite data and
existent digital topographical data for local GIS implementation in municipalities. Another part of
these funds was used to provide major public data producers with Internet servers, routers and
communication infrastructures. A small fraction of the funds is still being used to build WWW
interfaces and applications to facilitate the access to geographic information available at the
different institutions integrated in the SNIG network. In the Portuguese case, funding was a
major factor that helped the fast development of SNIG since 1995. It did accelerate a process
that would have taken years to grow up. At the present moment, a total of 117 public
institutions, including almost all GI producers, have joined the Portuguese spatial data
infrastructure.
GIS implementations in developing countries are often functioning under special conditions that
need to be considered during the initiation of a SDI at national or regional level. In many
countries the lack of local financial resources means that GIS implementations are not
financially sustainable and therefore depend primarily on donor funds. Usually donor support for
these projects is provided under certain conditions such as a time limit for implementation after
which there are no further disbursements of funds. The future of many of these systems is
uncertain beyond the end of international assistance.
Another aspect of donor-funded GIS implementations is that often the projects have been
initiated by donors according to their own objectives and little attention has been paid to the
requirements and capacities of the host organisations. The result is that there is insufficient co-
ordination of the technical support and funding activities of different donors. In some cases
donors may not be willing to work with each other and this can impose limits on the co-operation
or data exchange between projects that are funded by different donors. A lack in capacity to co-
ordinate donor activities coupled with competition among the donors themselves can hamper a
SDI initiative.
Under these conditions, the co-operation with donors is a critical aspect of the development of a
national SDI. While the existing co-operation should not be exposed to strain, a co-ordinated
SDI-based approach would change the priorities for GIS implementations. This potential conflict
could be avoided if donors would be invited as partners to take part in the participative process
defining the components of a nation wide SDI.

In order to develop (or renew) a national SDI in a (multi) donor-funded GIS context, a useful
approach has been developed by Ryerson and Batterham (2000). This approach entails an
evaluation of GIS projects with regard to:
• clients' needs and desires,

• an assessment of the recipient country's capabilities in terms of meeting those needs,
• an assessment of related activities by other donors,
• an assessment of current technology and its direction,
• donor country capabilities and capacity if the aid is tied, and
• costs.
The issue of building up local capacity will continue to be a major constraint to the success of a
SDI in many countries. Long term projects require not only long term financing but also long
term planning in the field of human resource capacity building. What requires to be worked on is
the issue of sustainability of the initiatives with respect to capability to keep up with the
technology shifts and capacity of local personnel. The build-up of a GIS implementation is a
long term investment, taking many years until return on investment is visible. Therefore, the
ever scarce budget resources are likely to be invested in more urgent projects with prospects of
short term successes and returns. This means that participants of such a SDI will remain
dependent on donor funds for quite some time.
Example 16
Initially funded by Donors, the SADC Regional Remote Sensing Unit (RRSU) in Harare,
Zimbabwe, has been integrated in the organisational structure of the Southern African
Development Community (SADC) since 1998. The Unit is funded by the 14 Member-states
(Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique,
Namibia, Secheylles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe), and still
receives some additional donor contributions.
The SDI work implemented by the RRSU was never part of the original work plan. It was
identified when GIS technology was to be used for basic analytical procedures. This could not
be done because the data sets were incomplete or incompatible. At the time the SDI work
started, the Unit was still depending on donor assistance and technical assistance from the
FAO. Consequently, changes had to be made to the work programme, something which had to
be discussed with the donor and technical assistance partner.
From the regional and international partners in the development (the data suppliers) of the
RRSU spatial data sets, no financial contributions were required.
The RRSU spatial data sets were originally developed for GIS-based applications in support of
early warning for food security. However, the data sets are being recognised as one of the
major spatial data base developments in the SADC region, and for this reason, the RRSU
continues to attract donor funding. The spatial data base activities were originally not foreseen
as a major task - but this has changed considerably over the years.
(http://www.zimbabwe.net/sadc-fanr/intro.htm)

Broad and pervasive partnerships across public and private sectors: Co-operation and
partnerships across different levels of the public sector and with the private sector can be
helpful at every stage of SDI development to collect, build, share, and maintain spatial data.
Since no one organisation can build a SDI, collaborative efforts are essential for its success.
The FGDC in the US encourages federal, state, local, and tribal governments, academia, the
private sector, and non-profit organisations to work together within a geographic area to make
geospatial data available to all. So-called 'cooperation groups' are formed that enable all parties
to participate in, and contribute to, the national SDI in the areas of their strength and expertise.
Guiding policies and procedures for these cooperation groups have been developed
(http://www.fgdc.org/funding.html). Co-operation among Federal, State, local, private, and
academic sectors is expected to be based on shared responsibilities, shared commitment,
shared benefits, and shared control aiming at improving the spatial data delivery system (see
also Example 17).
Example 17
The task of building relationships to further the implementation of the NSDI in the US has
been a large and continuing effort. The effort has been made difficult by the fact that
organisations, functions, and responsibilities are diverse and spread out across the country.
Initial efforts concentrated on FGDC initiatives to build relationships with Coordinating
Groups that have formed to represent issues within the States, and with Organisations and
Associations that represent levels of government of key interest groups nationally. This has
helped focus the work of the different groups and has established strong linkages with some
of the key elements needed for a long-term national network of partnerships. The FGDC’s
efforts has also been helped by the fact that many in the United States recognise the value
of geographic information to the decision making needs of communities. Geographic
information is collected at all levels. Most of the data originates at the local level, but very
important types of data come from other levels, including complete information of an issue
or topic that transcends jurisdictional boundaries (region or state). Thus there is a growing
level of support for policies, interfaces, standards, and relationships that enable government,
companies, organisation and citizens to interact and share in the collection and
dissemination of geographic information across jurisdictions.
In the Canadian context, public and private-sector partnerships focus on partnering and
leveraging the resources of the private sector to accelerate access to spatial data and
technology development. GeoConnections, the program responsible for implementing the
Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) has placed particular emphasis on
partnerships between the federal and provincial and territorial governments and the private
sector and academia. Programs focus on working across governments, and with stakeholders
and the private sector to advance the amount of information accessible through ‘clearinghouse’
systems, the development of data frameworks to ease data integration, fostering advanced
technology and application development, and building supportive policies to speed industry
growth. To this end, guiding principles for the provincial and territorial government agencies
involved in geomatics have been agreed upon (see box).
Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure:

Principles for Data Partnership
(http://www.geoconnections.org/english/partnerships/index.html)

1. Data should be collected once, closest to the source and in the most efficient way possible,
with a view towards increasing the vertical integration of the data.
2. Geo-info data should be as seamless as possible, with co-ordination across jurisdictions and
boundaries when possible.
3. Data should be collected, processed and maintained according to international standards to
maintain data integrity across databases, and to enable the addition of value, further
enhancement and easy access and use.
4. Upon agreement, partners should contribute equitably to the costs of collecting and
managing the data, and should be allowed to integrate the resulting information into their
own databases, for their own use and for further distribution to their stakeholders.
5. There should be an attempt to harmonise terms and conditions for use where practical. In
the absence of such agreement, each agency should be free to establish its own terms and
conditions for such information.
6. Agreements between agencies will normally be negotiated on a case-by-case bilateral or
multi-lateral basis, according to these principles of partnership.
7. Partnerships between agencies should be simple and support the principles of the CGDI,
open to the participation of interested stakeholders within any level of government, the
education communities or the private sector.
8. A group or agency within each province and within the federal government should be
designated to promote and co-ordinate the development of a common geospatial data
infrastructure, both within its jurisdiction and between jurisdictions.
9. CGDI is national in scope, and must meet the needs of a wide range of geospatial user
communities, data producers and different areas of the private sector.
10. CGDI must consist of a set of co-ordinated and interrelated policies, practices and
possibilities that build on the vision.
Develop clearinghouses and use common standards for data and technology: The
technical underpinning of a SDI is a common framework of standards, tools and services based
on these standards. In this three-tier model, applications work with metadata and data content
and services that exist on the enabling infrastructure. The following technical elements are
important components of a SDI:
quality metadata,
residence of metadata in on-line directories,
good data management,
access to services on-line,
their documentation in directories and
reference implementations of software to demonstrate capabilities.
For existing and emerging standards and free- or low-cost software solutions based on these
standards, please consult Chapters 2-7. (include links?)
The development of the Portuguese Spatial Data Infrastructure serves as an example of the
importance of outreach activities that parallel the implementation of the technical elements of a
SDI (see Example 18). The Portuguese SDI differs from other SDI's by having a centralised
metadata catalogue. Usually metadata is organised in a distributed way. Nevertheless, the
example demonstrates that in order to gain support for the system (i.e. increasing the number of
users of the system), new interfaces were developed according to feedback from the users
themselves and through the development of tools that are more devoted to the needs of

citizens. The Portuguese experience also shows that a SDI can be developed incrementally with
improvements implemented step by step.
Example 18
User involvement in the technical implementation: In 1990 the Portuguese government
created SNIG, the Portuguese GI infrastructure, as a national public service (http://snig.cnig.pt).
The main goal of SNIG was to ensure the connection of Portuguese users and producers of
digital geographic information through a network. This goal implied the development of
catalogues describing the available geographic information. By that time, the majority of public
agencies were more concerned with the production and organisation of digital geographic
information than with the dissemination process. It was felt that data producers were not
prepared to manage their own metadata registers. Thus, the creation and maintenance of the
metadata that currently supported the SNIG was organised in a centralised way by its co-
ordinator, the National Center for Geographic Information (CNIG). By the end of 1994, taking
advantage of the multiple opportunities for publishing data offered by the World Wide Web, the
Portuguese GI metadata catalogues were implemented in a Relational Database Management
System and CNIG started to build an HTML interface to allow the query of the metadata and the
retrieval of the available data sets. The SNIG network was finally launched on the Internet on
May 3, 1995. The main concern was to connect users to the available digital data sets, creating
an operational system that could be improved in the following years. Therefore, the metadata
catalogues were not based on any metadata standards. Common sense, some guidelines
provided by the CORINE Catalogue of Data Sources Project and the identification of the main
geographic information sources were used to design the database. During this stage, the
system structure and design was mainly oriented towards the professional user.
Subsequently, the creation of new metadata catalogues obliged to rebuild a new WWW
interface. While the first SNIG interface was developed without the implementation of formal
usability studies, usability testing was required to support further developments of the SNIG. In
order to rebuild the SNIG site, qualitative research involving users was carried out for the first
time. The research was designed to answer to the following questions:
• Which would be SNIG potential users groups?

• What geographic information options would users need?
• What would the users be looking for in an infrastructure such as SNIG?
The main results of this research pointed out that it would be necessary to develop a friendlier
interface. The new interface should adopt informal and non-technical terminology and include
search engines by terms and geographic location. The need of more geographic information for
non-professional use and the adoption of more common data formats were also stated. It would
also be important to include raster images to illustrate the available information. In July 1999, an
alternative SNIG user interface was launched (GEOCID). GEOCID is more appealing and
information oriented, avoiding complex tasks and navigating routes to access to the data. In
addition, new applications were developed based on the information citizens are interested in.
An application that allows the user to navigate through Continental Portugal, select specific
locations and download the part of the orthophoto he is visualising on screen was developed.
The launch of GEOCID was a big success (http://ortos.cnig.pt/ortofotos/ingles/).

Recommendations: Outreach and Capacity Building Options for Implementing a
SDI
By overcoming inefficiencies, a coherent and consistent SDI can ensure that geographic
information may be used to address complex social, environmental, and economic issues. The
following guidelines indicate some of the outreach and capacity building activities that can be
used to foster the implementation of a SDI:
A practical step to take in the development of a national SDI is the development of a
vision, detailing a vision of the desired future and a clear sense of how SDI
components could serve that future and help to realise it. This also involves setting
clear priorities and defining a strategy or policy to accomplish the vision.
A workshop organised with the stakeholders to define and create a national co-ordinating body,
considering its structure in terms of an existing or newly created institution, working groups
and/or committees. In countries where GIS implementations are highly dependent on donor
involvement in terms of funding and technical expertise, donor representatives should be
considered as stakeholders and included in the process of building a SDI. The co-ordinating
body needs to be mandated to manage the required activities and devise an action plan to co-
ordinate the activities.
Consideration needs to be given to the necessary resources for implementing strategy, policy or
plans and activities, considering staff, technical know-how, material, and funding opportunities
such as innovative partnerships.
Formal working groups should be organised around well defined objectives, strategies, plans,
programmes, and actions, and not simply for informal and limited consultations. These working
groups would be made up of interested parties and experts to deal with specific aspects of SDI
such standards (metadata, exchange), national data sets, policy, clearinghouse and how to
assimilate existing technological solutions into the local context.
Awareness creation of SDI components should be considered down to the lowest level and
with strong management support and leadership.
Plans should be developed and implemented for the dissemination of information on SDI
activities under way, including the information about the SDI components, available
technical best practices, and the promotion of the use of existing technologies and
standards to support the development of a SDI, for example by establishing WWW pages on
the Internet or using printed media or CD-ROM where Internet connections are limited.
Measures should be taken to monitor, analyse and participate in, developments at international
levels that affect the use of standards and supporting technologies in the national context. This
entails assigning clear administrative responsibility for tracking key developments are the
international level and within the GSDI community.
Within SDI development, the role of donors should be clarified to support activities by way of
following local priorities such as interoperability of different GIS implementations rather than
wishing to be associated with a particular type of activity irrespective of cost effectiveness or fit
with the broader institutional or national objectives.

GSDI (1998) "Conference Resolutions, Recommendations and Findings", 3rd Global Spatial
Data Infrastructure (GSDI) Conference, Canberra, A.C.T., Australia, 17-19 November.

Gouveia, C., Abreu, J., Neves, N., Henriques, R. G. (1997) "The Portuguese National
Infrastructure for Geographical Information: General Description and Challenges for the Future",
GISDATA Conference Proceedings.
Henriques R. G., Fonseca, A. et al. (1999) "National System for Geographic Information (SNIG):
The Portuguese National Infrastructure for Geographic Information", Madame Project: 1st
Progress Report.
Mapping Science Committee, Board on Earth Sciences and Resources, Commission on

Geosciences Environment and Resources, and National Research Council (1994) "Promoting
the National Data Infrastructure Through Partnerships", Washington, D.C.: National Academy
Press.
Mapping Science Committee (1993) Toward a Coordinated Spatial Data Infrastructure for the
Nation, Washington, DC: National Academy Press. Execrative Summary available at
http://38.217.229.6/NAPA/NAPAPubs.nsf/00a36275d19681118525651d00620a03/229b79ae768d77e48525658c006
1a3bd?OpenDocument).
Masser, I. (1999) "All Shapes and Sizes: The First Generation of National Spatial Data
Infrastructures", International Journal of Geographical Information Science, Vol. 13 (1), pp. 67-
84.
Mbudzi, M., Jairosi, Y., Vogel, D. and Bohnet, D. (1997) "Best Practices on Environmental
Information Systems (EIS): The Case of Zimbabwe", Program on Environmental Information
Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, May.
Mendes, M. T., Joaquim, S.P., Hengue, P. and Gerbe, P. (1998) "Best Practices on
Environmental Information Systems (EIS): The Case of Mozambique", Program on
Environmental Information Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa, May.
Nicolau, R. (1998) "Adoption of the Metadata Standards within SNIG", workshop on "Challenges
and Future Developments of GI Infrastructures: The Portuguese Experience", GIS PlaNET’98
Conference, Lisbon, FIL, 7-11 September.
Ryerson, R.A. and Batterham, R.J. (2000) 'An Approach to the Development of a Sustainable
National Geomatics Infrastructure', Photogrammatic Engineering and Remote Sensing,
January, pp 17-28.
United States National Academy of Public Administration (1998) "Geographic Information for the
21st Century: Building a Strategy for the Nation", Executive Summary, January,
http://www.napawash.org
Wehn de Montalvo (1999) "Survey of Spatial Data Sharing Perspectives in South Africa - Views
on the Exchange of Spatial Data Across Organisational Boundaries", Summary Report, SPRU -
Science and Technology Research, University of Sussex, December.

Chapter Nine: Case Studies of Interdisciplinary Coordination
Editor: Mark Reichardt, OpenGIS Consortium, Contributors: International: Digital Earth;
Regional: Africa (Zimbabwe Harare Team and EIS); and National: Santiago Borrero, Colombia
Introduction
While Chapter 8 has outlined the elements of outreach and capacity building needed to form a
viable national and global SDI, this chapter provides some examples of SDI implementations
from a national, regional, and global perspective. The documentation of case studies is an
effective mechanism to help convey the underlying factors that led to the growth of spatial data
infrastructures. This chapter will highlight some of the success stories, shortfalls, and issues
that characterise the state of the National and Global Spatial Data Infrastructures today.
Contributors from both developed and developing countries have provided case studies for this
chapter. Wherever possible, authors have attempted to cite the major factors leading to
success or shortfalls in a particular case study. The reader should note that this chapter will
grow to include greater comparative information as more case studies are examined and
incorporated. For this first publication of the SDI Cookbook, single national and regional case
studies are examined.
Local Case Study – Within nations, localities are increasingly addressing decision-making
through the use of geographic information and tools. The ability for spatial data infrastructure to
deal with local as well as broader national issues is essential. A case study from the United
States involving crime management is highlighted as one of many examples of local
communities that are benefiting from the investment in SDI towards improved community
service. Our thanks go to Mr. John DeVoe of the US Department of Justice
(mailto:[email protected]) and the staff of the Baltimore Police Department for their
contributions.
National Case Study - the Colombian experience in developing and harmonizing geographic
information systems is examined. Its main purpose is to contribute to identify best practices in
Spatial Data Infrastructures as a means to increase geographic information availability, access
and use to support making decisions and to promote sustainable development. A team of
authors from Colombia’s IGAC provide a comprehensive assessment of the Colombian
experience in establishing a national SDI. Acknowledgements go to Santiago Borrero Mutis
(sborrero.igac.gov.co), Iván Alberto Lizarazo Salcedo (mailto:[email protected]), Dora Inés
Rey Martínez (mailto:[email protected]), and Martha Ivette Chaparro
(mailto:[email protected]) for their contributions to this chapter.
Regional Case Study - A case study from the SADC Regional Remote Sensing Unit, which is
part of the SADC Regional Food Security Programme, facilitates training programmes and
technical support in the field of remote sensing and GIS in support of early warning for food
security and natural resources management. This case study is provided as an example of how
a focus on critical regional issues yields elements of infrastructure valuable for cooperating
nations. Camille A.J. van der Harten (mailto:[email protected]), Senior Adviser,
SADC Regional Remote Sensing Unit, Harare – Zimbabwe provides an outstanding overview of
that effort, its successes, and issues.

Global Case Study - For the global case study, the authors reviewed the major organisations,
systems, and processes that are operating to achieve one or more aspects of the Global spatial
Data Infrastructure. Although a true GSDI is not a reality today, a review of the current areas of
emphasis is in order. Thanks to the members of the Digital Earth Team Tim Foresman
(mailto:[email protected]) and Gerald Barton, and the University of California Santa Barbara
/ Global Map team (Jack Estes (mailto:[email protected]), Karen Kline
(mailto:([email protected]) for their contributions.
Local Case Study

In this chapter, the authors have highlighted some national, regional, and global case studies
that are helping to contribute to the GSDI. This section is intended to illustrate one example of
the successes at the local level to advance the ability of communities to improve their decision-
making through the use of spatial data infrastructure.
Background, Context and Rationale
The reduction of crime in communities across the United States is a major goal to assure safe
and liveable communities. Although crime types and rates vary from locality to locality, the use
of geographic data and tools is rapidly becoming a key resource to better understand and more
effectively deal with crime. In the United States, community safety and policing are primarily
functions of local and state governments. Recently, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and other
neighbouring law enforcement organisations realised that cooperative analysis of crime trends
regionally would reveal a more complete picture of crime trends. As a result, the City of
Baltimore, Baltimore County and other police departments in the Mid-Atlantic area of the United
States came together to target and reduce the amount of crime by identifying and implementing
methods to standardise their approach to the management and use of crime data and related
geospatial information.
In the early 1990’s, the United States Department of Justice, recognizing the value of geospatial
data and techniques in managing crime, established partnerships with local law enforcement
organisations to illustrate the value of GIS applications in the identification, visualisation and
analysis of crime trends locally and regionally. These early partnerships were also designed to
show industry the potential market for applications to better address crime management. The
success of these early efforts, led to the creation of larger regional partnerships to address
crime issues using geospatial data and geospatial applications. Law enforcement
organisations working collaboratively in the region helped the US Department of Justice develop
the requirements for a Regional Crime Analysis GIS application. Participating communities
agreed to use the RCAGIS crime mapping, analysis, and reporting applications developed
under contract by the Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice. Additionally,
Baltimore City applied for and received designation of this effort as a National Spatial Data
Infrastructure (NSDI) Community Demonstration Project. This designation brought in additional
support from the Federal Geographic Data Committee and the Vice President’s National
Partnership for Reinventing Government.

The Regional Crime Analysis GIS (RCAGIS) was developed to provide police officers, crime
analysts, investigators, chiefs/commissioners/sheriffs, and managers a powerful, yet easy to
use crime mapping, analysis and reporting application. RCAGIS is designed to assist police
departments in their tactical and strategic responses to crime and to help create an environment
where police department personnel assume responsibility for increases and decreases in the
amount of crime. RCAGIS operates in a PC environment and uses ESRI’s MapObjects.
MapObjects was chosen because it is relatively inexpensive to implement on a moderate to
wide-spread basis..
RCAGIS seamlessly integrates CrimeStat, a very powerful spatial statistic tool developed by Dr.
Ned Levine, of Ned Levine and Associates. The RCAGIS programming code is available, free
of charge, through the Criminal Division, United States Department of Justice homepage
(http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/gis). . Through this cooperative partnership, the DOJ and local
police departments in the Baltimore – Washington area standardised the format for crime
incident data and the methods of mapping, reporting, and analysing crime.
Single Community Approach Multi-Community Approach
With the success of the RCAGIS program comes the need to address how to manage the
growing volume of geographic data that are produced by police departments or other local
government agencies in the region. Through support from the US Federal Geographic Data
Committee, and the designation of Baltimore as a NSDI Community Demonstration Project,

training and technical assistance was provided to the Baltimore City Police Department to
implement metadata standards and practices. Additionally, spatial data clearinghouse nodes
will be established to inventory and advertise Baltimore City Police Department’s designated
geographic data. The posting of metadata allows the law enforcement community to know what
geographic data is available in the area. Additionally, metadata and clearinghouses can
accommodate both public access to data, and the management of data restricted only for law
enforcement use due to local policy.
The RCAGIS program has helped localities to improve collaboration on issues of mutual
importance. The program illustrates to law enforcement staff the value of metadata and
clearinghouses in improving the ability to inventory and share information. By standardizing
data elements and the metadata that describes this data, law enforcement organisations have
improved their ability to communicate issues across jurisdictional boundaries, see the broader
implications of crime, and devise more comprehensive solutions to apprehend offenders, and to
reduce crime trends overall. Finally, by using clearinghouse resources, law enforcement will be
able to discover and apply additional environmental, social, and economic data sets to enhance
police departments’ crime analysis and tactical and strategic responses to crime, thereby
reducing the amount of crime and residents’ fear of crime in our communities.
Recommendations
Establish expanded partnerships - A broad multi-jurisdictional view of crime is often

necessary to understand overall crime trends. Indeed issues related to crime, the environment
and the economy are not typically contained within community boundaries. Partnerships and
collaboration through the sharing of data, standards and processes enhances the ability to
understand and manage patterns of crime that are significant to the larger area. Partnerships
with the federal government provided expertise, training to deal with many issues, and also
provided some funding to advance this effort as well.
Educate spatial data managers and users on the value of SDI practices – metadata,
clearinghouses, and standardisation are concepts that until recently were very unfamiliar to the
law enforcement community, and will not be readily adopted unless the appropriate level of
education and outreach is applied to illustrate the value of metadata and standardisation to
assure data accessibility, quality, availability, and overall management.
National Case Study – Colombia
Background, Context, and Rationale
As with many nations around the world, the major drivers for geographic information infrastructure in
Colombia stem from the nation’s programs for governance to address national issues related to the

environment, the economy, and social issues. Drivers also include private sector interests in the major
areas of Colombia’s Economy. Furthermore, Colombia understands that issues of national
importance often extend beyond its borders, so the growth of the national infrastructure must
accommodate collaboration regionally and potentially globally. This case study will focus on the efforts
of Colombia to establish a national SDI, and discusses the steps Colombia has taken to assure SDI
compatibility to address regional and global issues such as those raised via the UN Agenda 21.
Initiatives to coordinate SDI actions in Colombia at a national level face significant constraints
like decreasing budgets, inter-organisational barriers, lack of high level support, limited capacity
for research and development and lack of knowledge about the geographic information market,
among others. Despite these restrictions, experience has shown that specific steps to define
and implement a national geographic information strategy can be accomplished, providing that
government agencies decide to work together, reduce costs, avoid duplication of efforts, and
recognise the role that the private sector and academia can play. User demands can trigger the
necessary partnerships and alliances to produce and share information.
The Colombian Spatial Data Infrastructure (ICDE) is defined as the set of policies, standards,
organisations and technology working together to produce, share, and use geographic
information about Colombia in order to support national sustainable development. The ICDE is
a young but promising, initiative. The lessons learned through its design and development may
be useful. Due to the fact that it lacks a formal mandate to build the Colombian NSDI (as
compared to the U.S. case), the ICDE has followed an empirical approach, in which design and
development are not completely separated and well-defined stages are utilised. The ICDE has
struggled to gain visibility and support while under pressure to show results.
The ICDE must be understood as an initiative that is under construction, in which practice is
used to refine the concepts. Various government organisations, private companies, and
universities are laying the ICDE building blocks. The IGAC, DANE, IDEAM, INGEOMINAS,
ECOPETROL and the Ministry of the Environment, among others, have made valuable
contributions. While work on standards and data production has been remarkable, yet still
insufficient, reaching agreements on policies and high-level support seems to be the major area
requiring further efforts. This document explains why the ICDE, the Colombian NSDI, was born
and how its family is taking care of it and helping it to grow.
Quick Overview of Colombia
The republic of Colombia, located in northwestern South America, encompasses a total area of
2,070,408 square kilometres, of which 1,141,748 are on the mainland. In 1992, the population
of Colombia was approximately 36.2 million people. The country is a rich mix of peoples,
including Mestizo (European-Indian), European, African-European, African, African-Indian, and
Indian descent. The main language in Colombia is Spanish, but over 200 indigenous Indian
languages are also spoken.
Colombia has a democratic political system and Santa Fe de Bogotá is the capital city. The
major industries are textile production, coffee, oil, sugar cane and food processing. The GDP in
Colombia is US $172 billion. Inflation currently runs at about ten percent.

Colombia is the fourth-largest country in South America and the only one with coasts on both
the Pacific and Caribbean oceans. It shares borders with Panama (to the northwest),
Venezuela (east), Brazil (southeast), Peru (south) and Ecuador (southwest). The Colombian
territory also includes the San Andrés and Providencia island groups, 700 km. (435 m.)
northwest of the mainland, in the Caribbean Sea. The archipelagoes are 230 km. (140 m.) east
of Nicaragua.
Three Andean mountain ranges run north and south through the western half of the country
(about 45% of the total territory.) The eastern sector is a vast lowland, which can be generally
divided into two regions: a huge, open savannah in the north, and the Amazon in the south
(approximately 400,000 sq. km.).
Colombia has the highest number of plant and animal species per unit area of any country in the
world. The country's network of reserves includes 33 national parks, six small reserves, known
as “santuarios de flora y fauna”, two national reserves and one special natural area. Their
combined area constitutes 7.9% of Colombian territory.
Geographic Information in Colombia
Most geographic information on the Colombian territory is produced by government agencies

that have specific mandates. The DANE is responsible for conducting the census, both social
and economic. The IDEAM is in charge of hydrology, meteorology, and environmental studies.
The INGEOMINAS works in the area of geoscience, environmental mining, and nuclear energy.
The IGAC carries out topographic mapping, cadastre, soil, and geographic activities. All these
institutes are very experienced in their respective areas, both in terms of the time they have put
in, as well as the amount of valuable information produced throughout the country. Over the
past decade, pursuant to presidential decrees, these Colombian agencies have developed
modernisation processes for structural and resource reorganisation in order to fulfill their
institutional goals and the community’s needs. New technology has been incorporated into the
production flow, people have been trained, and agencies are furnishing digital products to users.
Aside from the above-mentioned agencies, some companies share a small, but increasing,
portion of the geographic information market. They provide products and services to the
government and private sector, and help to produce topographic and thematic mapping and
develop GIS applications.

In the 1990's, an awareness of the benefits of geographic information started to grow among
municipalities, environmental agencies, oil companies, and the utilities sector. Seeking to meet
legal requirements6 or business challenges, some people turned their eyes toward geographic
data. A demand for digital base maps was born and grew quickly, although not always
supported by adequate funding. It has taken time to convince users that the government cannot
provide new digital products for the low cost of duplication, as for analogue information.
Unfortunately, high-level government decisions currently do not benefit from geographic

information. Despite increasing recognition of its role to generate knowledge, provide added
value to identify problems, assist in proposing alternatives and defining a course of action,
geographic information discovery, access and use have not spread as desired. Indeed,
government agencies face budgeting constraints for the funding of production and maintenance
of their databases. In most cases, government agencies must attempt to find ways to
accomplish their principal functions and achieve a minimum level of cost recovery.
National GIS Projects
With a view to fulfilling their mandates, government agencies are carrying out various initiatives
to develop national information systems in the areas under their jurisdiction.
Environment Information System for Colombia (SIAC) - According to Law 99 of 1993 and
Decrees 1277, 1600 and 1603 of 1994, the Ministry of the Environment shall lead the
coordination of the National Environment Information System (SINA) and establish the
Environment Information System (SIA), and the IDEAM shall manage the implementation and
operation of the SIA and advise the CARs7 to do the same in their areas. Other research
institutions (INVEMAR, SINCHI, John Von Neumann, Alexander Von Humboldt) shall contribute
to system implementation throughout the national territory with the aim of providing timely and
sufficient environmental information to support policies and decision-making.
At the provincial level, some CARs have also developed environment information systems, most
of them successfully. However, these various developments lack convergence and
coordination.
At the present time, the Ministry of the Environment is initiating a system for the planning,
design, and development process, to harmonise efforts and strengthen and consolidate the
SIAC. This system targets water resources, pursuant to the National Environmental Policy,
which establishes water as its principal focus. The Policy also involves the community in the
development strategy through their participation in the area of information appropriation.
The National Environment Information System (SINA) – The IDEAM has developed the
SINA's basic module and provides information in real-time about environmental status and
changes. Some of its products are: Environment in Colombia, Natural and Socio-economic
6
According to recent legislation (Ley 388 de 1997), municipalities must set out a territorial ordering plan
to define and regulate land use. Geographic data are key to ensure compliance with the law.
7
Regional Autonomous Corporations are environmental administrative units in charge of the
management of renewable natural resources and sustainable development in their jurisdiction (major river
watersheds).

Impacts due to the Pacific Hot and Cold Phenomena – el Niño and la Niña, The National Water
Study, Offer-Demand Relations and Sustainability Conditions, Vegetation and Land Use,
Morphogenic Systems and the Stability of the Geological Morphostructure and Superficial
Formations.
The National Geoscientific Information System (SING) - Under Decree 1129 of 1999, the
INGEOMINAS shall conduct research and generate basic information for geoscientific
knowledge and the improvement of the Colombian subsoil. To this end, the INGEOMINAS shall
survey, obtain, compile, integrate, validate and provide in digital and standardised format,
subsoil information, including geology, geophysics, geochemistry, geomechanics, non-
renewable resources and geology-based hazard monitoring. The INGEOMINAS will develop
the SING as an integral part of the Colombian Geographic Information System.
The INGEOMINAS has produced several digital atlases over the past few years, in the areas of
geology, geochemistry, gravimetry, geological hazards, metallogenesis, geochemical anomalies
and mining activity.
The National Geostatistical Information System (SAIG) – According to Decree 2118 of 1992,
the DANE shall manage the SAIG. The SAIG fosters the integration of social, demographic and
economic statistical information obtained from census taking, surveys and administrative
records, using current technology to store, query and analyse information.
The SAIG engages in the following tasks: design and methodology for census-taking, surveys
and research on social and economic data, such as quality of life, construction, national home
surveys, the consumer price index, national population and housing census, and collection of
information for planning; development and control. Other tasks include definition and updating
samples, processing information, analysis, and publication of results.
The National Geostatistical Framework links statistical information with the corresponding
geographic sites. It is made up by political / administrative groups and geographic sectors
oriented toward statistical activities. It attempts to improve social welfare, sustainable
development and Colombia's competitiveness.
The IGAC Geographic Information System (SIGAC) - Decree 2113 of 1992 empowers the
IGAC to draft and update the Official Map of the Republic of Colombia, develop policy, and
undertake national government programs in cartography, agrology, cadastre and geography.
This is done through the production, analysis and distribution of geo-referenced environmental
and cadastral information, which is aimed at supporting planning and territorial ordering
processes.
The IGAC has developed the Integrated Geographic Information System, which is designed to
build and maintain national digital databases in topography, soils and cadastre. It began to be
implemented in 1995.
The conceptual model of the IGAC’s (SIGAC) Integrated Geographic Information System
included the following aspects:

• Design and implementation of an integrated Data Model for the 1:2,000 and 1:25,000
scales. In this model, the real world is represented by a Digital Landscape Model (DLM)
(primary model), where the different objects are classified, coded and transformed through a
cartographic work into a secondary model, the Digital Cartographic Model. The objects are
categorised in terms of themes, groups, and object classes.
• Creation of the Spatial Database according to the Data Model. The data structure simplifies
spatial analysis and linkage of geographic objects to external data in order to be available
for multipurpose use. The topographic data are entered into the system using the analytical
restitution of the photos. Digitising the existing maps captures the cadastral and soil
information. The SIGAC structure and content includes: land fixed points, photogrammetric
fixed points, land transport, aerial transport, shipping transport, engineering structures,
vegetation, water streams, water bodies, relief, buildings, land ownership and territorial and
administrative boundaries.
• Establishment of data–exchange formats for internal and external users of the system.
• Definition and establishment of standards.
Some of the main tasks performed by the SIGAC are: calculations, surface intersections,
interpolations and topographic modelling; land registration; land valuation; production of soil
homogeneous zones; derivation of physical and geo-economic homogeneous zones; and
production of land use maps. The principal products supplied by the SIGAC are: topographic
maps at different scales, cadastral maps, soil maps, land registration certificates, land use
maps, physical homogeneous zone maps, geo-economic homogeneous zone maps, land
homogeneous areas for cadastral purposes, land suitability classification maps, land capability
classification maps, digital terrain models, and statistical information regarding buildings,
parcels, owners, etc.
Until now, the IGAC has made great efforts to bridge the gap in basic map availability and
currency. Coping with adverse meteorological conditions and taking advantage of the new geo-
information technologies, the IGAC is trying out new data sources, procedures, and products.
Despite some achievements, more R&D is still needed. A great deal of topographic and
cadastral digital maps have been produced, focused on 1:2.000 scales for cities and towns and
1:100.000 scales for rural areas.
The National Oil Company Information Infrastructure (GEODATA) - Recognizing that the
current manner of conducting the oil business in Colombia is too expensive and time
consuming, ECOPETROL has entrusted the ICP (its research center) with the task of defining
policies and standards and developing an infrastructure to manage geographic information,
according to new technologies and customised to company needs. Its most ambitious project
has been the development of a distributed data repository to provide a common, high-quality
warehouse for Colombian primary and interpreted petrotechnical data. The data warehouse will
ultimately aim to be Colombia's official repository for petrotechnical data on oil exploration and
production. Primary petrotechnical data includes all non-interpretative data that may be used by
the industry in its day-to-day work.
The Coffee Information System (SICA): The Colombian Coffee Growers Federation
(FEDERACAFE) is a non-profit institution. It was created in June of 1927 and currently unites
almost 300,000 producers.

The FEDERACAFE has developed strategic plans to improve the competitiveness of Colombian
coffee and to provide research and development programs on improved technologies for
production, the post-harvest process, coffee quality, the management capacity of coffee
producers, and marketing to increase the demand for Colombian coffee.
One of the programs that has been developed is the Coffee Information System (SICA). This
system permits the coffee authorities, the Federation and the producers to base their work on
strategic and updated information that allows them to design policies and programs to improve
competitiveness, the sustainable development of Colombian coffee production, and the welfare
of the coffee producers.
The SICA includes the following elements:
The coffee plantation structure (plots, areas, number of plants, varieties, borders, brightness,
meters above sea level).
Socioeconomic aspects of coffee growers and their housing.
The Federation has developed a specialised Software “SICA” or AFIC (Attention for Farms and
Coffee Growers).
Despite the developments described above, it is clear that each institution has built its
information systems independently and that national policies and guidelines were non-existent
at the time they started these processes. Due to this, interorganisational links have not been
strengthened as needed, the roles of the agencies have not been clarified, and analogue-digital
data conversion activities may have been duplicated. Digital databases were built
autonomously and problems soon arose: data were out-of-date and incomplete, heterogeneous
in content and quality, poorly documented, hard to find and difficult to integrate. Client needs
were not recognised as required. An awareness of these problems led to the need for
standardisation.
First steps towards a national geographic information strategy
The IGAC, which is in charge of the national databases on topography, cadastre, soil and
geography, developed in 1995 a geographic object classification scheme for use in different
scales. Other institutions adopted the IGAC scheme and added their own objects. This was the
first step to achieving order in-house. Around the same time, ECOPETROL, the national oil
company, started its project Geodata, which focused on geographic data standards and
metadata. Both initiatives pushed forward the creation of a national committee in charge of
defining geographic information standards. Under the auspices of ICONTEC, the Colombian
body for standardisation and certification, and with coordination by the IGAC, more than thirty
entities from government, the private sector and academia contribute to this committee. Until
now, efforts have been concentrated on geographic metadata, basic object cataloguing, quality,
and terminology.
As user understanding of GIS capabilities grew, an understanding of the need for homogeneous
and consistent data also grew. Government agencies began to understand their role was
changing: they had to become information providers and not only data producers. Private
companies started to share an emerging digital geographic information market. Partnerships
developed to produce and update topographic and cadastral data. The IGAC and other

institutions convinced some city authorities to fund digital database projects on a fifty-fifty cost
sharing basis between municipalities and the Colombian government. The results
demonstrated the benefits of sharing costs and information.
However, interorganisational cooperation alone could not accomplish SDI objectives, nor would
it be done by Colombian agencies acting alone, without broader participation by industry,
academia and local governments. Cooperative efforts would have to be augmented by national
policies and guidelines to clarify the roles, responsibilities, priorities, and legal issues, such as
copyright, prices, liability and custodianship.
A high level team drafted some government policies on information in 19968, producing policies
that emphasised the need to manage information like a strategic national resource. These
policies viewed the use of information technology as a means to promote social welfare and
citizen service, and to link government agencies with outside sectors. Nonetheless, specific
policies on geographic information were still missing.
As a consequence of the above, geographic information availability and access were not
optimal. Furthermore, geographic information was not being used to its full potential for
decision-making and to support sustainable development. A national strategy for geographic
information was needed, to focus on the following priorities:
Definition of basic policies.

Production of fundamental data.
Documentation of geographic data.
Improving access to users.
Education and consciousness raising.
Subsequently, the ICDE concept was born in late 1995. The ICDE was influenced by American
and European concepts yet retained a local flavour. This local flavour was required to address
unique Colombian characteristics: a developing country and government, a nation rich in
biodiversity, mineral resources, natural hazards and socioeconomic problems, and the Andean
region, which is challenging to map due to meteorological conditions. Early success in the
standardisation work done by technical teams and increasing demands by government users to
account for programs using national information encouraged public agencies to deal with the
remaining issues.
In 1998, the Colombian government defined as a priority the establishment of a long-term
multilateral alliance between Colombia and The United States, the “Environmental Alliance for
Colombia” (Alianza Ambiental por Colombia), aimed at the promotion of technical, scientific,
managerial, informational, financial and political cooperation for the knowledge, conservation
and sustainable development of Colombian natural resources9. The Alliance’s mission and
priorities include:
8
Políticas de tecnología informática para el sector público colombiano (“IT Policies for the Colombian
Public Sector”), DNP, COLCIENCIAS, DANE, 1996.
9
In October, 1998, in Washington, Colombian President Andrés Pastrana officially launched the Alianza
Ambiental por Colombia.

Management of ecosystems
Cleaner production
Environment Information System
Supply and demand of environment products and services
Water
A round table was set up on each of the above issues under the aegis of the Ministry of the
Environment. The Directors of the IGAC, DANE, INGEOMINAS and IDEAM were called upon
to participate and coordinate actions to support decisions on the environment. The discussion
quickly moved to the need to strengthen interorganisational links, increase information
production and sharing, improve the status given by the Colombian government to geographic
information, and define a national geographic information strategy.
In November 1998, an Inter-Institutional Committee was set up to create consensus on different

topics. The government agencies in charge of geographic information production agreed to
work jointly to define policies, guidelines and strategies to foster the production and publication
of geographic data in Colombia and facilitate data integration, use and analysis by the agencies’
information systems10. The committee also decided to promote carrying out actions to develop
autonomous information systems in a coordinated and harmonised way as integral part of a
national geographic information system. The Committee agreed to coordinate actions in the
following areas:
Definition of guidelines and strategies to produce, process and make available geographic
information.
Definition of products under the aegis of each agency, taking into account user needs.
Strategies for standardisation of products/processes.
Strategies for the development of telecommunications and information technology infrastructure.
Legal and business strategies.
Organisational strategy and roles to develop the Colombian Geographic Information System
(ICDE).
Strategies to build the National Geographic Information Network.
Communication and marketing.
The Organisational Strategy will define the actions to be carried out by different agencies in
order to implement the agreements on internal structure, organisational culture, and technical
infrastructure. The Organisational Strategy will define a clear outline of the responsibilities of
each agency in the development and implementation of the ICDE including: interaction,
mechanisms for the joint development of projects, and linking to other public and private
institutions.
As noted above, action by the Ministry of the Environment, and its viewpoint as a user, triggered
the first interorganisational meetings and helped diminish some communication barriers. Major
government producers continued to look for better ways to interact and gained valuable insights.
However, their collective desire to produce a document with organisational strategies by the end
of 1999 could not be achieved. The restructuring process of state institutions that the
10
Document: "Proposal for the Design and Implementation of a Colombian Geospatial Information
System" (Cartagena, May 6 & 7, 1999)

Colombian government began in mid-1999 focused the agencies’ attention inwards, as they
struggled against functional instability and turned the inter-agency activity to their own
operational issues11.
Some government agencies that are major users of geographic information, like ECOPETROL,
FEDERACAFE and EEPPM, are very interested in playing a role in ICDE development. Indeed,
contributions by them to standardisation and their investment in production and updating basic
geographic data projects have been valuable. Some have suggested that they attend the next
meeting of the Inter-Institutional Committee to enrich the process and widen the scope of the
initiative.
In addition, "spontaneous" regional interorganisational initiatives are emerging. Two noteworthy

cases are the Aburra Valley Geographic Information System (SIGMA) and Bucaramanga
Tecnópolis – Ciudad Digital (the geographic information system for the Metropolitan Area of
Bucaramanga). In both cases, municipal authorities and utility companies (water, sewage
system, natural gas, telephone, power) agreed to jointly plan, gather and update basic
geographic information to support local decision-making. Major geographic data producers
have been invited to support technical definitions, but they are not the project leaders.
Implementation - Approach
Components of the ICDE
The Colombian Spatial Data Infrastructure (ICDE) is defined as the set of policies, standards,
organisations, and technology working together to produce, shares, and uses geographic
information on Colombia in order to support national sustainable development. Main ICDE
components may be defined as: administrative information policies and guidelines, geographic
information standards including metadata, fundamental data (framework), and a national
geographic information network.
The ICDE has been oriented to addressing development on a priority basis, initially emphasizing
two basic areas:
Production and documentation of fundamental data (framework): Linkage of efforts and
resources from different institutions, taking advantage of IT, fulfilling standards and user-
oriented product technical specifications and focusing on national priorities and programs.
Development of mechanisms to increase access to data and use by the community:
Facilitation of metadata queries, data discovery, and recovery. In order to achieve this,
development of a legal framework defining both producer and user rights and duties, i.e.
copyright, liability, access, and privacy. Two factors are relevant to this effort:
Building the national metadata repository and linking distributed metadatabases via the
INTERNET.
11
In the first quarter of 1999, the Colombian President was authorized by Congress to remove, join and
restructure state agencies. The deadline was June 1999. Among other reforms, the IGAC was reassigned
to the DANE. Nevertheless, the Constitutional Court recently declared these government decisions
unconstitutional. Functional uncertainty continues.

Development of the national geographic information network to promote the availability of
geographic information products and services.
Implementation of the ICDE

Progress
With respect to the implementation of the ICDE components, the major agreements to date
include the following:
Government data producers have agreed to coordinate gathering seamless digital basic
databases covering the whole Colombian territory, prioritised as follows:
1:100,000 scale
1:500,000 scale
1:25,000 scale
Some projects are being developed jointly by the IGAC and other institutions using partnerships,
which share the costs (through joint investment) and benefits of producing and updating maps,
cadastral information, and soil and agrology information.
A national geographic metadata standard was defined in March, 1999 (Norma Técnica
Colombiana NTC4611), based on ISO/TC211 and FGDC work. Major producers have started to
document their data sets according to this standard. The ICP, with the assistance of NCGIA-
UCSB, has developed metadata and clearinghouse node software tools and has decided to
distribute these nationally as a means to stimulate document acquisition, storing and queries.
Significant attention is being given to education and training, since it has not been easy to
convince people to add a new process (documentation) to the production line. The difficulties
encountered in implementing the process have led to the definition of “minimum metadata” as
alternative to the complete standard.
Other issues are being discussed in the standardisation process:
Quality of geographic information.
Object catalogue for basic geographic data.
Satellite geopositioning.
Geosciences.
Terminology.
Government producers have improved their communication and technology infrastructure. For
example, Internet WEB sites have been developed for each institution. (For more information,
please access their pages: ECOPETROL-ICP: www.ecopetrol.com.co, DANE:
www.dane.gov.co, IGAC: www.igac.gov.co, INGEOMINAS: www.ingeomin.gov.co, IDEAM:
www.ideam.gov.co, MINAMBIENTE: www.minambiente.gov.co, FEDERACAFE:
www.cafedecolombia.com ). Information services are being developed and implemented and
GIS online pilot projects are starting. However, keeping in mind that large sectors of the
Colombian community have not yet linked to the INTERNET12, the major agencies continue to
develop traditional paper and hard copy products.
12
23 people of every 1000 had access to computers in Colombia in 1996 (Knowledge for Development,
World Bank, 1998-1999).

Currently, the private sector is involved in helping to produce and/or update geographic data for
the Colombian NSDI, or when a government agency decides to hire a firm to publicise some
part of the data collection's work. Out-sourced work is estimated to account for about 50% of
the total. The commercial sector is also being hired by national and local government to install,
operate, and maintain their network infrastructure (cabling, routers, switches, etc.) and/or to
disseminate data. Until now, the private sector has not produced or publicised geographic data
to a larger public at any charge, but it seems probable that this will occur in the near future.
In terms of the need for international cooperation, the first ICDE project has been defined by the
Inter-Institutional Committee and is to be considered by the American Government in the
framework of the Environmental Alliance for Colombia13. The estimated time for the project is
three (3) years. It focuses on improving the ability of institutions to effectively support policy
formulation and decision-making on environmental issues, within the general framework of
supporting sustainability in national development. The project has three components:
Production of national basic cartography (1:100.000 scale).
Development and strengthening of a national geo-spatial information network.
Strengthening institutional skills for the generation of integrated environment information
services.
The project’s total budget is about US $32,000,000.00. This amount would be funded by
national investment and international support.
Issues
Although significant progress has been made, many issues remain to be addressed in order to
accelerate the implementation of the ICDE:
Organisational issues: There is no formal mandate to build the ICDE and an institution with the
authority to lead the process. Informal initiatives fail to break interorganisational barriers and do
not encourage broader participation. Furthermore, institutions continue to focus on the
development of geographic information suitable for their own needs and thus, it becomes
difficult and costly for other users to “reuse” geographic data.
Policy Issues: There are no formal agreements or processes underway to address privacy,
access, use, pricing, and liability. Agencies have autonomous approaches to these subjects,
especially in the areas of pricing and copyright. In practice, digital geographic data sets are sold
off-line on a single-license basis at prices ranging from 1% to 5% of the production cost.
Analogue data sets (photos or maps on paper) are sold at the cost of duplicating them. Private
firms mainly produce customised geographic data and charge their clients about 130% of the
production cost. In general, this type of data is not available to the public.
User Needs: A user needs study does not exist. A survey of this type would assist in better
focussing the efforts and priorities of the ICDE.
13
This project was proposed to the U.S. delegation to the Environmental Alliance for Colombia meeting
in Cartagena, on May 6, 1999. An agreement between Colombia and the USA has not yet been achieved.

Cost-Benefit Study: Similarly, little information is available in Colombia regarding the costs and
benefits of geographic data in decision-making. This information is essential to demonstrate
clearly the benefit of joining to implement the ICDE to government, business, and citizens.
Conclusions
In developing countries, government agencies in charge of geographic information have the
combined challenge of improving performance, learning to cooperate through partnerships
within the limitation of budget restrictions, and satisfying increasing user demands. Otherwise,
they will be unable to accomplish their goal of providing valuable information to support
increased knowledge and national policy. A national spatial data infrastructure initiative seems
to be the most suitable strategy to promote long-term multi-sector alliances, not only among
government agencies, but also with the private sector and academia, so that all the
stakeholders win.
The Colombian Spatial Data Infrastructure (ICDE) is a sound initiative for the promotion of
geographic information production with national coverage that will encourage mass use by
society and improve sustainable development. Some achievements have been attained and
interorganisational barriers are being broken. The ICDE "empirical" approach has been the way
to cope with a challenging context and to gain consensus while demonstrating the practical
benefits. Nonetheless, the time has come to gain high-level support. The incipient partnerships
must be strengthened and coordinated. It appears clear that it is necessary to establish a
national geographic information coordination center with a national mandate to guarantee that
all participants continue in the right direction.
Positive results should encourage the ICDE stakeholders to renew their efforts, taking into
account that initial success depends on the following:
Management: Major producers and users of geographic information must be in charge of

running the initiative in a coordinated way and based on national needs. A framework for
information management must be established as a key principle to govern interorganisational
behaviour.
Participation: A very large number of public and private institutions, non-governmental
organisations, academic groups and research centers, or think tanks, must be included. A
careful and user-oriented cost-benefit study must be undertaken.
Support: The ICDE must find support from government at high levels to ensure the necessary
definitions and funds for the project.
Technical cooperation: The ICDE must be based on lessons learned from most advanced
NSDIs, and should be linked strongly to regional and global initiatives to ensure that nations can
jointly address issues extending beyond national boundaries.
Research and Development: Appropriate technology needs to be adopted or adjusted through
research and development activities.
Recommendations
Seek and acquire high-level government support for the national SDI. The ICDE
development process must be accompanied by high-level government support, such as a
presidential decree or Ministerial Council Order. Otherwise, the momentum of the Colombian
agencies alone will not be sufficient to keep the engines moving for very long.

Define national guidelines for managing geographic information, not only for use in government,
but also where this involves the private sector and academia.
When defining basic agreements to stimulate cooperation and focus efforts for the National SDI,
these topics must be addressed:
Agreement on the definition of the National SDI.
Clarification of the objectives.
Agreement on the key principles, rules and responsibilities.
Coordinating body
Role of each organisation
Basic policies and guidelines for managing and sharing information
Funding
Early on, develop the first stage national geographic information network through the use of
internationally compatible standards and practices. Given that the ICDE is a long term,
ambitious project, efforts must be concentrated on developing the first phase of the Colombian
geographic information network: a metadata-based clearinghouse, in order to achieve the
National Directory of Geographic Information. With a national geographic metadata standard
defined and with the development and testing of some customised metadata software tools, the
Colombian producers of geographic information now have the challenge of making decisions on
documenting their data sets and setting clearinghouse nodes. “Actions speak louder than
words”.
Study for the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region
Background, Context, and Rationale
A compatible SDI can encourage region-wide collaboration on issues that often

disregard national boundaries. While formal regional SDI initiatives are just recently in
the discussion or formation stages, there are a number of illustrations of how a regional
Spatial Data Infrastructure approach can make a positive difference in dealing with
often-difficult issues such as food security. The Permanent Committee on Geographic
Infrastructure for Asia & the Pacific is just one example of a regional SDI
implementation addressing the joint spatial issues of member nations.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC), which was established in 1980
as SADCC, is promoting regional cooperation in economic development. SADC
member nations include: Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho,
Malawi, Mozambique, Mauritius, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland,
Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. SADC has adopted a Programme of Action
covering cooperation in various sectors, including food, agriculture and natural
resources management. Its secretariat is formed by the Food, Agriculture and Natural
Resources (FANR) Development Unit in Harare, Zimbabwe. To effectively address the
issues of early warning for food security and natural resource management, a regional
spatial database has been developed to assure the timely collection, management and

dissemination of critical information and knowledge to the SADC Member-States and
other stakeholders.
The SADC Regional Remote Sensing Unit (RRSU) started as the Regional Remote Sensing
Project (RRSP) in 1988 and received technical assistance from the Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations and financial support from the Governments of Japan
and the Netherlands. The technical assistance from the FAO came to an end in June 1998 and
since that time SADC RRSU has been gradually integrated in the organisational structure of the
SADC FANR Development Unit. The RRSU is financed by the SADC Member States and
receives additional financial and technical assistance through a bilateral agreement between
SADC and the Government of the Netherlands. The RRSU is a centre of technical expertise,
which can facilitate training programmes and technical support in the field of remote sensing
and GIS in support of early warning for food security and natural resources management. On
an operational basis the RRSU is using low resolution high temporal satellite information to
produce information products on rainfall occurrence and vegetation development which is being
distributed through the Regional and National Early Warning Units, but also through its own
publications, reports and web-site. A variety of training courses and national and regional
workshops are organised to create a core of trained experts in the SADC region. An important
activity of the RRSU is the development of spatial databases, which are being distributed on
CD. The RRSU database includes at present all the basic thematic information (administrative
boundaries, infrastructure, land cover hydrology, soils, elevation etc.), as well as the satellite
image archive, agricultural statistics, and climate information. In order to develop these
information systems further, the RRSU has strategic partnerships with a number of institutes in
the SADC region, but also in Europe and the USA. The RRSU spatial database is recognised
as a regional (and often a national) standard, and because of this the RRSU is a recognised
partner in a number of EIS related activities in the SADC region. At a regional level the RRSU
collaborates with the South African National Spatial Information Framework (NSIF) on the
development of metadata, which will have a regional outlook.
Genesis of the Regional Early Warning Infrastructure
From the time of its establishment, the RRSU has been working on the use of satellite
information to monitor rainfall occurrence and vegetation development in support of early
warning for food security. The satellite data covers the whole SADC region and the operational
pixel size of the raster images is 7.6 km. With the increased use of GIS technology and the
availability of ever-faster computers and more user-friendly GIS software programs, there was a
need to harmonise and standardise spatial data sets, not only the raster satellite images, but
also the vector database.
In the early nineties most digital spatial data available in the SADC countries originated from
small projects. Spatial data available from the Surveyor General Offices was often not in digital
format, or in an inaccessible digital format. As a result, many Government offices, small
projects, universities, NGO's, started to digitise their own spatial databases.
One of the tasks of the RRSU is to introduce GIS technology. The main problem it faced during
the introduction of this technology in the region was the lack of a consistent spatial database for
the SADC region. For example, national and sub-national administrative boundaries hardly
existed in digital format, or were incomplete. For existing data, there was no cross-boundary
compatibility. Other data on infrastructure, basic land use, and hydrology did not exist or was

scarce. A soil map had been prepared for a number of SADC countries, but the digital format
used made it impossible to use the data for further GIS analyses. The satellite images in raster
format from the Meteosat satellite (for climate monitoring) and NOAA satellite (vegetation
monitoring) were in a rare geographic projection, the Hammer Aitoff projection, which was
hardly supported by any of the than more popular GIS software programs.
The task at hand for the RRSU was to start a number of activities to develop standards for the
digital databases and the objective was to develop a standard raster and vector database for
the SADC region, which would allow easy use and analytical procedures in a GIS environment
and facilitate regular updates.
Overall Leadership - The SADC RRSU provided overall leadership for this regional activity. The
RRSU identified needs and formulated the plan; implemented development with strategic
partners; assessed availability of data; organised the data collection; ensured evaluation and
quality control of the outputs; and distributed the output.
Development was accomplished by the SADC RRSU. Technical partners in the development
were the Office of Arid Land Studies of the University of Arizona, and the University of
Stellenbosch. Both Universities were responsible for technical tasks, which were implemented
under a contractual agreement. Development of the digital spatial databases involved the
processing of data, creation of basic data layers, preparation of documentation, and the
development of the system on transportable media with a user-interface to view and analyse the
data.. As a starting point, several layers of the Digital Chart of the World (DCW) were used, as
well as the Africa Data Sampler (ADS) prepared by the World Resources Institute (WRI,
Washington - USA). The WRI provided the RRSU with a pre-release of the ADS in 1994 in
order to facilitate a first review of the available data. The internationally available data was
merged with existing national digital data sets. Where necessary, hard-copy maps were
digitised, corrected and georeferenced. This was done by the University of Arizona, while at a
later stage the University of Stellenbosch was contracted to review and correct the soil
database.
The RRSU was responsible for the processing of all satellite image raster data into a 6-minute
geographic projection. Using this standard format, data from different satellites, or the same
satellite, but received by different data acquisition systems, are in the same geographic format
and can be used together with the vector data in a wide range of GIS applications.
Since 1994, the development has gone through several phases and has resulted in a uniform
and standard satellite (Meteosat and NOAA) image database; a standard and uniform thematic
vector database at the scale of 1:1million. A first version of the vector database was released
on CD in 1995. In June 1997 the first version of the "RRSU CD" was released, which included
also all satellite data, agricultural statistics, and basic climate information. An update was
released in March 1998. The RRSU CD also includes a software facility to view and analyse
the data, called "WinDisp". This program was developed with financial support of a number of
partners, including the RRSU. A next release is expected in the first half of 2000. More recently,
in June 1999, the RRSU has produced a second CD with a detailed regional climate database
in raster and tabular format, including information on rainfall, temperature and
evapotranspiration.

In addition to this, the Harare based: Aquatic Resource Management for Local Community
Development Programme (ALCOM), used the hydrology layers from the RRSU spatial database
to develop a comprehensive hydrological data base and watershed map for Southern Africa
which is fully compatible with the standard format established by the RRSU.
Other major stakeholders in the development phase included: (i)The National Early Warning
Units (NEWU's); and (ii) the National Meteorological Departments (NMD's) in the SADC
countries who played an important role in evaluating the data sets and provided suggestions for
corrections or better data. Other major data contributors included organisations such as: (i) the
World Resources Institute; (ii) USGS Eros Data Center; (iii) FAO; (iv) UNEP GRID; and (v) the
USAID Famine and Early Warning System (FEWS). Regional or national level data was
provided by: (i) the NEWU's; (ii) NMD's; (iii) National Remote Sensing Centre's; (iv)
Environmental Councils; and (v) various Government Departments in the SADC member states.
User beneficiaries include Government institutes; Ministries; national, regional and international
organisations; private trading and industrial sector; banking and finance groups; large-scale and
small-scale farming organisations; and NGO's.
Review and evaluation of the effort for meeting the needs of SADC members was performed by
the SADC RRSU; the National Early Warning Units and National Meteorological Departments in
the SADC countries. The review and evaluation process included making data available for
evaluation; conducting workshops/meetings to introduce the databases; collection of evaluation
comments/reports; and ensuring incorporation of corrections/additions.
Distribution of the database, tools, meta-data, and viewing and analysing software was
accomplished by the RRSU. The RRSU make data available in a user-friendly format on CD,
sponsor workshops/meetings and maintain an internet web-site to create and maintain
awareness, encourage and act on suggestions and recommendations, and are responsible for
regular updates of the data bases. The new historical database was distributed to all contact
points in the SADC Member States. Backstopping missions and regional workshops were used
to inform the contact points about the changes and the characteristics of the new data format.
Traditionally, Internet accessibility in Africa has been significantly low compared to other regions
of the world. Although Internet accessibility is improving rapidly in the SADC region, the RRSU
will continue to distribute the data on CD. The reason for this is that: (i) the size of the RRSU
spatial data sets are to big to be used operationally over the Internet (even with high speed
access), and (ii) using the data structure on the RRSU CD and the include software, the data
can be viewed and analysed. However, at present the RRSU is improving its local Internet
connectivity through the installation of a radio-link to one of the major Internet Service Providers
(ISP) in Harare. With this installation in place FANR (and the RRSU in particular) will have the
possibility to offer their data bases on-line over the Internet using their own server capability.
However, it should be noted that even when data is offered over the Internet: (i) many
stakeholders will still have limited access; and (ii) the specific analytical capability offered on the
RRSU CD will not be available.
Users include many of the stakeholders noted above, which include the National Early Warning
Units and National Meteorological Departments in the SADC countries. A range of government
institutes; Ministries; national, regional and international organisations; private trading and
industrial sector; banking and finance groups; large-scale and small-scale farming
organisations; and NGO's use the system as well.

Finally, although the RRSU used contractual agreements with the University of Arizona and the
University of Stellenbosch for development, collaboration with other partners was basically
established through informal agreements. Data was normally provided as part of a mutual
agreement, in that the RRSU would correct/update the data sets and return it in the new format
to the data providers.
Programme Successes and Issues
The success is obvious. The RRSU databases provided on CD are in high demand. The
capability is considered by many to be the regional standard and even in many SADC countries
it is considered to be the best and most complete data set available. However, there is no
formal regional SDI structure for the SADC region, though informal initiatives are undertaken to
reach consensus. A good example is the collaboration between SADC RRSU and the National
Spatial Infrastructure Framework (NSIF) in Pretoria - South Africa. Together with a number of
other stakeholders in SADC, and the remainder of Africa, a number of activities are being
launched to formalise a SDI policy body.
The RRSU has introduced a regional standard for spatial data, which is now being adopted in a
number of SADC countries. This data standard has been presented during different meetings.
An example is the SADC Environmental Information Systems (EIS) network. During a meeting
of representatives of the SADC EIS Network in November 1997 a number of very general
recommendations were made about the scale and format of spatial data. The RRSU spatial
database was used as an example. However, at the same meeting it was agreed that this
format should be used as a common data "exchange" format and that it is up to the countries to
decide what format is used at national level.
On behalf of the SADC EIS Network, the SADC Environment and Land Management System
(ELMS) has been working on a data policy document, which will be available by early 2000.
In conclusion, the RRSU database development essentially introduced regional standards,

which are now being adopted by SADC member countries. Although the standardisation efforts
were driven largely by the need to establish viable RRSU databases for early warning for food
security, is clear that there are more potential applications of the data against different issues
(such as natural resources management). The RRSU spatial databases were prepared in
response to critical and specific needs for the SADC member nations with regards to early
warning for food security. Without a clearly defined and consistent SDI nationally and
regionally, the RRSU worked with members and stakeholders to establish the core
infrastructure components needed to accomplish development and implementation objectives.
The following is a chronology of events and actions completed to complete the Early Warning
effort:
In 1994, the RRSU began work with stakeholders to assess the need for uniform data standards
for the SADC region, and to identify the partners needed to accomplish the development. This
included the preparation of contracts in some cases.
• In 1995 development focused on the collection of data for the vector database. As noted
above, data came from a number of sources, with data provided compliant with international

standards, along with other non-compliant data that needed to be processed to an
acceptable standard format (implemented by the University of Arizona). Database
development and evaluation also occurred at this time, including the review and correction
of the SADC Soils database (implemented by the University of Stellenbosch). At a regional
workshop in September 1995, new data standards for raster data were introduced and
accepted.
• Throughout 1996, database information was distributed and reviewed by member nations.
Due to the lack of regionally consistent data standards and formats, data had to be
converted to the native format of member countries for review. Evaluation results were
reviewed and documented. From June to December 1996, the transfer of IDA analytical
functions to the application software WinDisp (financed by the RRSU and implemented by
the University of Arizona) was accomplished.
Based on evaluations provided by stakeholders, changes were made to the vector database in
early 1997. A user-friendly interface was developed for the user application, and other structure
and file naming issues were resolved. Member nations each received a pre production CD for
review during this period. By summer of 1997, the completion of the CD was announced, and
distribution commenced.
• By early 1998, RRSU had issued an updated version of the Early Warning system, and had
begun routine maintenance and update of the data sets to ensure information utility for the
region. In conjunction with South Africa, RRSU commenced training on metadata creation
and implementation.
The RRSU spatial data base program has been of major benefit to the SADC region. With
agriculture recognised by member nations as a major area of mutual interest, the SADC now
promotes regional cooperation and economic development through a Program of Action
covering cooperation in various sectors. These sectors include those related to food, agriculture
and natural resources. Food security and natural resources management is one of the main
pillars for economic development and social welfare in the region.
A solid, harmonised and uniform regional spatial database contributes to an improved

information in support of managing scarce resources, which are required to secure food security
and human well being in the region. In addition, the FAO Global Information and Early Warning
System (GIEWS) are using the data from the RRSU spatial databases. Moreover, the GIEWS
Internet web site links directly into the SADC FANR Web-site, a good example of sharing
information and not duplicating it!
Conclusions
The RRSU database activity has helped focus the SADC region on establishing the basic
elements of a national and regional SDI. However, further progress toward a healthy and
responsive regional SDI will depend on the resolution of a number of important issues. Several
of the major issues facing the region are summarised below:
Telecommunications Infrastructure - Although the initial RRSU spatial database program has
focused on establishing standards for data exchange, efforts are underway to establish
improved dissemination capabilities via the Internet. However, until the telecommunications
infrastructure is more available to stakeholder organisations, SDI delivery will be limited to

physical products, information and services such as the CD-ROM based applications and data
associated with the RRSU program. However, it should be note that the RRSU spatial
database a rather big in size and in order to work with the data on an operational basis the CD-
ROM will be the most applicable medium for distribution.
National and Regional SDI Policy - From and organisational and policy point of view,
formal SDI policies and practices as the national and regional level are still forming. At this
stage there is a need to create higher level of awareness of the benefits of a compatible SDI for
the region and its nations. Furthermore, there should be a formal review or survey of the
specific state of each member nation in terms of SDI development or plans. The RRSU took
every opportunity to demonstrate the need for a uniform SADC database. And, much of the
RRSU’s success has been accomplished through informal contacts, which have contributed to
the process of awareness and willingness to share critically important data sets to this regional
initiative.
Data ownership and pricing policy - There are still unresolved issues regarding data ownership
and pricing policies. This has been particularly true with climate data. The NMD's in the SADC
region are following the advise of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) that climate
data should be made available on a commercial basis. Since the NMD's are SADC institutes
they have made data available to the RRSU in order to develop a regional tabular database and
create climate (raster) layers to be used for analytical purposes and research. The RRSU is not
in a position to distribute these tabular data sets or climate layers. What will be done is that the
RRSU will train the NMD's in the concept of creating these databases and data layers. The
NMD's will than be able to distribute the databases.
Recommendations
Education and Awareness – Establish a clear program of education and awareness building to
gain support of national policy makers across the region. This program should include the
assessment of each member nation, and the identification of issues and areas of focus to
establish compatible SDI’s that address both national and regional issues
Organisation and Partnerships – further work needs to be accomplished in getting a basic and
flexible structure for SDI development at both the national and regional levels. Formation of a
more formal SDI Committee for the African continent with appropriate regional sub elements
may help further organise and encourage collaboration
Funding – Long-term commitment of funding must be obtained to develop, implement, and

maintain a regional SDI on a continuing basis. While external funding sources have resulted in
measured success in the SADC region to meet specific objectives, pervasive funding from both
internal and external sources must be secured to assure that a compatible SDI is created for the
region. One major lesson learned through the RRSU program is that funding for data
maintenance must be included in SDI operations to assure that spatial information remains
relevant to decision makers.
Standards – Member nations of the SADC must continue to identify standards that create
compatibility for data content and metadata throughout the region. Regional standards should
be based where possible on existing international standards, and when new standards are

needed, SADC members should participate where possible in the formalisation of standards at
the international level when appropriate.
Telecommunications – The lack of Internet access among member nations continues to be a

major issue for the region. Continued focus on expansion of Internet services and increased
access by member nation users of spatial information and services must be supported.
Because the improvement of Internet access in the region will take some time to develop, the
availability and distribution of data, as well as meta-data, should be done using other sources as
well. Therefore the distribution of this type of information on CD-ROM, using the latest digital
technology should be considered.
Policies on data ownership and licensing - There is a need for a clear data policy in the region
which include sections on intellectual property rights, distribution mechanism and pricing of
data. This should be addressed not only within the SADC region, but also as a major initiative of
the GSDI to achieve a greater understanding of the international and global implications of data
ownership, licensing, and usage.
Global Case Studies – Activities Contributing to a Global Spatial Data

Infrastructure
Mindful of the critical social, environmental, and economic issues shared regionally and often
globally, the assurance of a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure to enable cooperating nations
and organisations to collaborate on issues and solutions is extremely important. Without a
global reference environment where a consistent set of policies, standards, best practices and
co-operating organisations guide national and regional spatial data infrastructure development,
we run the risk of being unable to effectively and jointly address pressing issues in the global
context.
Today, there are a number of major initiatives that address one or more of the components of
the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure as defined by the GSDI Committee in March 1999.
Indeed, the GSDI’s success is dependant on the successes and compatibility that many of
these programs bring to the global marketplace – technology, data, standards, resources,
organisational mission, and distribution. This section of outlines some of the major the
contributors toward a GSDI. The Digital Earth Initiative, launched in the United States, China
and other nations is reviewed as an example of a program that has the potential to focus and
accelerate research and development programs needed to achieve the vision of a Digital Earth
(www.digitalearth.gov) and the critical supporting infrastructures needed at the local, national,
and global levels. Finally, this section includes a discussion of remaining areas of challenge
toward the formation of a pervasive GSDI.
GSDI Defined
At the 2nd GSDI Conference in 1997, the multi-national GSDI Steering Group defined the Global
Spatial Data Infrastructure as:
"… The policies, organisational remits, data, technologies, standards, delivery mechanisms, and
financial and human resources necessary to ensure that those working at the global and
regional scale are not impeded in meeting their objectives..."

An Overview of GSDI Infrastructure Elements
Given this definition, it is important to note that a number of programs address various aspects
of the GSDI at a global level. This section summarises some of the major programs that have
contributed to a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure. This list is by no means exhaustive, and in
fact has been abbreviated to provide examples of the work that is being accomplished towards
a GSDI.
For example, the International Steering Committee for Global Mapping is working to produce a
Global Map, to be released in 2000. The United Nations has had in place since the 1980s a
Global Resource Inventory Database and other similar resources. The International Geosphere
Biosphere Programme is working to provide global environmental data sets to scientists. The
Open GIS Consortium (www.opengis.org) is working to promote technological and computing
advances that can support the development and use of environmental data and their
accompanying infrastructures. The International Standards Organisation Technical Committee
211 (http://www.statkart.no/isotc211/welcome.html) is developing a metadata standard.
The International Steering Committee for Global Mapping (ISCGM) (http://www1.gsi-

mc.go.jp/iscgm-sec/index.html) was created as a response to Agenda 21 from the United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
Chapter 40 of Agenda 21 was a call for global environmental data. As a result, the Japanese
Geographical Survey Institute/Ministry of Construction took the lead on the project and formed
the ISCGM in 1994. Membership in ISCGM is comprised of representatives from national
mapping agencies, nongovernmental agencies, and academia. The result is a project involving
sixty-five different national mapping agencies and other organisations from every continent on
the earth. The goal is production of Global Map, which will contain elevation, vegetation land
use, drainage systems, transportation networks, and administrative boundaries, all at the
nominal scale of 1:1,000,000. In the process, focus on a strategic plan, specifications, and data
policy has been necessary.
In addition to UNCED, the United Nations has other organisations that play a role in the creation
and dissemination of environmental data. Often, these organisations have mandates to create
and make these data available. The primary environmental data organisation of the UN that
comes to mind is the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Global Resource
Inventory Database (GRID) (www.grid.unep.org). GRID was formed "to assist UNEP and its
partners by contributing environmental data and information, as well as methodological
techniques for handling such data, to enhance the scientific basis for decision making and help
advance sustainable development initiatives." GRID is a network of sites located around the
world, all of which provide environmental data. UNEP/GRID is composed of a variety of sites
(Arendal, Norway; Bangkok, Thailand; Christchurch, New Zealand; Denmark; Geneva,
Switzerland; Kathmandu, Nepal; Moscow, Russia; Nairobi, Kenya (headquarters); Ottawa,
Canada; Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil; Sioux Falls, USA; Tsukuba, Japan; Warsaw, Poland).
Each site provides some global data sets, but most often, they have a specific focus. For
example, the Kathmandu site focuses primarily on mountain related issues and data.
In addition to UNEP/GRID, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation
(www.unesco.org) has played a role in the development of global soils databases. In addition to
UNESCO, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) (www.fao.org) played a leading role
in the development of the 1:5,000,000 global soils database in the 1970s. FAO also has several

programs within its jurisdiction, including the Global Information and Early Warning System,
which "monitors the crop and food outlook at global and national levels to detect emerging food
shortages and assess possible emergency food requirements." The FAO's Forest Resources
Assessment (FRA) is a decadal tree census, and is used to help determine rates of
deforestation. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (www.undp.org) also has
an interest in global data set development efforts and has supported research in this direction.
The International Geosphere Biosphere Programme (IGBP) is a programme within the

International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). Within the IGBP is the Data and Information
System (IGBP-DIS) (http://www.cnrm.meteo.fr:8000/igbp/index.html). The goals of IGBP-DIS
are "to describe and understand the interactive physical, chemical and biological processes that
regulate the total Earth system, the unique environment that it provides for life, the changes that
are occurring in this system, and the manner in which they are influenced by human actions."
IGBP research currently focuses on six key questions that are addressed by eight Core
Projects:
How is the chemistry of the global atmosphere regulated and what is the role of biological
processes in producing and consuming trace gases?
How will global changes affect terrestrial ecosystems?
How does vegetation interact with physical processes of the hydrological cycle?
How will changes in land-use, sea level and climate alter coastal ecosystems, and what are the
wider consequences?
How do ocean biogeochemical processes influence and respond to climate change?
What significant climate and environmental changes have occurred in the past and what were
their causes?
Three crosscutting Framework Activities that include assists the integration of IGBP Core
Projects:
IGBP Data and Information System (IGBP-DIS)

Global Analysis, Interpretation and Modelling (GAIM)
Global Change System for Analysis, Research and Training (START), addressing regional
research initiatives and needs, jointly with the IHDP and WCRP.
Examples of the data available through these efforts include the global land 1 km AVHRR data
set, the IGBP DISCover data set developed from the AVHRR data, as well as the global FIRE
data.
The OpenGIS Consortium (http://www.opengis.org/) is an organisation "whose mission is to

promote the development and use of advanced open systems standards and techniques in the
area of geoprocessing and related information technologies."
The International Standards Organisation Technical Committee 211 (ISO/TC211)

(http://www.statkart.no/isotc211/welcome.html) goal is "standardisation in the field of
digital geographic information." According to their web site:

• This work aims to establish a structured set of standards for information concerning
objects or phenomena that are directly or indirectly associated with a location
relative to the Earth.
• These standards may specify, for geographic information, methods, tools and
services for data management (including definition and description), acquiring,
processing, analysing, accessing, presenting and transferring such data in
digital/electronic form between different users, systems and locations.
• The work shall link to appropriate standards for information technology and data
where possible, and provide a framework for the development of sector-specific
applications using geographic data.
The organisations and activities shown here do not cover all the activities described in the
Global Spatial Data Infrastructure definition. ISCGM is focusing on the data, standards, and
organisational commitments to generate and maintain a global framework of key geodata
themes. The Open GIS Consortium is interesting in promoting technological advancements and
standards. The ISO/TC211 is aiming toward the standardisation of environmental metadata.
And the Digital Earth Initiative (discussed in detail below) is working to link together many of
these activities to focus research, development and partnerships necessary to advance
capabilities needed to sustain the Digital Earth vision. Together, these different, and seemingly
disparate, activities can create a greater whole that can benefit many different people and
organisations.
A cube illustrates the contributions and relationships of the various organisations around the
world that have helped shape the GSDI. National and regional SDI efforts represented on the
one side of the cube illustrate the major resources, technology, metadata / data standards, and
best practices shared internationally. Many of the standards, technologies and practices have
been adopted or have influenced international standards are shown on a second face of the
cube. On the third face of the cube are organisations and activities, which have contributed to
specific areas of the GSDI. FAO / GRID have produced global soils data, the Global Map aims
to provide a consistent global set of geographic coverages, along with the commitment of
nations to maintain the data. The Open GIS Consortium and International Standards
Organisation bring data and metadata standards to the global community for use by all nations
and organisations.
Indeed, the efforts of these organisations have yielded key elements of the GSDI, many of
which have become part of the overall GSDI reference environment needed to help gain
compatibility at a transnational and global level. However, much more work needs to be
accomplished to address the remaining technology, policy, and resource issues that are limiting
the implementation of the GSDI. The Digital Earth initiative is discussed below as one example
of an activity focused on addressing some of the major challenge areas related to GSDI.
The Digital Earth - a Case Study in the Genesis of a Global Spatial Data
Infrastructure

In 1998, United States Vice President Al Gore communicated a vision for the future and
the way citizens would interact with global information resources to better comprehend
the complexity of our planet and our interactions with it.
A United States Digital Earth Interagency Working Group developed consensus that the
Digital Earth Initiative involves a national and international effort to plan and build a
cooperative use, Internet-based infrastructure to use vast quantities of geo-referenced
data and information resources, Earth science data, and cultural and historic data. This
query based and visually oriented data will be used by federal, state, local and tribal
government communities, academia, and the private sector for scientific applications,
practical decision-making, education, journalism, and other citizen accessible
applications. As user interface prototypes become available, it will also be possible to
interact with Digital Earth through Internet portals around the country, and obtain a
better level of access and interoperability with the Earth’s geospatial, social, and
economic data (www.digitalearth.gov).
Success of Digital Earth is directly correlated to the soundness of the infrastructure it
uses as a foundation. In addition, myriad protocols and standards arriving with the
World Wide Web must be accounted for in the development process. Network
infrastructure for Digital Earth will be based on the U.S. National Spatial Data
Infrastructure (NSDI) and the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI). Leveraging of
these programs is required to ensure full utilisation of best practice for creation of a core
infrastructure.
One of the major challenges for Digital Earth is to construct the organisational structure
that will enable citizens, industry, academia, and government interaction in developing
the initiative. These communities must then coordinate the focus of research and
development requirements to create the Digital Earth. Identification of technology,
organisational, policy, and other barriers to success needs to be well articulated among
the various organizing bodies to better implement solutions. The Digital Earth initiative
will work to focus the resources of its partner organisations to accelerate solutions to
barriers that prevent or limit the achievement of the Digital Earth vision.
The Digital Earth must also achieve a strong public-private partnership to link industry
and other non-government organisations with government. Government agents must
continue to conduct policy and technical meetings to support the PPP and the
international community. At present, the U.S. has a federal government structure in
place and is working with industry, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and
academia to nurture a sustaining membership for the PPP. At the international level,
the Chinese have instituted the international Digital Earth symposium (the first held in
Beijing, December 1999, with 25 countries) to be held biannually.
A characteristic of Digital Earth for outreach and education is the public engagement
value through the application of impressive 3D visualisation and immersive-interactive
computer technology display stations. Museums have experienced much success in
capturing the public’s attention with Digital Earth displays that provide global
perspectives of the planet using satellite monitoring technology. As the demonstration,

test beds, and scenarios increase the Digital Earth content, the public, including industry
and education, can be expected to increase awareness and support of this initiative.
This enhances support of the cross cutting program, that is GSDI and NSDI, which have
less connectivity with the popular media.
• Development of a strategic plan with a support community is requisite. A useful

scheme for defining the major components, or development areas for the Digital
Earth Initiative helps in focusing resources where they are most needed. Six
development areas have been identified as follows:
• Visualisation and Exploration (focused on the methods, hardware, and software

for viewing and exploring Digital Earth data; involves the user community through
the information science and human factors researchers and Information
Technology companies);
• Education and Outreach (focused on the users, scenarios, and partnerships that
add value and relevance to the DE; involves the user community through
museums, schools and the media);
• Science and Applications (focused on the development and validation community

for Digital Earth content; involves the user community through scientists, state
and local governments, and commercial application developers);
• Advanced Display Sites (focused on the projects, test bed prototypes, and
facilities through which the Digital Earth gets tested and used; involves the user
community, such as NASA centers and museums);
• Data Access and Distribution (focused on the gathers and distributors of geo-
referenced data; involves the user community through network bandwidth
providers and Earth Science Federations (e.g., DAACs));
• Standards and Architecture (focused on the infrastructure and interoperability

protocols for a sustainable Digital Earth; involves the user community through
organisations such as CEOS, OGC, FGDC, and NMOs).
Digital Earth is dependent upon many factors in the technology fields that may cross cut
through any one of the six development areas. Assessments of the technology
challenge will remain a consistent part of the Digital Earth initiatives so that as
technology gaps are identified; resources can then be marshalled to address these
gaps. Coordination with the National Academies of Sciences must be maintained to
conduct assessment in computer technology, web networks, advanced algorithms,
remote sensing, as well as the mapping sciences. The following technology
development areas have been highlighted for the Digital Earth Initiative:
• Computational Science (e.g., high-speed computing for modelling and

simulations; integration and overlaying of diverse sources of geo-referenced

information, interactive 3-D visualisation, display and navigation, computation of
information products on demand);
• Mass Storage (e.g., distributed active archives with real-time access of large,
multi-resolution data sets);
• Satellite Imagery (e.g., 1 meter to one kilometre seamless resolution for the
planet);
• Broadband Networks (e.g., high-speed networks and public access nodes for
transmission, interaction, and collaboration);
• Interoperability (e.g., Internet and World-Wide-Web standard protocols); and
• Metadata (e.g., advances in automated database documentation software).

The success of the Digital Earth Initiative is heavily dependent on the continued
progress of national, regional and the global SDI initiatives and other global geospatial
programs discussed in this Cookbook. The impacts of policies, technologies, and
organisations at local, national, and international scales are interdependent and
therefore complex. Digital Earth provides an overarching vision for the future that may
well benefit the creation and maturation of the GSDI and associated programs through
the collaboration of efforts for these challenging developments.
More information on the Digital Earth Initiative can be found at www.digitalearth.gov. A
draft version of the Digital Earth Reference Model (DERM) can be found at
www.digitalearth.gov/derm/.
Summary - Furthering the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure
The case studies and recommendations in this chapter, along with the information provided
elsewhere this document have detailed the many initiatives underway that are contributing
towards the objectives of the GSDI. However, much more work needs to be accomplished if
the GSDI is truly to be a global resource from which all nations and organisations can access
resources to build compatible infrastructures. Further advancements in data, standards,
delivery, and technology are needed. However, a much more focused effort needs to be placed
on outreach and education, resources, policy and legal issues related to SDI development if
GSDI objectives are to be achieved.
In responding to these needs, the GSDI Steering Group has initiated a number of initiatives in
calendar year 2000 to further advance the objectives of the GSDI:
Business Case Study - Emphasis is being placed on the development of a Business Case for
Spatial Data Infrastructures. The study will identify the economic, social, environmental, and
disaster management benefits that can be achieved through development of compatible
national and regional SDI's, and the global SDI.

Address Legal and Economic Issues– The GSDI Steering Group has formed a Legal and
Economic working group to focus on addressing the implications and potential solutions to legal
and economic (funding) mechanisms that underpin the GSDI
Improve Outreach and Communications – the Communication and Awareness Working Group
will focus on developing and implementing the programs necessary to raise awareness,
articulate the value and secure additional support for the GSDI.
Your support of the Committee and working groups is encouraged. Nations must be able to
establish Spatial Data Infrastructures that address internal matters of concern, while providing
the ability to work at the transnational and global levels to address the important issues such as
those outlined by the UN Agenda 21, the Kyoto Protocol. Please contact us at www.GSDI.org,
and help us achieve our goals. Together, we can establish and SDI that allows us all to act
locally, nationally, and globally.

Chapter 10: Terminology
Editor: Andrew Jones, Australia
INTRODUCTION
‘If we are to understand each other, we must comprehend a common language.’
The truth in this statement would be apparent to anyone who has visited a foreign country for
the first time. The initial encounter with an unfamiliar national language can be a bewildering
and threatening experience. The sudden inability to effectively communicate quickly frustrates
even the simplest tasks and pleasures. A single burning question repeatedly goes through your
mind; ‘Why didn’t I take those language lessons before I left?’
Clearly a common language is an essential prerequisite to effective communication between

any two people or cultures. However, a simple knowledge of a language’s vocabulary is not
sufficient to guarantee effective communication. A word can have several meanings depending
on the context in which it is used. Similarly, a concept can be referenced by several words, each
communicating a different connotation or level of severity.
A comprehension of a language’s subtleties and nuances is therefore needed if it is to be used

effectively and unambiguously. The use of the wrong word can offend or mislead, leading to the
classic ‘failure to communicate’. This in turn can cause misunderstanding, dysfunctional
outcomes and even hostility. The precise use and comprehension of words by both
communicating parties is vital.
The issues associated with the correct use of a language can extend far beyond day-to-day
communication. Every field of endeavor, from engineering to cookery, has its own language and
vocabulary. In order to participate in discussions on the subject, it is necessary to understand
both the terms and the context in which they are to be used. The imprecise use of a technical or
professional language (for example, by using two terms interchangeably when, in fact, they
have distinctly different connotations) gives rise to the same traps and dangers associated with
the inappropriate use of a spoken language.
The risks in failing to have a common understanding of both spoken and technical languages
are therefore clear. However such risks can compound considerably when it is necessary to
translate a technical term from one language (for example, English) into a totally different
language (for example, Mandarin Chinese). The different cultures, language structures and
character sets give rise to some very real problems in ensuring that the term has precisely the
same meaning in both languages. The issue becomes one of mapping the term in both
languages to a clearly identified unique common concept. This, in turn, places considerable
emphasis on the philosophy of concepts and the progressive decomposition of complex
concepts into their base conceptual components.
The following paragraphs will consider the development and management of terminology in the
field of Geographic Information. The discussion will consider the principles that are applied

when selecting and defining concepts, terms and definitions, with particular emphasis on the
requirements of the International Organization for Standardisation. This will be followed by
instances of terminology implementation in practice.
THE CONTEXT AND RATIONALE OF TERMINOLOGY
The development of terminology involves the simultaneous consideration of three inextricably

linked processes, being
The identification of a concept

The nomination of a term for that concept
The construction of a definition for that term that unambiguously describes the concept
The three processes are guided by the objective that, for each concept, there will be a single
term (and vice-versa) and for each term there will be a single definition (and vice versa).
From the outset it should be stated that it is not the objective of the terminology process to
‘reinvent the wheel’. There are terms and concepts that are found in general language
dictionaries and have definitions that correspond to definitions in the field of geographic
information. Similarly, there are terms and concepts that have already been defined in
International Standards or can be found in similar documentation. These should be adopted
whenever possible, avoiding the unnecessary proliferation or duplication of terms.
Quite often, however, there are instances where the definitions in general language dictionaries
are insufficiently rigorous or concise to describe the concept. In such cases, it is appropriate to
refine or adapt the concept, term and definition as appropriate.
Identification of Concepts
The identification of concepts is arguably the most important part of the terminology
process. It is also the most complex and demanding part. The complexity stems from the
fact that a concept rarely exists in isolation. It is very often built on a number of simpler
concepts, giving rise to a hierarchical concept system.
Consider, for example, the concept of:
spatial referencing by coordinates,
which is
the description of position by means of 1-, 2- or 3-dimensional coordinates.
This is dependent on the concept of a:
coordinate reference system,
which is

a coordinate system which is related to the real world by a datum.
This, in turn, combines the concepts of:
coordinate system
which is
a set of mathematical rules for specifying how coordinates

are to be assigned to points.
and
datum
which is
a set of parameters that defines the position of the origin, the scale
and the orientation of the coordinate axes
Further decomposition of ‘coordinate system’ and ‘datum’ into component concepts is possible
(for example, into ‘coordinate’, ‘origin’, ‘scale’, ‘axis’) as is aggregation into other more complex
concepts (for example, ‘Cartesian coordinate system’, ‘compound coordinate reference
system’).
A concept system, therefore, comprises a set of concepts that are distinct but closely related to
each other. Each concept is capable of separate description and may also be capable of further
decomposition. However collectively they are components of a broader concept.
The concise decomposition and identification of concepts is an essential precursor to the

allocation of terms and the articulation of definitions. The development of a concept system
usually proceeds in a top-down fashion, starting with the identification of the broader
concept (for example, spatial referencing by coordinates). The process of decomposition
ceases when the concepts become so basic that they do not need to be defined.
Terms
The objective of the terminology process is to identify a single term for each concept. The term
is referred to as the ‘Preferred Term’ and is adopted as being the primary descriptor for the
given concept. Sometimes there may also be a shortened form of the Preferred Term, referred
to as the Abbreviated Term. This is an equivalent but more convenient version of the term
formed by omitting words or letters from the full name.
Three other classifications also need to be mentioned, being “Admitted Term’, Deprecated
Term’ and Obsolete Term’. An ‘Admitted Term’ is a synonym for a preferred term. Typically such
terms are national variants of the preferred term and should be identified as such in any register
or dictionary.

A ‘Deprecated Term’ is one that has been judged undesirable for use in relation to a particular
concept. An ‘Obsolete Term’ is one that is no longer in common use.
The selection of terms needs some care. A term should not be a trade name or the name of a
research project. Similarly, it should not be a colloquial term (i.e. a local informal term used to
describe a formal term).
To avoid ambiguity, there should be a single definition associated with each concept. It may be
necessary to refine the terminology in some instances to ensure that its field of application is
understood. Consider, for example, the term ‘object’ which has broad application in the
information technology field. It is sometimes necessary to identify a specific type of object that
is characterised by particular attributes, relationships or behaviour. In such cases, the term can be
adapted to ensure that it is specific to the particular concept. In the case of ‘object’, two
adaptations might be:
spatial object
object used for representing a spatial characteristic of a feature
and
geometric object
spatial object representing a geometric set.
The realization of the one-to-one correspondence between concept, term and definition is not
always immediately possible, particularly in instances when multiple terms have been used
interchangeably for long periods of time. An example is provided by the terms geodetic height
and ellipsoidal height. Both terms have the same definition (distance of a point from the
ellipsoid measured along the perpendicular from the ellipsoid to this point positive if upwards or
outside of the ellipsoid). The two terms continue to be used interchangeably and there appears
to be no consensus on which is preferred
Definitions
The role of a definition is to precisely describe the content of an identified concept. It

should be as brief as possible, containing only that information that makes the concept
unique. It should also focus on what the concept encapsulates rather than what it
excludes. Thus the following definition for lexical language would be considered
unsatisfactory.
language whose syntax is expressed in terms of symbols defined

as character strings rather than letters from then Greek alphabet
Deleting the final seven words provides a more satisfactory outcome.
language whose syntax is expressed in terms of symbols

defined as character strings

A definition should neither be too broad or too narrow and should only describe a single
concept. It may be complex, referring to other concepts (either basic or elsewhere
defined) through their terms. However it should not include the characteristics of other
concepts as part of its text. Should this happen, then the decomposition process has not
been undertaken correctly and must be reviewed. For example, consider the following
proposed definition for data quality element.
quantitative component documenting the quality of an

identifiable collection of data.
It does define the concept. However, it also describes a second concept through the
words ‘identifiable collection of data’. This should be given its own term and definition,
resulting in the following:
dataset - identifiable collection of data
data quality element - quantitative component documenting the quality of a dataset
The relationships between concepts should be evident in the structure of the definitions.
In particular, the structures should reflect the connections between the concepts and the
delimitations that distinguish them from each other. Consider the following terms and
definitions:
conformance assessment process - process for assessing the conformance of an

implementation to an International Standard
conformance clause - clause defining what is necessary

in order to meet the requirements of the International Standard
conformance testing - testing of a product to determine

the extent to which the product is a conforming implementation
conformance test report - summary of the conformance

to the International Standard as well as all the details of the
testing that supports the given overall summary
All four are concerned with quality assessment. Conformance assessment process is the top-
level concept, being the process for assessing the conformance of an implementation to an
International Standard. The other three terms identify distinct lower level concepts that are
incorporated into the process, being a statement of requirements, the test itself and the
subsequent report. The relationships and structures are evident in the terms and associated
definitions.
The validity of a definition can be tested through application of the substitution principle.
This involves replacing the term by its definition in the body of a text in which it is used.
If the substitution does not affect the meaning of the text, the definition is valid. If such is
not the case, the definition needs to be reconsidered.

The substitution principle can be particularly useful for identifying instances of circularity
in definitions. If one concept is defined using a second concept, and that second
concept is defined using the term or elements of the term designating the first concept,
the resulting definitions are said to be circular. Such instances do not clarify the
understanding of the concepts involved and must be avoided.
THE ISO 19100-SERIES STANDARDS
The International Organisation for Standardisation, through its technical committee ISO/TC
211, is developing a family of International Standards for geographic information. The
standards are collectively referred to as the ISO 19100-series. A member of the series, ISO
19104 Geographic Information – Terminology, will provide rules for writing definitions and for
the structuring of terminology records. These are being applied in all other members of the
series.
ISO 19104 defines twelve fields that may be included in a terminology record. Five of the fields
are mandatory and must be included in all conforming implementations. The remainder may be
excluded from profiles of the standard or simply not populated if it is appropriate to do so. The
fields are as follows:
entry number [mandatory] – an arbitrary value implying no structure or hierarchy;
preferred term [mandatory] – the term to be associated with the concept;
abbreviated term – if preferred, the abbreviated term shall precede the full form, otherwise an
abbreviated form shall follow the full form;
admitted term(s) – national variants shall be followed by a country code as defined in ISO
3166-2, numeric 3-digit code is used for the IT-interface (i.e. stored in the database), while the
meaning of this code is presented in the human language used by the user (i.e. the human
interface);
definition [mandatory] – if taken from another normative document, a reference shall be

added in square brackets after the definition; or, if referring to another concept in the
vocabulary, then that concept shall be named by its preferred term and presented in bold face
characters;
deprecated or obsolete terms (in alphabetical order);
references to related entries;
examples of term usage;
notes – may be used to provide additional information, (if a definition has been adapted from a
source, this may be explained in a note);
beginning date of the instance [mandatory];

terminological data type [mandatory];
ending date of the instance.
ISO19104 also makes allowance for the designation of term equivalents, these being the
preferred, admitted and abbreviated terms in languages other than their definition language.
Such equivalents shall be preceded by:
the numeric 3-digit country code as defined in ISO 3166-2 if needed; and
the Terminology alphabetic-3 digit language code as defined in ISO 639-2 (e.g. "fra" for French,
"deu" for German).
IMPLEMENTATION APPROACHES
Some Current Implementation Instances
The most commonly encountered approach to terminology implementation is the provision of a

glossary of terms as part of a publication or through a web site. Typically the glossary will list the
terms and definitions and may provide references to the sources of the definitions in some
instances.
There are many examples of such listings (including the Glossary within this document). For
example, the Digital Geographic Information Exchange Standard (DIGEST) version 2.1 includes
a terminology listing in Part 1 of its documentation. Similarly, the Association for Geographic
Information and the University of Edinburgh Department of Geography host an on-line dictionary
of GIS terms. The dictionary includes definitions for 980 terms compiled from a variety of
sources which either relate directly to GIS or which GIS users may come across in the course of
their work. It includes definitions, references to related terms plus references and further
reading. Searching can be done from an alphabetic list or through a search by category. A list of
acronyms is included.
Clause 4 in each of the ISO 19100-series standards contains the terminology for concepts
that are used or developed within that standard. The clauses are fully compliant with the
provisions of ISO 19104 Geographic Information – Terminology. In addition, ISO/TC 211
have sponsored development of an on-line terminology repository that can be freely
accessed via the Internet. The repository lists all terms, definitions, notes and examples
included in the ISO 19100-series standards. It is an attempt to make the terminology as
widely available as possible and thus promote the consistent use of terms and concepts.
Registries and the Need for Unique Identification
In the preceding sections, considerable emphasis has been placed on the principle that there
should be a one-to-one relationship between a concept, its term and its definition. In the vast

majority of instances where this is possible, it is tempting to consider the term to be the unique
identifier for the concept. The term and the concept are both unique and are closely linked to
each other. Why shouldn’t the term be considered to be a unique identifier?
In fact, there is no reason at all why this should not be the case provided the term never needs
to be translated into a different language. If, however, translation is required, it then becomes
necessary to ensure that the original and translated terms can both be unambiguously linked to
the original concept. The use of a unique identifier that is associated with all translations of the
term provides a mechanism for doing this. The original term provided through the authoring
language is not suitable as the identifier.
At the time of writing, ISO/TC 211 is considering the issue of unique identification as part of its
deliberations on Cultural and Linguistic Adaptability. In particular, it is considering the
establishment of a terminology register in which all listed terms would have a unique registration
identifier. A number of options for unique identification have been proposed, ranging from a
sequential number based on the order of registration, though to more complex numbering
schemes. The main consideration, however, is that the identifier be unique and that its
association with its concept never change.
REFERENCES AND LINKAGES
ISO 704:2000, Terminology Work – Principles and Methods
ISO/TC 211 N 1320: Text for DIS 19104, Geographic Information – Terminology, as sent to ISO
Central Secretariat for issuing as Draft International Standards, September 2002.
The Digital Geographic Information Exchange Standard (DIGEST), Edition 2.1, produced and
issued by the Digital Geographic Information Working Group (DGIWG), September 2000.

Annex A. Abbreviations and Terminology used in the GSDI Cookbook
Abbreviations
ANZLIC, Australia and New Zealand Land Information Council

API Application Programming Interface
COM, Component Object Model
CEN, Comité Européen de Normalisation
CORBA, Common Object Request Broker Architecture
DIGEST, Digital Exchange Standards
DIF, Directory Interchange Format
DTD, Document Type Declaration
FGDC, Federal Geographic Data Committee
FTP, File Transfer Protocol
GEO, Geospatial Metadata Profile
GIF, Graphics Interchange Format
GIS, Geographic Information System
GML, Geography Markup Language
HTML, HyperText Markup Language
HTTP, HyperText Transfer Protocol
ISO TC/211, Technical Committee 211 of the International Organisation for Standarisation
JPEG, Joint Photographic Expert Group
OGC, Open GIS Consortium
OGDI, Open Geographic Datastore Interface
PNG, Portable Network Graphics
SDTS, Spatial Data Transfer Standard
SQL/MM, Spatial Database Standard SQL/MultiMedia
TCP/IP, Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol
UML, Unified Modeling Language
URL, Uniform Resource Locator
UNIX, UNiversal Interactive eXecutive
VPF, Vector Product Format
W3C, World Wide Web Consortium
WKB, Well-Known-Binary
WKT, Well-Known-Text
WWW, World Wide Web
XML, Extensible Markup Language
Glossary of Terms
Actor <UML term>

Coherent set of roles that users of an entity can play when interacting with the entity.
[ISO 19103]
Application Programming Interface (API)

Any set of routines generally available for use by programmers.

[http://www.cknow.com]
Example: An operating system has APIs for a variety of disk/file handling tasks.
Note: APIs are written to provide portable code. The programmer only has to worry about the
call and its parameters and not the details of implementation, which may vary from system to
system.
Attribute
Property which describes a geometrical, topological, thematic, or other characteristic of an
entity.
[ISO 19117]
Bandwidth
The amount of data that can be sent through a network connection, measured in bits per
second (high bandwidth allows fast transmission or high volume transmission)
[Computer User High Tech Dictionary www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary/index.htm]
Bayesian Probability
The Bayesian Probability Theorem relates observed effects to the a priori probabilities of those
effects in order to estimate the probabilities of underlying causes.
[from http://www.singinst.org/GISIA/meta/glossary.html]
Buffer
Geometric object that contains all direct positions whose distance from a specified geometric
object is less than or equal to a given distance
[ISO 19107]
Catalogue
A single collection of metadata entries that is managed together.
Catalogue Service
A service that responds to requests for metadata in a Catalogue that complies with certain
browse or search criteria.
Note: The metadata may be for dataset instances (e.g., dataset catalogue) or may contain
service metadata (service catalogue).
Catalogue Entry
A single metadata entry made accessible through a catalogue service or stored in a catalogue.
Clearinghouse
A distributed network of geospatial data producers, managers, and users linked electronically.
[from Executive Order 12906,
http://www.fgdc.gov/publications/documents/geninfo/execord.html]
Note: A clearinghouse incorporates the data discovery and distribution components of a spatial
data infrastructure.
Client-Server

An architectural approach to organising and distributing resources within a networked computer
system.
[from http://www.ethoseurope.org/ethos/Techterm.nsf/All/CLIENT+SERVERS]
Note 1: Under a Client-Server arrangement, resources such as files, databases and printers
are managed by servers. Request for access to these managed resources is generated by
clients. When a server fulfils the request of a client it is said to have serviced the client.
Note 2: See also medium client, thick client, thin client
Closure
union of the interior and boundary of a topological or geometric object
Convex Hull
Smallest convex set containing a given geometric object
Coordinate
One of a sequence of N numbers designating the position of a point in N-dimensional space
Core Data
A data set that is necessary for optimal use of many other GIS applications, i.e. that provides a
sufficient spatial reference for most geo-located data.
Examples: The geodetic network. The spatial cadastral framework.
Note: Core may refer to the fewest number of features and characteristics required to represent
a given data theme.
Coverages
Feature that acts as a function to return one or more feature attribute values for any direct
position within its spatio-temporal domain
[ISO 19123]
Curve
1-dimensional geometric primitive, representing the continuous image of a line
[ISO 19107]
Data Dictionary
A collection of descriptions of the data objects or items in a data model for the benefit of
programmers and others who need to refer to them.
[from http://www.searchwebservices.techtarget.com]
Note: When developing programs that use a data model, the data dictionary can be consulted to
understand where a data item fits in the structure, what values it may contain, and basically
what the data item means in real-world terms.
Data Management
The process of planning, coordinating and controlling an organisation’s data resource.
[from http://www.comp.glam.ac.uk/pages/staff/tdhutchings/chapter5/sld007.htm]

Data Set
A specific packaging of geospatial information provided by a data or software producer, also
known as a feature collection, image, or coverage.
Data Store
On-line or off-line repository of data sets.
Note: A data store can take many forms, including a file-based repository and a data
warehouse. A data store may also contain text and attribute data related to a data set.
Data Warehouse
A single, complete and consistent store of data obtained from a variety of sources and made
available to end users in a way they can understand and use in a business context.
[Data Warehouse, Barry Devlin, Addison Wesley Longman Inc, 1997]
Datum
Parameter or set of parameters that serve as a reference or basis for the calculation of other
parameters.
[ISO 19111]
Example: In the case of a geodetic datum, the semi-major axis and flattening are the
parameters that define size and shape of a spheroid. These, in turn, are used to generate
parameters for the calculation of geodetic coordinates (latitude, longitude, height) as well as
distance and direction.
Direct Position
Position described by a single set of coordinates within a coordinate reference system.
[ISO 19107]
Example: The latitude, longitude and height of a survey mark within the WGS84 coordinate
reference system.
Discovery Metadata
The minimum amount of information that needs to be provided by a data supplier to convey to
an inquirer the nature and content of the data resource that it holds.
Note: Discovery Metadata falls into broad categories to answer the ”what, why when who,
where and how” questions about geospatial data.
Distance
The length of the path between two points.
[Dictionary of Mathematics, J.M McGregor Pty Ltd, 1981]
Document Type Declaration (DTD)

A set of rules that define the structure and elements in an XML document encoding.
[from ISO 19118]
Entity
An object that exists and is distinguishable from other objects

[Database System Concepts, H.F. Korth and A. Silberschatz, McGraw-Hill International
Editions]
Example: 300 Richmond Rd, Netley, South Australia is an entity since it uniquely identifies one
particular place in the unverse.
Note: An entity may be concrete, such as a person or a book, or it may be abstract,

such as a holiday or a concept.
Extensible Markup Language (XML)

A document creation language developed to replace HTML.
Note 1: XML was developed by the World Wide Web Consortium
Note 2: XML both works to specify document structure and, like HTML before it, markup.
Note 3: XML can be used to specify data set structure and to transfer data sets.
Feature
Abstraction of real world phenomena
[ISO19101]
Note: A feature may occur as a type (for example, bridge) or an instance (for example, Sydney
Harbor Bridge).
Feature Catalogue
Catalogue containing definitions and descriptions of the feature types, feature attributes, and
feature associations occurring in one or more sets of geographic data, together with any feature
operations that may be applied.
Fundamental Data
A dataset for which several government agencies, regional groups and/or industry groups
require a comparable national coverage in order to achieve their corporate objectives and
responsibilities.
Note: Fundamental data are a subset of the framework.
Framework
Basic geographic data incorporating the most common data themes that geographic data users
need, as well as an environment to support the development and use of those data.
Note 1: The framework’s key aspects are:
specific layers of digital geographic data with content specifications

procedures, technology, and guidelines that provide for integration, sharing, and use of these
data; and
institutional relationships and business practices that encourage the maintenance and use of
data.

Note 2: The framework represents a foundation on which organisations can build by adding
their own detail and compiling other data sets.
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

A client/server protocol for exchanging files with a host computer
Geodetic Control
A set of points on the surface of the Earth, the positions of which have been accurately
determined using surveying and computing techniques that take into account the Earth’s
curvature, topography, gravity field and atmosphere.
Note 1: Geodetic control points are established to provide consistent and compatible data for
surveying and mapping projects spanning moderate to large areas or distances. Objects located
with respect to these points can be relied upon for known position and accuracy.
Note 2: The positions of geodetic control points are described by geodetic coordinates.
Note 3: Geodetic control points are usually permanent physical monuments placed in the
ground and precisely marked, located, and documented. However, a suitable natural or man-
made feature may also serve as the physical point.
Note 4: Geodetic control points are usually related to each other through the development of a
geodetic control network that serves as the foundation for map and survey data registration and
integration.
[In part from http://www.bayfieldcounty.org/LandRecords/geodetic.htm]
Geodetic Coordinates
Coordinate system in which position is specified by geodetic latitude, geodetic longitude and (in
the three-dimensional case) ellipsoidal height
[ISO 19111]
Geographic Information
Information concerning phenomena implicitly or explicitly associated with a location relative to
the Earth
[ISO 19101]
Geographic Information System (GIS)

A computer system capable of assembling, storing, manipulating, and displaying geographically
referenced information, i.e. data identified according to their locations.
[from http://www.usgs.gov/research.gis/title.html]
Note: Practitioners also regard the total GIS as including operating personnel and the data that
go into the system.
Geography Markup Language (GML)

An XML encoding for transport and storage of geographic information including both the spatial
and non-spatial properties of geographic features
[from ISO 19136]

Geospatial Data
Data that identifies the geographic location and characteristics of natural or constructed features
and boundaries on the Earth.
Note: Geospatial data may be derived from, among other things, remote sensing, mapping, and
surveying technologies. Statistical data may be included in this definition at the discretion of the
collecting agency.
Geospatial Metadata Profile (GEO)

An application profile of Z39.50 written to support search of metadata using the U.S. Federal
Geographic Data Committee's Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata [1] issued in
June 1994.
[FGDC]
Note: The profile is based on ANSI/NISO Z39.50-1995 Information Retrieval (Z39.50):

Application Service Definition and Protocol Specification
HyperText Markup Language (HTML)

The set of markup symbols or codes inserted in a file intended for display on a World Wide Web
browser page.
[from http://www.searchwebservices.techtarget.com]
Note: The markup tells the Web browser how to display a Web page's words and images for the
user. Each individual markup code is referred to as an element (but many people also refer to it
as a tag).
HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP)

The set of rules for exchanging files (text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia
files) on the World Wide Web.
[ from http://www.searchwebservices.techtarget.com]
Interoperability
Capability to communicate, execute programs, or transfer data among various functional units in
a manner that requires the user to have little or no knowledge of the unique characteristics of
those units
[ISO 19118]
Intersection
The point at which two or more lines cross each other or a set of points that two or more
geometrical figures have in common.
ISO 23950 Information Retrieval (Z39.50): Application Service Definition and Protocol
Specification.
An International Standard specifying a client/server based protocol for Information Retrieval.
Java

A cross-platform programming language from Sun Microsystems that can be used to create
animations and interactive features on World Wide Web Pages.
Map Projection
Coordinate conversion from a geodetic coordinate system to a plane.
[ISO 19111]
Note: A map projection allows the systematic representation of the curved surface of the Earth
on a flat sheet of paper or computer screen. Inherent in the projection process is the distortion
of one or more characteristics of the representation, being scale, area or angles. It is important
to select a projection that minimizes the distortions in the geographic area of interest.
Map Server
A server that accesses spatial information and renders it to the client suitable for display as one
or more layers in a map composed of many layers.
Medium Client
A client that combines the advantage of leveraging most of the work in the server while also
exploiting some local computing power.
[from Nadia Moertiyoso and Nin Choong Yow, Nanyang Technical University, Singapore]
Note 1: Examples of this architecture are Java applets on common desk top environments
Note 2: See also client-server, thick client, thin client
Metadata
A formalised set of descriptive properties which is shared by a community to include guidance
on expected structures, definitions, repeatability, and conditionality of elements.
Note 1: Metadata allows a producer to describe a dataset fully so that users can understand the
assumptions and limitations and evaluate the dataset's applicability for their intended use.
Note 2: In the context of geographic information, metadata is applicable to independent

datasets, aggregations of datasets, individual geographic features, and the various classes of
objects that compose a feature.
Metadata Entry
a set of metadata that pertains specifically to a data set.
Metadata Schema
Conceptual schema describing metadata structure and dependencies
[ISO 19101]
Multi-Media
Communication that uses any combination of different media, and may or may not involve
computers. Multimedia may include text, spoken audio, music, images, annimation and video
Neural Network

A network of many simple processors that imitates a biological neural network.
Note: Neural networks have some ability to "learn" from experience and are used in applications
such as speech recognition, robotics, medical diagnosis, signal processing and weather
forecasting.
Object-Oriented Programming
A type of non-procedural programming where the emphasis is on data objects and their
manipulation instead of processes.
Note: In object-oriented programming, objects are data structures encapsulated with routines
(called methods) that work on the data. Only the methods can work on the data. Objects are
grouped into class instances. The method code can change so long as all the interfaces remain
the same. Classes are arranged in a hierarchy and methods in one pass to others in line
(inheritance).
Object
Entity with a well defined boundary and identity that encapsulates state and behavior
[ISO 19107]
NOTE: This term was first used in this way in the general theory of object-oriented
programming, and later adopted for use in this same sense in UML. An object is an instance of
a class. Attributes and relationships represent state. Operations, methods, and state machines
represent behavior.
OGC Web Mapping Testbed

An OGC-sponsored initiative to prototype web-mapping technology that led to the development
of OpenGIS Web Map Service Interface Implementation Specification version 1.0.0
Open Geographic Datastore Interface (OGDI)

An application programming interface that uses standardised access methods to work in
conjunction with GIS software packages (the application) and various geospatial data products
[http://ogdi.sourceforge.net]
OLE DB
Microsoft's strategic low-level interface to data across an organization.
Ontology
A controlled, hierarchical vocabulary for describing a knowledge system
[http://magpie.ucalgary.ca/magpie/help/magpie_ontology_definition.html]
OpenGIS
Transparent access to mixed geodata and geoprocessing resources in a networked
environment.
[from http://www.tgic.state.tx.us/tac/ogc.ppt]
Note: Interoperability established by OpenGIS standards is intended to enable web users to

combine data from many locations by eliminating obstacles created by platform differences.

Orthoimagery,
Aerial photography from which distortion and ground relief has been removed so that ground
features are displayed in their true planimetric positions.
Paleotemporal
The recording of time intervals that are related to the geological time scale
Parse
The analysis of a statement in a human or artificial language so that it can be used by a
computer.
Note: Parsing is used to convert natural language statements into high-level programming
language, and to covert high-level programming language into machine language.
Point
0-dimensional geometric primitive, representing a position.
[ISO 19107]
Polygon
A plane figure bounded by a number of straight sides.
Portrayal
Presentation of information to humans.
[19117]
Prime Meridian
Meridian from which the longitudes of other meridians are quantified
[ISO 19111]
Note: In almost all instances, the prime meridian is the Greenwich Meridian.
Profile
Set of one or more base standards or subsets of base standards, and, where applicable, the
identification of chosen clauses, classes, options and parameters of those base standards, that
are necessary for accomplishing a particular function
[ISO 19106]
Projection
See 'map projection'
Raster
Usually rectangular pattern of parallel scanning lines forming or corresponding to the display on
a cathode ray tube
Schema
Formal description of a model
[ISO 19101]

Semantics
The study of the meaning of linguistic expressions.
[from http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~rthomaso/documents/general/what-is-semantics.html]
Note: The language can be a natural language, such as English or Navajo, or an artificial
language, like a computer programming language.
Service Entry
The metadata for an invokable service or operation, also known as operation or service
metadata.
Simple Feature
Feature restricted to 2D geometry with linear interpolation between vertices, having both spatial
and non spatial attributes
[ISO 19125-1]
Spatial
Of or relating to size, area or position
[Collins Concise Dictionary]
Spatial Data
Data concerned with the size, area or position of any location, event or phenomenon.
Spatial Data Infrastructure

The technology, policies, standards, and human resources necessary to acquire, process, store,
distribute, and improve utilization of geospatial data.
Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS)

A standard developed by US government agencies to promote and facilitate the transfer of
digital spatial data between dissimilar computer systems, while preserving information meaning
and minimizing the need for information external to the transfer.
Spatial Database Standard SQL/MultiMedia (SQL/MM)

A database standard that supports abstract data types in the form of full-text and documents,
image, sound, animation, music and video.
Spheroid
A body or curved surface that is similar to a sphere but is lengthened or shortened in one
direction
Note - Spheroids used to represent the shape of the Earth are wider at the equator than
between the poles.
Stakeholder
A stakeholder in a program is any person or institution who
has a controlling influence in the program

benefits in some way from the program
has an interest in the process and/or outcome of the program
has resources invested in the program, or
has other programs that may depend on the effectiveness of the language program.
[from
http:/www.sil.org/lingualinks/literacy/ReferenceMaterials/GlosaryofLiteracyTerms/WhatIsAStake
holder.htm]
Stove-Pipe(d)
A term used to catagorise computer-based systems that have been developed to perform
specific functions in a stand-alone capacity and are thus ill-suited to data sharing with other
systems.
Note: the term is also used when describing organizations that have highly compartmentalized
structures and procedures.
String
A sequence of text characters.
[The Unified Modeling Language User Guide, G Booch et al, Addison-Wesley]
Surface
2-dimensional geometric primitive, locally representing a continuous image of a region of a
plane
[ISO 19107]
Symmetric Difference
The set of elements that comprise two sets or objects but omitting the elements that lie at the
intersection of the sets or objects.
Note: Given two sets A and B, the symmetric difference is their union minus their intersection.
Tabular Data
Data that is stored in a tabular format.
Example: A database table. A table of statistics in a hard-copy report.
Temporal
Of or relating to time.
Thick Client
A client that is functionally rich in terms of hardware and software.
Note 1: Thick clients are capable of storing and executing their own applications as well as
network centric ones. Thick client typically refers to a personal computer.
Note 2: See also Client-Server, Medium Client, Thin Client
Thin Client

A client that has limited local resources in terms of hardware and software.
Note 1: A thin client functionally requires processing time, applications and services to be
provided from a centralised server. Network computers are prime examples of the development
of thin clients.
Note 2: See also Client-Server, Medium Client, Thick Client
Tile
A subset of a mapping or geographic information data set, the subset being defined by a
specific geographic boundaries.
Note: A map sheet that comprises part of a standard map series is sometimes called a map tile.
Earlier geographic information systems divided their data stores into tiles to work around file
size limitations.
Topology
A branch of geometry describing the properties of a figure that are unaffected by continuous
distortion
Note: In GIS, topology is mostly concerned with identifying the connectivity of networks and the
adjacency of polygons.
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

A communication protocol used to ease communication between computers over a network.
Note 1: TCP/IP is the primary protocol used on the Internet (TCP/IP is really a suite of
protocols).
Note 2: You will also often see "TCP/IP" address (or just IP address). This is a unique
numbered address expressed in dot notation most often (e.g., 64.121.76.4).
Unified Modeling Language (UML)

A schema language that is used to develop computer-interpretable (data) models
[Derived from ISO 19103]
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)

An Internet logical address. E.g., http://www.cknow.com/
UNIX, (UNiversal Interactive eXecutive)

A multiuser and multitasking operating system developed by AT&T in the early 1970s.
Use Case <UML Term>

A description of a set of sequences of actions, including variants, that a system performs that
yields an observable result of value to an actor

[The Unified Modeling Language User Guide, G Booch et al, Addison-Wesley]
User Interface
The set of components that allow a computer and its user to communicate with each other.
Note: The computer screen is part of the user interface, as is the keyboard and mouse.
Vector
Quantity having direction as well as magnitude
[ISO 19123]
Vector Product Format (VPF)

A US military data transfer format.
W3C see World Wide Web Consortium
Web Coverage Server (WCS)

A service that supports the networked interchange of geo-spatial data as coverages containing
values or properties of geographic locations.
[from OGC 02-024]
Note: The WCS provides access to intact (unrendered) geo-spatial information, as needed for
client-side rendering, multi-valued coverages and input into scientific models and other clients
beyond simple viewers.
Web Feature Server (WFS)

A service that can describe data manipulation operations on OGC Simple Features (feature
instances) such that servers and clients can "communicate" at the feature level.
Note: A Web Feature Server request consists of a description of the query and data
transformation operations that are to be applied to WFS Web-enabled spatial data.
The request is generated on a client and is posted to the WFS server. The WFS Server
interprets the request, checks it for validity, executes the request and then returns a feature set
as GML to the client. The client then can use the feature set.
Web Map Server

A service that can produce maps drawn into a standard image format (PNG, GIF, JPEG, etc).
based on a standard set of input parameters.
Note 1: This specification standardizes the way in which maps are requested by a client and
the way that servers describe their data holdings.
Note 2: The resulting map can contain "transparent" pixels where there is no information and
thus several independently drawn maps can be laid on top of each other to produce an overall
map. This is possible even when the maps come from different Web Map Servers.
Note 3 The WMS specification also supports use of vector-based graphical elements in either
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) or Web Computer Graphics Metafile (WebCGM) formats.
Well-Known-Binary (WKB)

A binary encoding format that can be used to describe the representation of geometry.
Note: The use of WKB for describing simple (2D) features is included in ISO 19125 Geographic
Information – Simple Feature Access – Part 1: Common Architecture
Well-Known-Text (WKT)
A text-based encoding format that can be used to describe the representation of geometry.
Note: The use of WKT for describing simple (2D) features is included in ISO 19125 Geographic
Information – Simple Feature Access – Part 1: Common Architecture
Windows
A family of operating systems produced by Microsoft.
World Wide Web (WWW)

The global, seamless environment in which all information (text, images, audio, video,
computational services) that is accessible from the Internet can be accessed in a consistent and
simple way by using a standard set of naming and access conventions.
[http://www.cio.com/WebMaster/sem2_web.html]
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

A non-profit-organisation responsible for the development of standards (recommendations) for
the Word Wide Web
[Software AG]
XML-Schema
A XML language for describing and constraining the content of XML documents
Z39.50
See ISO 23950.

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Developing Spatial Data Infrastructures:

The SDI Cookbook

Editor: Douglas D. Nebert, Technical Working Group Chair, GSDI

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 1

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 2

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 3

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 4

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 5

In regions characterised by an availability of geographic information, in combination with the

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 6

Scope of this Cookbook

• existing and emerging standards,

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 7

The creation of specific organisations or programs for developing or overseeing the

The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 8

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 9

Chapter 2: Geospatial Data Development: Building data for multiple uses

Chapter 3: Metadata: Describing geospatial data

Chapter 4: Geospatial Data Catalogue: Making data discoverable

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 10

Chapter 5: Geospatial Data Visualisation: Online Mapping

Chapter 6: Geospatial Data Access and Delivery: Open access to data

Chapter 7: Other Services

Chapter 8: Outreach and Capacity Building: Creating a community

Chapter 9: Case Studies

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 11

Chapter 10: Terminology

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 12

Context and Rationale

• Cadastre, cadastral maps (scales from 1:100 to 1:5 000)

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 13

As a result, the new era of GIS is still characterised by:

• many actors involved in data collection and distribution

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 14

• cross-border : edge matching between different data sets

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 15

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 16

Framework Leverages the Development of Needed Data

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 17

Who are the actors in framework data development?

• users and producers of detailed data, such as utilities

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 18

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 19

Common Identities of Real World Objects

The management of a common or "permanent" feature identity needs to be undertaken within

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 20

Candidate National Framework Categories

Candidate Global Data Categories

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 21

References and Linkages

Harmonised Data Manual - The Harmonised Data Model (Australia)

Framework Home Page, U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee

Geospatial One-Stop Framework Standards Development (U.S.)

Global Map Specifications - Version 1.1

Interlis Project Home Page (Switzerland)

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 22

GSDI Cookbook, Version 2.0 25 January 2004 Page 23