Infrastructure Engineering - Research Publications
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ItemFacilitating urban management through local SDI case study: the Municipality of Tehran( 2009)Integrated and sustainable management of cities is one of the most important challenges facing many countries. In this critical societal challenge context, spatial data is key for decision making, planning and management of cities. Thus, in order to have sustainable management and planning there is a need for managers and planners to have access to reliable, seamless and accurate spatial data. However, the current situation regarding availability, integration, sharing and its effective application by planners and decision makers is not very promising in many jurisdictions worldwide including Iran and Pakistan- the two countries under study by authors. Based on current situation, in urban management in Iran there is a need for an agreed platform that facilitates access to and sharing of spatially related data, services and other resources among different disciplines within any jurisdiction. This platform should also address characteristics such as standards and specifications for data collection, management, maintenance and distribution of spatial data. Having said that, in order to facilitate this situation and respond to the needs, many countries are developing Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) which is a concept for facilitating and coordinating of sharing and integrating of data through different political and administrative levels. SDI can be developed at different levels ranging from local to state/provincial, national, regional and global. SDI as a platform can help to reduce the duplication and save resources in data collection which usually occur due to unknown information about availability of datasets among different urban organizations. In addition, organizations involve in urban planning can have access to a comprehensive dataset of the interested area like a city to achieve sustainable urban planning. This paper discusses the importance and benefits of developing SDI as an enabling platform for urban planning and management based on a case study, namely Tehran Municipality in Iran by exploring challenges and issues in accessing and sharing spatial data in this jurisdiction. The paper then presents and discusses the process and experiences of developing an SDI Roadmap for this municipality.
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ItemSDI for collaborative health services planning(GSDI Association, 2009)
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ItemSDI governance bridging the gap between people and geospatial resources( 2009)Organisational arrangements have long been recognised as a critical enabler and fundamental component of Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI). More recently, the term “governance” has become increasingly used to refer to aspects of institutional frameworks that support SDI. However, given the polysemous nature of the term and the evolving nature of approaches to implementing SDI, it not clear exactly what is meant by the term “SDI governance” and thus the scope, nature and challenges of governance are not well understood. Through an exploration of concepts and model of governance in a variety of contexts, a conceptual model of SDI governance is being developed. An investigation of practical realities of governance in four Australian SDI initiatives has been used to inform the development of this model. This paper provides an overview of the concepts of governance, presents some key findings from the Australian SDI cases studies; and describes an initial conceptual model of governance.
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ItemA strategy framework to facilitate spatially enabled Victoria( 2009)Spatial Information is at a critical turning point in its development. More people are using it for a wider range of purposes, including social networking; technology is changing the way we communicate with each other; there are new ways of thinking about ‘location’; and big corporate players are entering the market and are starting to drive standards. At the same time, all levels of government, business and the community face significant challenges in producing and using products and services in environmentally and socially sustainable ways. Spatial information has an integral part to play in developing solutions to these challenges. But this cannot be achieved without a clear strategy and a framework that harnesses everyone’s skills and expertise. Victoria is fast being recognised as a leader in many aspects of State SDI development in Australia and internationally. The Victorian Spatial Council – which is the peak body that provides a coordinated approach to policy and development and management of spatial information – has recently painted the emerging landscape for spatial information in Victoria. Through the Victorian Spatial Information Strategy 2008-2010 it highlights some of the changes occurring in spatial information and technology and the key challenges they pose, and sets the broad themes for facilitating the whole spatial information community’s participation in that landscape. VSIS is a basis for delivering spatially enabled Victoria. At the same time, it considers that spatial information should be seen as part of the wider information resource created by and available to society. It presents a challenging agenda and the strategic framework it sets out lays the foundation for fulfilling the promises that are held out by the developments it describes. This paper aims to present and discuss VSIS, its development process and its role in connecting all levels of government, the private sector, utilities, academia, the professions and a wider community from a spatial data perspective. The paper starts with a discussion on the importance of having a spatial information framework in the context of spatially enabled society and then discusses the central role VSIS plays in facilitating the spatially enabled vision in Victoria. The paper then highlights a range of activities and processes to be undertaken across all disciplines and sectors to facilitate framework development. This includes aspects of design, creation, governance and processes involved in developing an enabling platform, and the overall relations between different challenges to facilitate spatial data activities. The results and lessons learned from the development of the strategy can be used and applied in other jurisdictions, at both national and global levels.
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ItemFuture directions for SDI assessment( 2009)Over the last few years development of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) have become an important subject and platform in Geo-Information Science to facilitate and coordinate the exchange and sharing of spatial data between stakeholders in the spatial data community. Its significance was demonstrated by numerous initiatives all over the world at different jurisdictional levels (global, regional, national and local levels). Large sums of money have been invested into SDI initiatives over the last few years. Worldwide around €120 million is spent each year just on clearinghouse management (Crompvoets, 2006). The investment requirements for an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) at European, national, regional and local levels are estimated to be from €202 to €273 million each yea(INSPIRE, 2003). Given this expenditure and society’s interest in the proper and effective use of public funds, it is imperative that these SDI initiatives should be assessed. The assessment of SDIs can help to better understand the issues, to find best practice for certain tasks, and to improve the system as a whole and therefore it play a crucial role in the management of our spatial data and that pertaining to the administration of our societies. In addition, SDI assessment is increasingly attracting the attention of both public sector bureaucrats seeking justification for providing public sources to SDI, and SDI practitioners requiring a measure of success of their SDI strategy. For example, the implementation of the European directive establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community requires monitoring and regular reporting (European Commission, 2007). However, assessment and evaluation of SDI initiatives is difficult due to a number of reasons. Even within the SDI community there are differences in the understanding of SDI and its potential benefits. Craglia and Nowak (2006) raise this issue when reporting on the key findings of the International Workshop on SDI’s Cost-Benefit. Many researchers have tried to assess SDIs (Crompvoets, 2006; Delgado-Fernandez and Crompvoets, 2007; Delgado-Fernandez et al, 2005; Kok and van Loenen, 2005; Masser, 1999; Onsrud, 1998; Rodriguez-Pabon, 2005; Vandenbroucke, 2005; Steudler et al, 2004). All these attempts, however useful and valuable, either concentrate on one aspect of SDI, or are bounded by one region, or describe SDI development in few particular countries, or are still conceptual in nature. There is much confusion resulting from the lack of an agreed definition of SDI, its components and the relationships between them. Moreover, different studies on SDI assessment identify different benefits and assign them to different categories. Similar conclusions were also reported at the international workshop ‘Exploring Spatial Data Infrastructures’ (Grus et al, 2006). This makes it difficult to identify uniform criteria of merit for SDI inputs, utility, outputs and outcomes. SDI is also difficult to assess because of its complex, dynamic, multi-faceted and constantly evolving nature, and vaguely defined objectives. SDIs also differ between countries as the same implementing rules may cause different results. For example, at the European level, the INSPIRE directive lays down general rules for establishing an SDI for the European Community (European Commission, 2007). Nevertheless, despite the fact that SDIs in the member states will behave and operate in a similar general way as indicated by the directive, they will never be the same, and sometimes will differ considerably depending on political, economic and cultural national circumstances.
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ItemDeveloping a goal-oriented SDI assessment approach using GIDEON-the Dutch SDI implementation strategy-as a case study( 2009)In 2008, the Dutch government approved the GIDEON document as a policy aiming at the implementation of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) in the Netherlands. The execution of GIDEON should take place by pursuing seven implementation strategies which lead to the achievement of the GIDEON goals. GIDEON also expresses the need to monitor the progress of implementing its strategies and realization of its goals. Currently, the work has been started on monitoring the GIDEON implementation strategies. However, there is still a lack of knowledge and methods to monitor GIDEON goals realization. The challenge is to come up with an approach to assess to what extent these goals are achieved. As a response to the challenge of assessing the GIDEON goals, this paper explores the possibility of using the Multi-view SDI assessment framework (Grus et al., 2007). This paper presents and discusses the method that applies the Multi-view SDI assessment framework, its indicators and measurement methods to create a GIDEON assessment approach. The method of creating a GIDEON assessment approach consists of several procedural steps: formulating specific GIDEON objectives, organizing a one-day workshop involving focus group of specific stakeholders responsible for creation and execution of NSDI, asking the workshop participants to select from a long list those indicators that best measure the achievement of each GIDEON goals. The key step of GIDEON approach is a one-day workshop. The workshop participants represented all organizations that cooperated and/or created GIDEON. The workshop consisted of two parts: first part explained the context of a challenge of assessing GIDEON, second part included participants activity to select and come to the consensus on the list of indicators that would best measure GIDEON goals realization. Additionally, the participants were asked to evaluate and express feedback on the usefulness of the method of creating GIDEON assessment approach. The results show that several indicators that relate to specific SDI goals could be selected by a significant number of workshop participants. The indicators that have been selected are not the final ones yet, but provide a guideline and form a base of what has to be measured when assessing GIDEON goals. Involving the representatives of all parties committed to GIDEON into the process of GIDEON assessment approach creation will strengthen its robustness and acceptance. The results of the feedback form filled by each participant show that the presented method is useful or very useful to create GIDEON assessment approach. Additionally, some of the participants provided already their own indicators which are very specific for Dutch SDI monitoring. The method presented in this research, assuming that SDI goals are defined and the organizations that participate in SDI creation are known, can be applied in any other country to develop country-specific and practical SDI assessment approach.
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ItemSpatial Data Integrability and Interoperability in the Context of SDI(SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN, 2009)
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ItemFacilitating urban planning and management at local level through the development of SDI (case study of Lahore - Pakistan)( 2009)Role of urban planning and management at local level is becoming more and more crucial due to the dramatic increase in urban population and allied urban problems. However, absence of appropriate information and its limited sharing is one of the important factor affecting planners and decision makers’ ability to deal with urban problems. Effective quality of life can not be achieved without appropriate spatial information. Realising importance of spatial information, developed countries have started to develop Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for efficient information sharing. Developing countries like Pakistan & Iran should learn from their experience and develop SDI according to their own institutional, political and culture background. It is expected that improved information sharing and application through Local SDI can help experts in achieving better urban life through improved urban planning & management. This paper aims to explore the role of SDI in better urban planning and management through effective & efficient information integration and sharing.
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ItemIndicators for Assessing Spatially Enabled Government Services(GSDI Association, 2009)
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ItemEnabling spatial data sharing through multi-source spatial data integration(GSDI, 2009)The dynamic environment of SDIs and the involvement of diverse spatial data providers present uncertainty for involving organizations. This pushes organizations to focus on cooperative data sharing relationships to deliver their objectives. Spatial data sharing provides transactions in which individuals, governments and businesses obtain access to spatial data and services from other stakeholders. However, spatial data sharing goes beyond simple data exchange and requires the provision of usable datasets. It is specifically important at multi-national level and Global SDI (GSDI). One of the most significant and demanding characteristics of usable datasets is the readiness of spatial datasets for integration with other datasets. However it is often difficult or even impossible for users to sensibly integrate datasets from different sources. This is because of the diversity of data standards, specifications and arrangements which have been utilized by organizations. Data providers adopt spatial data standards and specifications and establish data sharing arrangement based on their requirements which may differ form other organizations. Therefore, multi-source spatial datasets are associated with technical and non-technical inconsistency and heterogeneity. In order to facilitate the integration of multi-source spatial datasets, the investigation of the data integration process, potential barriers and challenges of spatial data integration and possible enablers and solutions is necessary. This paper aims to provide an investigation on the spatial data integration as a compelling reason for spatial data sharing. The investigation approach is based on a number of case studies. The case study investigation has also highlighted and identified a number of technical and non-technical barriers and issues of multi-source spatial data integration. The paper also capitalizes on the analysis of the case study investigation to identify the possible tools, solutions and enablers which can be utilized to facilitate the integration of multi-source datasets. In this regard, the paper presents a spatial data integration toolbox. The toolbox consists of a number of components including spatial data validation and integration tool, associated guidelines; and data integration metadata and data specification documents. The design and development of a spatial data validation and integration tool and associated guidelines have also been presented in the paper.