Infrastructure Engineering - Research Publications
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ItemSpatial data integration: a necessity for spatially enabling government(University of Melbourne, The Centre for SDIs and Land Administration, 2007)Introduction Most governmental decisions involve a spatial component (Williamson and Wallace, 2006), therefore informative decision making within governments is highly reliant upon multi-sourced spatial data. The ability to spatially enable governments through the use of integrated multi-source spatial data at different governmental levels makes governmental decisions incredibly efficient (Mitchell, 2006b), though governments rarely produce all the data required for their business. Rather, they obtain and integrate data from different sources. However, the diversity of data producers hinders effective spatial data integration. There are many technical and non-technical obstacles in the integration of multi-sourced spatial data and this is one of the major problems in sharing and using spatial data among government organizations. From a technical perspective, spatial data may differ semantically, syntactically and structurally. Institutional, social, policy and legal issues also hinder data integration. In order to effectively overcome these issues, a holistic framework is required to manage and address the issues. SDIs aim to facilitate the integration of multi-source spatial data by providing a holistic framework in which spatial data stakeholders (governments, private sector, etc) interact with spatial data effectively through technological components. There are inconsistencies in the various data within an SDI which lead to data inconsistency and hinder data integration. These inconsistencies should be managed through the SDI framework. However, at the moment, the SDI framework does not deal with these inconsistencies effectively. Hence, we need to identify and map the inconsistencies and develop tools and guidelines within the framework of an SDI to manage them. This will then make it easier for data to be integrated across and within government organisations.
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ItemBrave new world: innovative tools for spatially enabling land administration(University of Melbourne, The Centre for SDIs and Land Administration, 2007)Introduction The term silo effect gained prominence in government and business circles during the 1990s (Williamson, 2007). It denotes the entrenched lack of communication and collaboration between organisations and their systems. For decades private organisations held onto their capital, information and skills for internal use only. All this changed with the introduction of information and communication technologies: by sharing resources with its business partners and customers a company could decrease costs, streamline processes and create better customer relations. The silo effect had to be overcome. The field of land administration was created in part in response to discussions about the silo effect. It was clear that the institutions dealing with tenure registration, cadastral mapping, natural resource management and so on, needed to be united. Integration of their theories, processes and information would result in better land management. The collaboration of ideas began in the late 1990s and has resulted in academic theories being used to enhance understandings of practical issues: for example hierarchal spatial reasoning has been applied to spatial data infrastructures (Rajabifard, 2002), policy design concepts to land policies (Ting, 2002), benchmarking to land administration systems (Steudler, 2003), cost benefit analysis to decision making about land (Paez, 2005). Organizational theory has advanced collaboration within land administration agencies (Warnest, 2005; McDougall, 2006) and tenure theories have been applied to the rural parts of developing countries (Dalrymple, 2006). Land administration is now multidisciplinary: its ability to use of the tools and theories of diverse disciplines has been its underlying strength. This chapter takes a similar approach: it looks at new theories and concepts from outside the discipline that will assist in spatially enabling land administration. Particularly, the management of the hundreds of new land rights, restrictions and responsibilities that exist over land. Ontological design, social learning, spatial technologies and uncertainty theory are four areas worthy of consideration. Each could profoundly impact upon existing land administration systems.