Anticipating the cultural aspects of sharing for SDI development

Abstract

The complexity of communications and relationships between sectors and agencies to achieve a common understanding of spatially related issues across a jurisdiction is paramount for any economy, management of the environment, social issues and security. On the other hand, the need to create multi-participant, decision-supported environments to address the issues of sustainable development and improving the quality of life creates a growing need to organise data across disciplines and organisations through different forms of spatial data infrastructure (SDI). This infrastructure is fundamentally a concept about facilitation and coordination of the exchange and sharing of spatial data between stakeholders from different jurisdictional levels in the spatial data community. This paper reviews the role that human nature plays in any endeavour based on interaction and sharing makes cultural and social factors important to the acceptance of the SDI concept and its alignment with spatial industry objectives. Cultural aspects and social factors influence the complexity and dynamics of developing SDIs. Therefore, positioning to consider these aspects and factors are important elements in design and development of SDIs. Further, the importance of establishing a culture for sharing as well as understanding the dynamic partnerships necessary to support such a culture is highlighted. It is argued that by better understanding and promoting a culture for sharing spatial data, any level of SDI development can gain support from a wider community of both government and non-government data users and producers.