The South African Spatial Data Infrastructure: a collaborative SDI

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1 The South African Spatial Data Infrastructure: a collaborative SDI by Lindy-Anne Siebritz and Helena Fourie, Department of Rural Development and Land Reform Abstract The South African Spatial Data Infrastructure (SASDI) is integral to the successful implementation of the Spatial Data Infrastructure Act (No. 54 of 2003). According to section three of the Act, the SASDI is defined as the national technical, institutional and policy framework to facilitate the capture, management, maintenance, integration, distribution and use of spatial information in South Africa. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the need for and origin of the SASDI, as well as the main components that comprise the SASDI and the role of organs of state as data custodians and how they contribute to the success of the SASDI. The SASDI is based on the concept of a hierarchical collaborative SDI, which requires stakeholder participation from all levels of government. This means that organs of state carry the responsibility of implementing their own spatial data models according to their organisational needs and in compliance to prescribed spatial data standards. These distributed SDIs should then feed into the national SDI, the SASDI. Standardising data makes it possible to integrate datasets from different sources. Stakeholder contribution and collaboration is thus critical for the success of the SASDI. Keywords South African Spatial Data Infrastructure, collaboration, custodianship, spatial data standards, metadata Introduction Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) has become a well known concept globally since it was first introduced three decades ago [1]. The need for SDIs emerged when governments world-wide realised that spatial information should be managed efficiently if it was going to be used to address the national outcomes of the country, which may include the effective management of infrastructure [2, 3, 4]. Governments understood that duplicate data capturing could be avoided by creating a platform for sharing spatial data and promoting access to spatial information [1]. The implementation of a national SDI is an expensive exercise that requires a lot of financial, human and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) resources. Budhathoki et al state that the return on investing in an SDI is seen in its ability to respond to socio-economic problems [5]. South Africa s development as a nation is vitally dependent on an effective national SDI. Decision-making cannot be based on assumption or prediction; it must be based on facts. The South African Spatial Data Infrastructure (SASDI) is the framework that makes it possible to manage vast amounts of spatial information that can be sourced for use in spatial analyses. The definitions for SDI may vary for different countries. The Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) Association defines four components for SDI: policy and governance (people); technical standards; information systems (ICT) and geographic content (data). For the purpose of this paper, the definition for a SDI will be limited to that established in section three of the SDI Act (No. 54 of 2003), the national technical, institutional and policy framework to facilitate the capture, management, maintenance, integration, distribution and use of spatial information ([6] see section 3. (1)). In essence, the purpose of the SASDI is to promote coordination and collaboration between spatial data producers, from the local level to the national level. The components which facilitate the access to and sharing of spatial data are the Committee for Spatial Information (CSI), which is the coordinating body for the SASDI; the National Spatial Information Framework (NSIF), which serves as secretariat to the CSI; the SASDI website, which includes the SASDI technical tools, i.e. the Data Capture Project register (DCPR) and the Electronic Metadata Catalogue (EMC); policies and spatial data standards. The aforementioned definition does not include the specific role of stakeholders and data custodians within the SASDI. Every data custodian is obligated by the SDI Act to contribute their metadata to the SASDI EMC. Without the contributions of metadata by custodians, users cannot discover what datasets are available in the country. The operational success of the SASDI is completely dependent on custodian cooperation. This paper is divided into five main sections. The first section discusses the origin and context of the SASDI. An overview of the main SASDI components is given in section two and includes a comparison of the SASDI components to the European Union SDI, INSPIRE and the Federal Geographic Data Committee s (FGDC s) 2

2 National SDI. Section three gives a summary of the current status of the SASDI implementation. The focus of this paper is to demonstrate that the SASDI is a collaborative effort between all stakeholders. Section four looks at the role of data custodians within a collaborative SASDI. The conclusions are given in section five. Background SASDI origin and context South Africa s national SDI, the SASDI is established by the SDI Act as a framework guided by the requirements of the Act. As mentioned in section two, the SASDI comprises the technical, institutional and policy components that are used to manage and maintain spatial information (see Fig. 1 (a)). The framework must support the national outcomes outlined in the National Development Plan (NDP). The NDP aims to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality in South Africa by 2030 [7]. Access to current, high quality geo-spatial information is crucial to achieving the NDP objectives, as quoted from the executive summary, the Commission proposes a national focus on spatial transformation across all geographic scales [7]. The National Planning Commission (NPC) was appointed by the South African president in 2010, to develop and implement the NDP 2030 vision. In order to address the NDP objectives using geo-spatial information, the South African Geo-Information Management Strategy (SAGIMS) was proposed (see Fig. 1 (b)). The SAGIMS is still in the draft phase. The strategy should outline the management of geo-spatial information in line with South Africa s development priorities. One of the key components for effective management of geo-spatial information is the availability of the necessary infrastructure, i.e. a national SDI [8]. DATA (a) (b) Fig. 1: (a) Relationship between the SASDI framework and spatial information; (b) Context of the SASDI in terms of the SAGIMS and the NDP. The SDI Act was passed in South Africa in January 2004, while sections 1-11, 13 and 19 came into operation in May Section 12 and sections of the Act were promulgated in April Before the Act was passed, during the late 1990s, there were a few attempts to establish the SASDI [9]. None of these attempts were successful [9]. During the four years after the SDI Act was passed, there was no significant progress in implementing the SASDI [9]. In 2010, the responsibility of implementing the SASDI was transferred to the NSIF. The CSI was appointed in April The CSI must advise the minister, the director-general and organs of state dealing with spatial information on any matters related to implementing the SDI Act. With the CSI established, the roles and responsibilities given in section six of the SDI Act could be delegated to the various subcommittees. In his 2011 address, the chairman of the CSI stated that, South Africa is regarded as the leader in this field (i.e. developing and implementing a SDI) in Africa. However, there is still much to be achieved in establishing a national spatial data infrastructure (NSDI) [9]. At the time of the CSI appointment, there was no SASDI website, instead the SASDI web-based tools were housed under the NSIF website. One of the tools was the Spatial Metadata Discovery (SMD) tool, a 3

3 clearinghouse that provided a metadata search-and-discover facility. The newly elected CSI conducted an audit of the SMD in 2011 and concluded that the system did not operate adequately. Due to the findings from the audit and other challenges, the system was abandoned in According to J. Crompvoets et al, a national clearinghouse is one the most important components of a successful national SDI. The CSI was aware of this and sought a new solution for metadata cataloguing for South Africa [10]. SASDI components Institutional framework The institutional framework comprises two bodies, the CSI which is the SASDI coordinating body and the NSIF, which is secretariat to the CSI. Generally, the coordinating body is responsible for writing and implementing policies and for implementing the SDI [11]. A summary of the role of each institution is given in the following sub-sections. Committee for Spatial Information The CSI is established under Section 5 of the SDI Act. The CSI comprises six subcommittees: Standards, Policy and Legislation, Data, Systems, Communication and Marketing, Education and Training; who are collectively responsible for achieving the objectives of the SASDI. The CSI was established to perform the following functions: Identifying and requesting organs of state to serve as data custodians as authoritative source for spatial datasets. Facilitate, promote and safeguard an environment for the efficient capture, management, distribution and utilisation of spatial information. Monitor and acquire information relating to the functioning of the SASDI. Promote awareness of its activities. National Spatial Information Framework The NSIF is a directorate established in the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, within the Branch: National Geomatics Management Services. The NSIF facilitates the development and implementation of the SASDI. The NSIF also serves as secretariat to the CSI. Policy framework In addition to the SDI Act, two policies: i) Data Custodianship and ii) Pricing of Spatial Information Products and Services, were established by the CSI and published in the government gazette in February The SASDI Regulations and the Compliancy Guidelines are still in the draft phase. Technical framework The technical framework comprises four main components: SASDI website (homepage); CSI portal; DCPR; and EMC. SASDI website The main purpose of the SASDI website is to promote the use and sharing of spatial information and to provide an environment that allows for coordination and cooperation amongst all stakeholders regarding access to spatial information. The new website ( is currently being developed internally by the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) and will integrate all the technical tools into one website, except for the EMC, which is currently hosted by the South African Earth Observation Network (SAEON) ( The SASDI website provides a link to this site ( Electronic metadata tools/facilities There are two tools within the SASDI website that facilitate metadata discovery, the DCPR and the EMC. The DCPR serves as a facility for custodians to notify the CSI of their intention to capture a spatial data project. The purpose of the register is to avoid duplicate projects and to give other data users the opportunity to submit their data capture needs so that organs of state undertaking data capture projects can take user needs into consideration where possible. 4

4 According to section twelve of the SDI Act, custodians are responsible for capturing and maintaining metadata for their spatial datasets. The act states that custodians must make their metadata available to the department, in the prescribed manner, for inclusion in the EMC. The EMC must be a web-based application that allows users to search and discover metadata contributed by various custodians. The EMC will contain metadata for all existing state-owned spatial datasets and will incorporate all completed data capture projects. There have been many challenges regarding the establishment of an EMC for the SASDI. The EMC tool previously used for the SASDI, the SMD facility was decommissioned as it did not fully meet the objectives of the SDI Act. The CSI tasked their systems subcommittee to investigate an alternative solution. A prototype was developed by the National Research Foundation (NRF) whereby the SASDI could participate as a portal within an already existing SAEON data portal. This solution met the requirements of the EMC. Currently, it is approved that the NRF will continue to host this prototype as SASDI s EMC whilst a permanent solution is investigated. The SASDI EMC portal, as hosted by the NRF, can be seen in Fig. 2. All organs of state are required to register their datasets on the SAEON EMC via the SASDI node. Four stakeholders are currently registered on the SASDI node, the City of Johannesburg, Department of Environmental Affairs, National Geo-spatial Information and Statistics South Africa. Comparing SASDI to INSPIRE and the FGDC s NSDI Fig. 2: SASDI Node on SAEON EMC. Unlike the developing parts of the world, developed countries have demonstrated significant progress in SDI implementation [12]. M. Musinguzi et a. state that SDIs like the American NSDI have been successful due to available funding, high level of technology, political support and trained personnel [12]. Another more recent SDI that has become very prominent is the European Union SDI, INSPIRE. INSPIRE defines four main components: i) metadata resources in the form of an EMC; ii) rules for accessibility of metadata in the form of legislation; iii) policies and spatial data standards and iv)spatial data services [13]. The American NSDI framework comprises v) data; vi) procedures and technology and highlights; vii) institutional relationships as one of the key components of the NSDI [14]. South Africa has applied many of the principles from these two SDIs to the SASDI. Table 1 compares the main components of the SASDI to INSPIRE and the American NSDI. 5

5 Element SASDI - National INSPIRE - International NSDI - National Institutional Policy framework Technical framework Coordinating body Secretariat South Africa Europe United States Committee for Spatial Information National Spatial Information Framework (NSIF). Legislation SDI Act no 54 of 2003: establishes the SASDI, CSI and EMC. Regulations Policies Metadata facilities Dataset custodians Base datasets defined No. of data themes Draft regulations in terms of the SDI Act for spatial data, spatial information, metadata, datasets and details for the operation of the CSI. i) Data Custodianship; ii) Pricing of Spatial Information Products and Services. SASDI (EMC) portal within SAEON Data Portal allows for metadata search and discovery; data may reside with node contributor. CSI nominates data custodians with legal mandate; process for nomination to be confirmed. Minimum set of essential datasets that are widely used as a reference base at various administrative levels to accomplish SA's national and international priorities. INSPIRE Committee Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the technical coordinator; Eurostat is the implementing coordinator. INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC: establishes INSPIRE and the EU geoportal. Regulations for metadata, harmonisation of spatial data and services, network services, data and service sharing policies, and monitoring and reporting. Implementing Rules (IRs) are adopted as Commission regulations/decisions. EU geoportal allowing member states to connect their infrastructure; data resides with member states. 280 Legally Mandated Organisations (LMOs) and 511 Spatial Data Interest Communities (SDICs). Definition not found Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) FGDC Secretariat hosted by the United States Geological Survey. Executive Order Coordinating Geographic Data Acquisition and Access: The National Spatial Data Infrastructure establishes the NSDI and national clearinghouse Not mentioned i)federal Geographic Data Sharing; ii) Access to Public Information and the Protection of Personal Information Privacy in Federal Geospatial Databases; iii) Support for International Infrastructure Activities; iv) Recognition of non-federally Authored Standards National Geospatial Data Clearinghouse; decentralised metadata is distributed but managed by contributing centrally [15]. All federal agencies that collect or produce geospatial data either directly or indirectly. Base cartographic data: the fundamental dataset of geographic data that are normally produced in the preparation of national series general purpose graphic and digital cartographic products. Table 1: Comparison of SASDI to INSPIRE and FGDC [13, 14, 16]. 6

6 In 2012, the Data Subcommittee of the CSI made recommendations to amend the definition for base datasets contained in the SDI Act, since it was not adequate. The recommendation was accepted by the CSI; however the process for making amendments to the SDI Act has not yet been undertaken. Table 1 gives the amended definition. Status of the SASDI implementation P. Makanga et al. used 14 indicators to assess the implementation progress of national SDIs in Africa [17]. From their results, South Africa had reasonable political support, a legal framework in place and a coordinating body. However, South Africa lacked adequate financial support, a clearinghouse and reasonable stakeholder participation [17]. The authors state that high political support is required to establish a thorough legal framework [17]. Additionally, political support encourages financial investment [18]. Table 2 provides an assessment of the main factors required to implement the SASDI. The criteria used were adapted from the SDI Readiness Index proposed by T. Delgado-Fernández et al. [19]. Some of the criteria were excluded from, and the last global factor technical standards was added to the original index. Global factor Decomposed decision criteria Required to implement SASDI Organisational Political vision Institutional leadership Umbrella legal agreement Data custodianship Leaders made aware of benefits of spatial data (costbenefit). National strategy for managing spatial information must be prioritised; it must be inclusive of a SDI implementation plan and it must guarantee interdepartmental cooperation and collaboration. Second term CSI must be appointed. Implement SDI within own organisation in order to contribute to SASDI. Custodians to be appointed and gazetted. Access People Information network Metadata availability Data inventory SDI culture/education Web connectivity Telecommunication infrastructure Create/impart awareness/importance of meaningful metadata, standards and publishing requirements amongst stakeholders. Participation/cooperation from data producers/organs of state in terms of volunteering information on datasets. Funding for creating SDI awareness. SASDI web portal development. Suitable internet bandwidth. Financial resources Technical standards Government central funding List of applicable standards Central funding and support for SASDI. Finalise minimum applicable standards to be used by custodians. Table 2: Assessing the status of the SASDI implementation using the SDI Readiness Index adapted from T. Delgado-Fernández et al. [19]. 7

7 Custodianship and collaborative efforts According to the SDI Act, a custodian is defined as (a) an organ of state or an independent contractor or (b) person engaged in the exercise of a public power or performance of a public function, which captures, maintains, manages, integrates, distributes or uses spatial information. Data custodians are identified and appointed by the CSI according to the criteria contained in the Base Data Set Custodian Policy. Although the Policy refers to base dataset custodians, it is also applicable to other custodians. The three criteria for appointing a custodian are listed (see section 6.2) [20]: Mandated responsibility (compulsory). The organisation should have adequate capacity, resources and infrastructure to produce and maintain such a dataset. Requested by the CSI to be a data custodian. Custodian responsibilities are listed in various sections of the SDI Act (see sections 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18). A discussion on custodian responsibilities related to capturing of metadata is presented by H. Fourie [21]. The policy is aligned to achieving the goals of the SDI Act. It supports the key principles that are needed to provide sufficient access to spatial information. The next section provides a discussion on two of the key principles that are focused on custodian collaboration, i.e. promote the coordination and cooperation between base dataset custodians; and improve access to base datasets through capture and publication of metadata. Promote coordination and cooperation between base dataset custodians ([20] see section 6.1) Cooper et al. discuss two levels of collaboration within a national SDI: either hierarchically within the tiers of government, i.e. organisations may require the same information but with different levels of feature detail [11]; or functionally, i.e. organisations may have similar data needs [11, 14]. Fig. 3 shows the levels of government SDIs (adapted from A. Rajabifard et al. [18]). The vertical arrows (hierarchical) depict the inter-connected relationship between the tiers of SDIs and the horizontal arrow (functional) depicts the relationships between SDIs at the same level of jurisdiction. This assumes that SDIs are created at each level of government: local, district, provincial and national. Within a hierarchical relationship, spatial data produced at the lowest level of government forms the foundation data for the subsequent levels [18]. However, SDIs with higher jurisdiction specify how the data should be captured by the relevant local organisation to ensure a standardised dataset at any SDI level. Vertical relationships are not limited to SDIs at the same jurisdictional level, but it may be easier for organisations that capture the same level of feature detail. Hierarchical Generalisation Functional Fig. 3: Proposed relationship between SDIs for various levels of government (adapted for South Africa from A. Rajabifard and I. Williamson [18]). A similar collaborative model is envisioned for the SASDI. Every organ of state that has a mandate to produce spatial data should implement an SDI model suitable to their organisational needs and compliant to the national SDI requirements. However, not every organ of state or even custodian has to contribute their metadata directly to the national SDI if there is a collaborative agreement between custodians that capture the same features. The agreement should specify which custodian is responsible for contributing the metadata to the national SASDI. In 8

8 other words, the custodians will coordinate metadata contribution in order to avoid duplicate contributions to the national SDI. Much work is still needed to establish the rules for collaborative data capture and the responsibilities of the custodians involved in collaborative agreements. The SDI Act makes provision for collaboration between base dataset custodians and organs of state that produce a derived product using the base dataset, under section 16: Collaborative Maintenance. The Custodianship Policy also identifies specific activities to facilitate collaboration between custodians, which include: Where an organ of state has been given permission to capture data on behalf of the custodian, the data must be returned to the custodian at no cost ([20] see 6.1.2c). Custodianship may be shared between organs of state to capture certain datasets ([20] see 6.1.4). Improving access to base datasets through publishing of metadata ([20] see section 6.1) Spatial data is discoverable through publishing metadata in a catalogue, whatever format that may be in. An electronic metadata catalogue however, allows for easy information sharing and easy updating of metadata records. An electronic metadata catalogue generally does not contain the actual spatial datasets, but it gives users the ability to search the metadata within the catalogue and discover what datasets are available and where they can be found. There are two data requirements for adequate metadata discovery within an EMC, firstly the metadata must exist in the system and secondly, the metadata must be meaningful. H. Fourie describes in her paper what makes metadata meaningful [21]. The NSIF is responsible for establishing an EMC and making metadata standards available to users. It is the custodians responsibility to capture and maintain their metadata according to the prescribed standards, as well as to capture that metadata on the EMC. It is close to impossible for the NSIF to find, collect and maintain metadata since there are so many spatial datasets available and keeping track of any updates is a complex task. Contributing metadata to the EMC is not voluntary but mandatory. The policy states under the key principle Access ([20] see 6.1.3): Custodians must include the metadata component for any dataset that is distributed. Every base dataset custodian must register as a contributing node on the Department s EMC, whereby they make their metadata available. Conclusions This paper has discussed some of the factors that impede the implementation of the SASDI with the focus on custodian cooperation. Section four emphasised the importance of data custodian collaboration and coordination for promoting access to spatial information. There is still a definite need for imparting SDI awareness and the importance of contributing standardised metadata to the SASDI. Promoting SDI awareness is not limited to custodians; in fact it should start at the highest level of governance in order to strengthen political and financial support for the national SDI. The SASDI can only fulfill its purpose when every stakeholder is consciously fulfilling their role. References [1] R Iglesias and T Delgado-Fernández, Spatial Data Infrastructure: From national to local level, in GSDI 11 World Conference, Rotterdam, June [2] K McDougall, From Silos to Networks Will Users Drive Spatial Data Infrastructures in the Future?, in FIG Congress 2010, Facing the Challenges Building the Capacity, Sydney, pp. 1-13, April [3] I Bishop, F Escobar, S. Karuppannan, K. Suwarnarat, P. Williamson, P. Yates, and H. Yaqub, Spatial Data Infrastructure for cities in developing countries: Lessons from the Bangkok Experience, Cities, vol. 17, no. 2, pp , April [4] J Ryttersgaard, Spatial Data Infrastructure-Developing Trends and Challenges, in Committee on Development Information-2, Addis Ababa, September [5] N Budhathoki, Z Nedovic-Budic, and B. Bruce, An interdisciplinary frame for understanding volunteered geogrpahic information, Geomatica, vol. 64, no. 1, pp , [6] Government Gazette, Spatial Data Infrastructure Act, vol. 464, no. 54. South Africa, 2003, p. 9. 9

9 [7] National Planning Commission, National Development Plan (2030): Our future-make it work Executive Summary, South Africa, [8] Comittee for Spatial Information, The South African Geo-Information management Strategy (SAGIMS) (draft), Pretoria, [9] D Clarke, Initiatives and challenges of spatial data infrastructure in South Africa, PositionIT, Nov/Dec, [10] J Crompvoets, A Rajabifard, and B Van Loenen, Future directions for Spatial Data Infrastructure Assessment, in A multiview framework to assess SDIs, J. Crompvoets, A. Rajabifard, B. Van Loenen, and T. Delgado-Fernández, Eds. Melbourne: Digital Print Centre, The university of Melbourne, Chapter 14, 2008, pp [11] A Cooper, P Rapant, J Hjelmager, D Laurent, A Iwaniak, S Coetzee, H Moellering, and N Duren, Extending the formal model of a Spatial Data Infrastructure to include Voulnteered Geographic Information, in Proceedings of 25th International Cartographic Conference, Paris, July [12] M Musinguzi, G Bax, and S Tickodri-Togboa, Opportunities and challenges for SDI development in developing countries - A case study of Uganda, in Proc. 12th Int. Conf. on Geoinformatics Geospatial Information Research: Bridging the Pacific and Atlantic, Sweden, June 2004, pp [13] M Craglia, Building INSPIRE: The Spatial Data Infrastructure for Europe, ArcNews Online, [Online]. Available: [Accessed: 7 April 2015]. [14] Federal Geographic Data Committee, FGDC: Framework Frequently Aksed Questions, [Online]. Available: [Accessed: 28 April 2015]. [15] H Karimi, Handbook of Research on Geoinformatics. New York: IGI Global, [16] European Commission, INSPIRE: Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community, [Online]. Available: [Accessed: 25 June 2915]. [17] P Makanga and J Smit, A review of the status of Spatial Data Infrastructure implementation in Africa, South African Comput. J., no. 45, pp , [18] A Rajabifard and I Williamson, Spatial data infrastructures: concept, SDI hierarchy and future directions, in GEOMATICS 80 Conference, Tehran, [19] T Delgado-Fernández, K Lance, M Buck, and H Onsrud, Assessing an SDI readiness index, in FIG Working Week and GSDI-8, Cairo, April [20] Comittee for Spatial Information, Base Data Set Custodianship Policy. South Africa, February [21] H Fourie, The need for data custodians to capture meaningful metadata, in Geomatics Indaba 2015, Johannesburg, August Contact Lindy-Anne Siebritz, Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, lindy-anne.siebritz@drdlr.gov.za 10