Issues and Challenges in NSDI Implementation

Transcription

1 Issues and Challenges in NSDI Implementation NOOR HABIBAH ARSHAD, FUZIAH ABU HANIFAH Faculty of Computer and Mathematical Sciences Universiti Teknologi MARA Shah Alam, Selangor MALAYSIA Abstract: - The challenge to design, build, implement and maintain a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) requires attention from various disciplines and examination of numerous issues and challenges. It is reported that numerous SDI-related activities at the national, state and local levels in many countries share similar core objectives to stimulate coordinated collection, dissemination and use of spatial data by public and private entities. NSDI is about improving data sharing and use, so citizens, communities and governments can easily make use of spatial data to solve problems. The main objective of this paper is to determine the major issues and challenges in NSDI implementation. Major key issues and challenges identified are selected based on the comparison and matching of input from the subject matter expert. The result of this study revealed that out of sixteen, three issues that have been cited by all the experts gives the most impact to the implementation of NDSI namely availability of quality digital data, lack of awareness on GIS and SDI, and institutional arrangements. The determination and elaboration of the issues and challenges would greatly influence the strategy chosen for SDI development and its effectiveness. Key-Words: - National Spatial Data Infrastructure, Spatial Data Infrastructure, Geographic Information System, Digital Data, Institutional Arrangements, Capacity Building. 1 Introduction The National Infrastructure for Land Information System (NaLIS) was developed by the Ministry of Land and Cooperative Development. NaLIS is the Malaysian Government effort to establish National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). In 1997, NaLIS Secretariat was established within the IT Department of the Ministry of Land and Cooperative Development. The scope and duty of the unit was to carry out the development of geospatial data infrastructure that encompasses policies, standard, technology, law as well as support that includes data preparation in agencies at Federal, State, and Local Authorities at all levels [8,9]. In 2002, NaLIS Secretariat was superseded by the Malaysian Centre for Geospatial Data Infrastructure (MaCGDI). The NSDI for Malaysia is a geospatial data infrastructure that comprises technology, policies, standards and procedures for land related agencies to cooperatively produce and share land information. NSDI, which for Malaysia is called Malaysian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (MyGDI), provides a basis for spatial data exploration, evaluation, and application for users and data providers [9]. Despite the successful establishment of NSDI in Malaysia, there are a number of issues and challenges related to NSDI development from conceptual, technical, political, institutional and financial perspectives. Therefore, the challenge of designing, building, implementing and maintaining an NSDI draws on many different disciplines and requires examination of such issues and challenges. It is also essential to understand the significance of human and societal issues, all of which contribute to the success of the Malaysian NSDI development. 2 National Spatial Data Infrastructure Advanced spatial information and visualization technologies, including geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing (RS), global positioning systems (GPS), image processing have enhanced the methods and tools for collecting, disseminating, sharing, integrating, and using spatial information. Access to such information as input to the planning and implementation of various projects indicates its effective use. To address the need for easy access to accurate, consistent, and up-to-date spatial information, spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is created by many countries at all levels [11]. An SDI encompasses policies, fundamental data sets, technical standards, access network (technologies), and human resources including users and data providers necessary for the effective collection, management, access, delivery, and utilisation of spatial data at different political/administrative levels [1,13]. SDI developments range from local to state/provincial, national, and international regional levels, to a global level. The design and implementation of an SDI is not only a matter of technology but also one of designing institutions, the legislative and regulatory frameworks and acquiring new types of skills [1,2]. The ultimate objectives of these initiatives, as summarised by [3], are to promote ISSN: X 65 ISBN:

2 economic development to stimulate better government, and to foster environmental sustainability. Ideally, an SDI should provide benefits to all parties. The development of SDI is driven by the business needs and technological developments to support the rapidly expanding geospatial information industry. According to [6] and [5] the infrastructures for spatial information should be designed to ensure that spatial data are stored, made available and maintained at the most appropriate level, that it is possible to combine spatial data from different sources in a consistent way, share them between several users and applications. Policy makers need fast and easy access to different types of information in order to make sound decisions. Spatial data is often crucial to the decision making process. NSDI is a way to overcome the barriers and allow different departments and organizations to supply the NSDI with spatial information and open standards fill in the gaps between geospatial islands of data sources [10,14]. NSDI is necessary and implemented by many countries, with objective to enable on-line access to geospatial information, avoid duplication of effort in the collection of data and to ensure the accuracy, timeliness, correctness and consistency of data to be used in planning, development and management of land-based resources. Most of these are driven by the national or federal government. The importance of NSDI is recognized by majority of developed nations and a number of emerging nations. This is evident from surveys reported by [4] on comparative analysis of NSDI implementations in various countries such as Australia, Canada, United States, Europe, Japan, France, India and Malaysia. Furthermore, NSDI are underway in many countries. Being the way to interoperability, NSDI is valuable in many respects. NSDI is a must for the e-government and e-business. NSDI will be a major component of e-government because almost 80 percent of all the information is spatial. Establishment of NSDI is critical to provide the foundation of a properly working system for geospatial data sharing. This study will identify the issues and challenges in the implementation of NSDI. The information about the current development in NSDI implementation, experiences and analysis covered by the local and other countries will be used to propose the suitable enhancement in the Malaysian context. 3 Research Approach Interviews with ten SDI experts from various countries (Malaysia, Australia, German, Japan and Belgium) were done to identify the issues and challenges which are important in long running success of an SDI initiative. The interactive inquiry includes interaction with key experts in the field, which involved interviews with the NSDI experts from local and abroad. These interviews aimed at finding out the issues and challenges for a success implementation of NSDI. For the purpose of this research, some guided questions related to critical issues relevant to the promotion and dissemination of NSDI have been designed which include several aspects of NSDI development such as policies, standards, framework data, organisational and enabling technology involved. The interviews were done with the key experts who have vast experience in NSDI implementation and involve directly in development of GIS based applications and various data sharing activities. 4 Issues and Challenges Detail elaboration of the major issues and challenges discussed during the interviews are as depicted below: a. Availability of quality digital data Spatial data depositories developed and managed by government agencies at all levels contain a varied set of spatial datasets. Data availability depends upon content and completeness of databases on variety of spatial themes. The current and accurate spatial data must be readily available to contribute to local, state and national development and contribute to economic growth, environmental quality and stability, and social progress. This would be best achieved by making accurate and timely spatial data readily available to support decision makers and to do so with minimum duplication of effort and at a reasonable cost. However, information needed to solve cross-jurisdictional problems is often unavailable. Users have to spend considerable amount of time to order and process the raw data to produce the data products they need in the analysis. Even if available, a spatial dataset may or may not be obtainable. Some of the problems faced by organisations were that the digital spatial data needed for good governance are limited and only available on certain conditions that are restricting its extensive use. Relevant data is often hard to find and frequently it is not in compatible forms. Furthermore, framework data does not exists for broad geographic areas and the information describing data is often non existent The readiness of core framework dataset are crucial, particularly the geo-reference and topographical maps, which are used as the underlay for thematic data and provides the basis for many geospatial datasets used by public and private industry. Use of spatial information for resource management and decision-making is limited due to problems on how to combine the different data sets. b. Institutional arrangements Existing systems serve primarily their own clients, without concern for the needs of other potential users. ISSN: X 66 ISBN:

3 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 culture. In most organisations, communication is linked to hierarchy and authority. 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 its own database and information system, following its own needs and priorities. Information is handled in a strictly vertical direction, following hierarchies. c. Lack of awareness in GIS and SDI Lack of awareness of the potential of GIS among public sector institutions, non-governmental organizations as well as the private sector means, that the use of geographic information systems is still low. To raise awareness in GIS and SDI, it is necessary to demonstrate the benefits, obtain support and promote investment for implementation of the NSDI within provider and user communities. NSDI Communications Plan should be implemented to communicate progress and obtain stakeholder feedback on NSDI implementation through the NSDI workshop series. There is an increasing number of spatial data producers who provide substantial geographic databases and products. However, means for disseminating information about these databases and products are still limited. Spatial data clearinghouses and NSDI-related communication channels are in the formative stages and not widely known or used by the majority of potential users of spatial data and products. Information such as data type (what), location (where), quality (accuracy, currency, completeness), and ownership (whose) can be obtained rather efficiently if the level of awareness among potential users is increased. d. Capacity building The capacity building concept is often used within a narrow meaning such as focusing on staff development through formal education and training program to meet the lack of qualified personnel in a project in the short term. Capacity building measures should be addressed in the wider context of developing and maintaining institutional infrastructures to meet short and medium term needs. Capacity building for NSDI and the adoption of its wider concepts and levels can assist NSDI coordinating agencies to speed up the progress in the development of NSDI initiatives. e. Clear SDI directives NSDI 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. A clear NSDI directive is necessary to lay down general rules aimed at the establishment of the infrastructure for spatial information in the community. NSDI for a country should be build upon infrastructures for spatial information and operated by the member of the states. This Directive should apply to spatial data held by or on behalf of public authorities and to the use of spatial data by public authorities in the performance of their public tasks. Problems voiced regarding the availability, quality, organisation, accessibility, and sharing of spatial information are common to the various levels of public authority. Solving these problems requires measures that address exchange, sharing, access and use of interoperable spatial data and spatial data services across the various levels of public authority and across different sectors. An infrastructure for spatial information in the community should therefore be established. The NSDI should assist policy-making in relation to policies and activities that may have a direct or indirect impact on the environment. It should be possible to combine spatial data from different sources across the community and share them between several users and applications. The directive should make possible for spatial data collection at one level of public authority to be shared between other public authorities; that spatial data are made available which do not restrict their extensive use. f. Lack of funding on GIS-based Projects Many organisations are lacking of enough resources to use and analyze the spatial data. Many of current geospatial application projects require handling multiterabytes of data. In order to conduct such projects, users have to buy expensive high-performance hardware and specialized software. In many cases, those resources are only purchased for a specific project and when the project is finished, the resources will be set idle. Because of the above problems, applying geospatial data to solve the scientific and social problems is a very expensive business and only few organisations can afford such luxury. Efforts should be made to keep distribution costs of spatial data to a minimum. However, additional funding will be required for some agencies. Thematic data represent a key component of many geospatial data products and services. Thematic data are used in a variety of industries and sectors. Frequently, clients request specific types of thematic data to fulfil a decision-making or planning process requirement, which requires in some cases substantial amounts of funding to do research, collect and maintain the datasets. Governmental departments make up the largest user group of geospatial data in a country. These governmental clients in some cases cannot use needed data to make a planning or policy ISSN: X 67 ISBN:

4 decision due to the costs being charged by another government agency through cost recovery. g. Adoptions of standards 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 absence of data documentation or metadata. Spatial data sources should conform to common standards that enable integration with other data, where such integration enables efficient and effective solutions for users. Sharing and use of these datasets is encouraged for data providers to make priority datasets available through the NSDI. Actions should be taken to identify priorities and support development of nationally consistent and integratable spatial datasets that meet user needs. Adoption of common classification systems, spatial referencing system, content standards and data models are promoted to facilitate goedatabase development at all levels. A minimum set of best practice data standards should be applied that facilitate integratability and develop reference implementations to support the user-driven development of integrated national geodata centre. In many cases, the temporal and spatial coverage, resolution, origination, format and map projections are incompatible. Among the technical challenges are integrating multiple standards and specifications together and communicating complex standards. The adoption of a core set of standards focused on documented data quality and interoperability. Users are able to ascertain the quality of existing spatial data and its fitness to meet their needs. A set of NSDI data quality standards should be approved and promote further improvement of the quality of metadata records held by data providers. h. Access Delivery Mechanism More organizations and individuals are realizing the benefits of having access to others data. The access issues are related to the organizations and the individuals. Financial issues, which are related to data access, include cost-sharing, charges for access and services, profit, and ownership. The major issues involved in the data access environment are related to technical standards of data access and sharing. The metadata (information about the data relating to source, quality, limitations, and other aspects), data standards, data transfer procedures, and system interoperability are the key factors in the NSDI environment. Progress continues on resolving the technical issues related to data access, but the major obstacles are institutional and managerial, including policies for data access, data sharing arrangements and agreements, pricing, rights and responsibilities, restrictions on access and use, maintaining privacy and security, and control of the data-sharing environment. The current absence of guidelines and operational evaluations in the data access area of the GIS and SDI field presents a challenge for those trying to establish data access policies and procedures for their own organizations. Actions should be taken to identify barriers to access to spatial data and develop institutional arrangements to lower the barriers to data access and use. Coordination arrangements in jurisdictions need to be strengthen to develop agreements of relationship management and consensus building for NSDI. However, in most countries, the lack of uniformity across different jurisdictions within a country often creates problems in attempts to integrate various dataset at national level. There is an increasing number of spatial data producers who provide substantial geographic databases and products. Means for disseminating information about these databases and products, however, are still limited. Therefore, the data and service providers need to advise potential users about the availability of their spatial data and services. i. Lack of Knowledge and skills Design and management of an appropriate NSDI is crucial to ultimate integration of the geoinformation into the organization. The development process must incorporate the organizational aspects of NSDI initiation, development, and operationalization. Successfully handling all the components of the NSDI development process requires skill and knowledge, including the ability to recognize early the skills and expertise required and the level present in the organization, as well as how much outside assistance must be obtained. j. Data Interoperability Data interoperability is among the core issues in the process of geospatial knowledge discovery and utilisation. Many data users spend considerable time on assembling the data and information into a ready-toanalise form, even when the analysis is very simple. Data collected by different organisations are often incompatible. The data may cover the same geographic area but use different geographic bases and standards. The need for interoperability is also strong for municipality and government applications. Due to the lack of interoperability, governments and municipalities face serious problems. These are mainly poor quality and high cost of services, and low economical revenues. Geodata should be as seamless as possible, with coordination across jurisdictions and boundaries where possible. Most data is collected, processed, and maintained not according to national standards. In addition, users, faced with difficulties to maintain data integrity across databases, and to enable the data integration. k. Cultural (reluctant to change) ISSN: X 68 ISBN:

5 All communities and societies have a culture a system of shared meaning. Similarly, any initiative or function, including the sharing of information, also has a specific culture, which needs to be promoted to prepare the environment for developing/pursuing the specific activity. Whether that culture is weak or strong is important to both a coordinating agency and individual parties. Therefore, sharing knowledge and information requires a specific culture a culture for sharing. The spatial databases being built up are stand alone systems, using individual philosophies and technologies. Most of these implementations are technology driven and isolated implementations related to specific environmental issues. Different agencies are often supported by a different technology. Every organisation has its own data sharing policies. There are also organisations, which do not have any data sharing policies. Due to these issues, data sharing and exchange among several organizations is hard to achieve. Data sharing involves a lot of political negotiation, agreements on standards, agreement on costs sharing and agreements on maintenance. Successful GIS and NSDI implementation and adoption usually require some degree of organizational change, which can be very difficult to effect because organizations are naturally resistant to it. This resistance has many sources, including bureaucratic operating procedures, personal resistance, and personnel habits. Making the changes to implement the SDI in the organization can be complicated. Multiple transitions may be needed to achieve the desired state. l. Language barriers Multilingual adaptation presents an important problem for configuration management. The software use must support a multiple-value variable for each of the different languages in the system. However, multilingual support issues are not usually considered part of the configuration management processes. People traditionally provide the translation capability. It is necessary to identify clearly the new or modified functionality in order to be able to coordinate the translation processes. Multilingual support of data offered by Web applications presents several problems. For instance, catalog services should support cross language information retrieval. There are many geoinformation resources that are cataloged using only one language, but users that make their queries in one language, may be interested in resources that have been described in another language. The user is more interested in the resource (map, image or multimedia) than in the metadata describing it. Therefore, catalogs must provide users with mechanisms facilitating multilingual search without forcing cataloging organisations to describe their resources in all possible languages. Most standards for service specifications do not take into account the problems with internationalisation. The main difficulties have been in the internationalisation of legends in Web Map views because the Web Map Service standard does not support the management of names of layers in multiple languages. m. Sosio and political stability The significance of sosio and political issues is essential that NSDI practitioners need to understand as they determine and contribute to the success of NSDI developments. Developing a successful NSDI initiative depends much upon issues such as political support within the community, clarifying the business objectives which the NSDI is expected to achieve, sustaining a culture of sharing, maintaining reliable financial support and enlisting the cooperation of all members of the community. The communities concerned are expecting to get benefits from their investment in NSDI in terms of improved corporate performances and cooperation. If the success rate of NSDI initiatives is to be improved, it is clear that attention needs to be paid to understanding the community and organisational issues within which NSDI is supposed to be developed. n. Metadata availability Metadata availability is a serious issue in many NSDI developments. This creates problems to users who want to use the data. Without metadata, they do not know the detailed data contents. The creation of metadata must be given priority and should be done along the data preparation activities. Metadata adds informative and quality aspects to the data. There has been a wide range of metadata standards proposed. ISO became an international metadata standard for geographic information. In addition, most of the countries and international organisations have proposed different metadata profiles. o. Legal arrangements The development of NSDI not only comprises of technical aspects but also is supported by economic, social, organisational and legal measures. Three types of policies promote spatial data availability, each with a different purpose, access, reuse and sharing. Among the policies that hinder the availability of spatial data are those dealing with privacy, liability and intellectual property. Intellectual property rights (IPR) in particular endanger the availability of spatial data for access, reuse, and sharing and pose a considerable threat to the development of NSDI. Many agencies use their intellectual property rights on spatial data to gain additional funding for their activities. p. Partnership arrangements Responsibility for generating, maintaining, and ISSN: X 69 ISBN:

6 distributing the data is not widely shared by different levels of government and the private sector. The costs of generating, maintaining, and distributing such data should be justified in terms of public benefits; overlap and duplication efforts among participating organisations are still persists. Access arrangements should recognise confidentiality, privacy, security and intellectual property rights. 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. There should be an attempt to harmonise terms and conditions for use where practical. 4 Conclusion Development of a spatial data infrastructure is a challenging task, as it requires identification and examination of a large number of issues and challenges. Interviews with expert resulted in identification of sixteen major issues and challenges. From the sixteen issues and challenges, three issues as cited by all the experts give the most impact to the implementation of NDSI namely availability of quality digital data, lack of awareness on GIS and SDI, and institutional arrangements. Since the experts are from local and international arena, most of the issues and challenges identified can be considered common to many countries. All the experts agreed that data is a national capital asset and it should be collected once and shared through NSDI at all level where the usage of spatial data can be done effectively. All the issues and challenges discussed could influence the strategy chosen for SDI development and its effectiveness. It is also a step towards the development of a fully shifting of NSDI to become an infrastructure for services. References: [1]Feeney, M., Rajabifard, A. & Williamson, I. Future Directions For The Development Of Spatial Data Infrastructure. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation. Vol. 1, 2002, pp [2]Foresman, T. W. Progress With The Digital Earth Global Infrastructure. Paper Presented At 7 th GSDI Conference, 2-6 Feb 2004 India. Retrieved April 23, 2007, from [3]Masser, I. The First Generation of National Geographic Information Strategies. Paper presented at the Third Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Conference, November 1998, Canberra. Retrieved Mac 6, 2007, from [4]Masser, I. Report on A comparative Analysis of NSDI. GINIE: Geographic Information Network in Europe, [5]Nair, M. Technologies, Applications And Policies For SDI A Future Perspective. Chairman, Space Commission and Chairman, ISRO, Government of India, Proceedings of Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Conference, [6]Ostensen, O. Advancing SDIs - The Role of Standards. Proceedings of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Conference 2006 [7]Public Service Progress Circular. Guidelines for The development and implementation of National Infrastructure for Land Information System (NaLIS), [8]Public Service Progress Circular. Guidelines for NaLIS Data Custodianship,2001. [9]Public Service Progress Circular. Guidelines for The development and Implementation of Malaysia Geospatial Data Infrastructure (MyGDI), [10]Pulusani, P. Enabling Interoperable Spatial Data Infrastructures for Sustainable Development, Intergraph Mapping and Geospatial Solutions. Proceedings of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Conference 2004 [11]Rajabifard, A. Developing Spatial Data Infrastructure: Highlighting Issues and Influencing Factors. Paper presented at 16 th United Nation- Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia and Pacific (16 th UNRCC-AP) July 2003, Okinawa Japan. [12]Rajabifard, A. Developing Spatial Data Infrastructures to Facilitate Industrial and Mining Decision-Makings, Geomatics. Proceedings Paper SDI Seminar by Ministry of Industries and Mines, Tehran, Iran Retrieved May 3, 2007, from [13]Rajabifard, A., Binns, A., Masser, I. & Williamson, I. The Role of Sub-National Government and the Private Sector in Future Spatial Data Infrastructures. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, (7): Ritrieved May 3, 2007, from [14]Williamson, I., Rajabifard, A., Holland, P., & Johnstone, G. From local to global SDI initiatives: a pyramid building blocks. Proceedings of the 4th GSDI Conference, Cape Town, South Africa. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from ISSN: X 70 ISBN: