The role of sub‐national government and the private sector in future spatial data infrastructures

A Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) facilitates and coordinates the exchange and sharing of spatial data between stakeholders in the spatial data community. With this objective in mind, countries throughout the world are developing SDIs to manage and utilize their spatial data assets more effectively. These countries are developing SDIs to assist in various kinds of decision‐making at different levels of government jurisdictions that have an important impact within their national boundaries. However, current research shows that SDI is understood and described differently by stakeholders from different disciplines and different jurisdictional levels. Therefore, in many cases, SDI initiatives remain very much an innovation, even among practitioners. There are still uncertainties regarding the benefits and identities of SDIs, particularly in connection with how they evolve over time to meet user needs. This paper reviews and assesses the development of SDIs throughout the world over the past 15 years and the leadership role of national governments in SDI creation. This assessment is based on the SDI activities of various jurisdictions including Asia‐Pacific, Australia, North America, and Europe, and research into the worldwide effects of spatial information clearing houses. This assessment includes a discussion on emerging trends in SDI development, with particular reference to the increasingly important role played by sub‐national governments and the private sector within the framework of SDI development. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for future SDI development, including the delivery of a virtual world that has a particular focus on facilitating decision‐making at a community level within a national context.     

Spatial data infrastructures as complex adaptive systems

Many researchers throughout the world have been struggling to better understand and describe spatial data infrastructures (SDIs). Our knowledge of the real forces and mechanisms behind SDIs is still very limited. The reason for this difficulty might lie in the complex, dynamic and multifaceted nature of SDIs. To evaluate the functioning and effects of SDIs we must have a proper theory and understanding of their nature. This article describes a new approach to understanding SDIs by looking at them through the lens of complex adaptive systems (CASs). CASs are frequently described by the following features and behaviours: complexity, components, self-organization, openness, unpredictability, nonlinearity and adaptability, scale-independence, existence of feedback loop mechanism and sensitivity to initial conditions. In this article both CAS and SDI features are presented, examined and compared using three National SDI case studies from the Netherlands, Australia and Poland. These three National SDIs were carefully analysed to identify CAS features and behaviours. In addition, an Internet survey of SDI experts was carried out to gauge the degree to which they consider SDIs and CASs to be similar. This explorative study provides evidence that to a certain extent SDIs can be viewed as CASs because they have many features in common and behave in a similar way. Studying SDIs as CASs has significant implications for our understanding of SDIs. It will help us to identify and better understand the key factors and conditions for SDI functioning. Assuming that SDIs behave much like CASs, this also has implications for their assessment: assessment techniques typical for linear and predictable systems may not be valid for complex and adaptive systems. This implies that future studies on the development of an SDI assessment framework must consider the complex and adaptive nature of SDIs.     

Investigating the system dynamics technique for the modeling and simulation of the development of spatial data infrastructures

Spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is a complex system for which huge investments are being made worldwide. These large-scale investments in the development of SDIs incontrovertibly require reliable design and planning that guarantee a successful outcome. One approach to deal with such an expectation is to model the development process of the SDI system over time. If the model can be translated into the computer-based environment to be used as a virtual world, then the real situation can also be simulated. Such a simulation will enable the SDI coordinators/managers to gain knowledge about the behavior of the system under different decisions and situations and eventually help them to better develop the SDI through the informed decision making. However, a limited number of tools and techniques are currently available in the SDI modeling history in terms of the modeling and simulation of such a complex system. The system dynamics technique based on systems theory is a method for modeling and managing the feedback systems that are complex, dynamic and nonlinear over time. This article addresses the applicability of the system dynamics technique for modeling and simulating the development process of SDIs. It is argued that the system dynamics technique is capable of modeling the interactions among the factors affecting the SDI, the feedback loops and the delays. It is also highlighted that an SDI model based on the system dynamics technique enables the SDI coordinators/managers to simulate the effect of different factors or decisions on various aspects of SDI and evaluate alternative decisions and/or policies prior to making any commitment.     

Tuning the second-generation SDI: theoretical aspects and real use cases

Spatial data infrastructure (SDI) actors have great expectations for the second-generation SDI currently under development. However, SDIs have many implementation problems at different levels that are delaying the development of the SDI framework. The aims of this article are to identify these difficulties, in the literature and based on our own experience, in order to determine how mature and useful the current SDI phenomena are. We can then determine whether a general reconceptualization is necessary or rather a set of technical improvements and good practices needs to be developed before the second-generation SDI is completed. This study is based on the following aspects: metadata about data and services, data models, data download, data and processing services, data portrayal and symbolization, and mass market aspects. This work aims to find an equilibrium between user-focused geoportals and web service interconnection (the user side vs. the server side). These deep reflections are motivated by a use case in the healthcare area in which we employed the Catalan regional SDI. The use case shows that even one of the best regional SDI implementations can fail to provide the required information and processes even when the required data exist. Several previous studies recognize the value of applying Web 2.0 and user participation approaches but few of these studies provide a real implementation. Another objective of this work is to show that it is easy to complement the classical, international standard-based SDI with a participative Web 2.0 approach. To do so, we present a mash-up portal built on top of the Catalan SDI catalogues.     

Reconsidering the definition of a spatial data infrastructure

The great interest in spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) has led to a wealth of SDI definitions in SDI debates. The article aims to contribute to both theory-oriented and practice-oriented SDI research by providing a critical re-examination of the SDI literature. Ashby's formal theory of regulation, which sees infrastructures as regulatory devices, is used to identify the strengths and weaknesses of several SDI definitions. This exercise shows how debates of the SDI objectives and the roles of users get caught in mantraps and also opens the door for a way out of this confusion by distinguishing between functional and adoption objectives. It also highlights the emphasis on technological components in the SDI definitions, which sidestep the importance of structural and human resource components in SDI.     

"数字广州"空间数据基础设施建设策略研究

该文探讨了空间数据基础设施（SDI）在“数字城市”建设中的地位和作用,在此基础上,结合“数字广州”的要求和发展现状,指出了目前广州市空间数据基础设施建设存在的不足,并从政府管理的角度提出了加强空间数据基础设施建设的若干策略,涵盖了机构设置,数据政策,数据生产管理模式,人才培养和市场化等方面。     

National policy and management responses to the hazard of coastal erosion in Britain and the United States

Since national governments have become actively involved in environmental planning, and coastal management in particular, collective and individual responses to coastal erosion hazards have become increasingly influenced by public policy. This paper analyses and compares coastal erosion management policies in Britain and the United States. Both countries experience similar problems of population concentration along unstable coastlines, and yet they have developed quite different approaches to their solution.Coastal erosion management in Britain is dominated by the Coast Protection Act of 1949, which provides for a coherent and centrally organized approach, but is biased towards engineering responses, to the relative exclusion of alternative management techniques. In contrast, the United States has developed an elaborate framework for coastal erosion management. Traditional engineering responses continue under the auspices of the Corps of Engineers, but coastal zone management legislation has introduced a new philosophy into public policy whereby nonstructural measures are preferred. However, the US approach suffers from inconsistent implementation and the influence of private landowners, who favour cheap and often ineffective structural responses.Based on a comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of each system, a model for the development of coastal erosion management policies is proposed. In particular, the model emphasizes the need to consider all possible alternative solutions, giving priority to those which respect the geomorphological nature of coastal erosion. It is suggested that coastal erosion management should become an integral part of the planning process, promoting community needs over individual requirements and favouring the use of non-structural measures and appropriate land-use controls.     

Implementing a new data model for simulating processes

The paper describes the development of a new methodological approach for simulating geographic processes through the development of a data model that represents a process. This methodology complements existing approaches to dynamic modelling, which focus on the states of the system at each time step, by storing and representing the processes that are implicit in the model. The data model, called nen, focuses existing modelling approaches on representing and storing process information, which provides advantages for querying and analysing processes. The flux simulation framework was created utilizing the nen data model to represent processes. This simulator includes basic classes for developing a domain specific simulation and a set of query tools for inquiring after the results of a simulation. The methodology is prototyped with a watershed runoff simulation.     

Towards a potential research agenda to guide the implementation of Spatial Data Infrastructures—A case study from India

Recently, Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) has been a rapidly expanding field and broadly assumed to underpin the development of information society and the knowledge economy. In this paper, we argue that the anticipated benefits of SDIs have largely not yet been generally realized in practice due to a lack of a robust theoretical framework as well as insufficient empirical research to guide the implementation efforts. We posit that learnings from the allied discipline of Information Infrastructures, which has matured during the 1990s in response to the proliferation of distributed, complex, and heterogeneous networked systems, can provide a useful theoretical lens to inform the emerging domain of SDIs. We focus on three key concepts identified in the domain of information infrastructure theory, viz. the installed base, reflexive standardization, and cultivation approach to design, to develop a theoretical framework, which is then applied to analyse the ongoing initiative to establish National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) in India. This analysis helps us to provide the basis to articulate a potential research agenda—for both theory and practice—which, we believe, offers the promise to better conceptualize and implement SDIs, particularly in developing country settings like India.     

A Review of: “Accuracy of Spatial Databases”. Edited by M. Goodchild and S. Gopal. (London: Taylor & Francis, 1989.) [Pp. 290.] Price £35.00.

The integration of multisource heterogeneous spatial data is one of the major challenges for many spatial data users. To facilitate multisource spatial data integration, many initiatives including federated databases, feature manipulation engines (FMEs), ontology-driven data integration and spatial mediators have been proposed. The major aim of these initiatives is to harmonize data sets and establish interoperability between different data sources.

On the contrary, spatial data integration and interoperability is not a pure technical exercise, and there are other nontechnical issues including institutional, policy, legal and social issues involved. Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) framework aims to better address the technical and nontechnical issues and facilitate data integration. The SDIs aim to provide a holistic platform for users to interact with spatial data through technical and nontechnical tools.

This article aims to discuss the complexity of the challenges associated with data integration and propose a tool that facilitates data harmonization through the assessment of multisource spatial data sets against many measures. The measures represent harmonization criteria and are defined based on the requirement of the respective jurisdiction. Information on technical and nontechnical characteristics of spatial data sets is extracted to form metadata and actual data. Then the tool evaluates the characteristics against measures and identifies the items of inconsistency. The tool also proposes available manipulation tools or guidelines to overcome inconsistencies among data sets. The tool can assist practitioners and organizations to avoid the time-consuming and costly process of validating data sets for effective data integration.     

Local‐government data sharing: Evaluating the foundations of spatial data infrastructures

This paper presents a typology of local‐government data sharing arrangements in the US at a time when spatial data infrastructures (SDI) are moving into a second generation. In the first generation, the US National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) theoretically involved a pyramid of data integration resting on local‐government data sharing. Availability of local‐government data is the foundation for all SDI‐related data sharing in this model. However, first‐generation SDI data‐sharing activities and principles have gained only a tenuous hold in local governments. Some formalized data sharing occurs, but only infrequently in response to SDI programmes and policies. Previous research suggests that local‐government data sharing aligns with immediate organizational and practical concerns rather than state or national policies and programmes. We present research findings echoing extending these findings to show that local‐government data sharing is largely informal in nature and is undertaken to support existing governmental activities. NSDI principles remain simply irrelevant for the majority of surveyed local governments. The typology we present distinguishes four distinct types of local‐government data sharing arrangements that reflect institutional, political, and economic factors. The effectiveness of second generation, client‐service‐based SDI will be seriously constrained if the problems of local government take‐up fail to be addressed.     

国土空间规划中陆海统筹的内在逻辑和深化方向——基于复合系统论视角

陆海统筹是海岸带地区国土空间规划编制的基本原则。在海岸带空间开发与保护中,人地（海）关系、区域空间关系、陆海关系相互交织、相互融合,具有显著的复合系统特征。基于陆海之间物质、能量、信息与要素的流动特征,构建了包含人地（海）关系、区域空间关系、陆海关系的海岸带复合系统,并将陆海统筹的实现转化为海岸带复合系统的协调过程。研究表明：海岸带复合系统协调受复合系统与外界之间和各个子系统之间物质、能量、信息与要素流动过程的影响深刻。因而,海岸带复合系统协调的关键在于系统结构与功能完善、系统空间位置调整和系统输出内容管控三个方面。在此基础上,进一步提出国土空间规划中深化陆海统筹的策略。     

多元视野下的海南省临高县海岸带综合评估与深度空间管控探讨

为进一步加强海岸带综合管理,探索更有效的空间管控方法,从各类生态环境敏感性的形成机理出发,通过选取代表性评价指标构建评价模型,综合评估了海南省临高县海岸带生态环境敏感性和地质灾害风险性,并将其与国土规划相结合,对研究区进行了深度空间管控分区分析。结果表明：1）土地荒漠化、土地盐渍化、暴雨洪涝、赤潮、海岸侵蚀均以轻度敏感为主,土壤侵蚀、台风灾害以中度敏感为主,特殊生境、风暴潮和灾害性海浪以高度敏感为主。综合敏感性轻度、中度、高度与极度敏感区面积分别为10 651.28、9 682.11、3 275.29和983.88 hm²,其中高度敏感区以调楼镇分布面积最大,极度敏感区以博厚镇分布最广;2）地质灾害以地震、崩塌、滑坡、地面沉降、砂土液化为主,除地震风险分为风险大区与中等区外,其余4种均只有中等风险区和风险小区,综合风险则有大、中等和小3个分级,其中风险大区主要分布于博厚、东英、波莲与皇桐镇的断裂带两侧各15 m范围区内,总面积为118.86 hm²;3）集生态敏感性、地质灾害风险与国土规划多元视野的海岸带深度空间管控分区,可较好地识别重要保护对象与关键保护区域,并使海岸带获得充分开发与利用。     

Geo-portals as part of spatial data infrastructures: Russian Academy-supported resources and geoservices

Designing and implementation of the retrieval tools for shared spatial data as part of National Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) is among the top priorities of the preparatory stage of the long-term program envisaging the creation of the Russian SDI according to the concept of its creation and further development. This analytical overview of international experience defines the place and role of information resources accumulated in the Russian Academy of Sciences’ institutions during the last 15-year period of active development of geoinformation technologies in the context of spatial data acquisition and processing for geoscience applications. Based on some specific examples, it is shown that it is the Academy's science, even with its dramatic progression during this period, is the most prepared for the embodiment of the idea of integrating information and data using the SDI tools, and of ensuring broad, equitable and free access to them.     

A geomorphological approach to sustainable planning and management of the coastal zone of Kuwait

The coastal zone in Kuwait has been under a considerable pressure from conflicting land uses since the early 1960s, as well as from the destruction and oil pollution caused by the Gulf War. To avoid further damage and to protect the coastal heritage it is essential to adopt an environmentally sustainable management process. This paper shows how the study of coastal geomorphology can provide a sound basis for sustainable planning and management. Based on coastal landforms, sediments and processes, the coastline of Kuwait was divided into nine geomorphic zones. These zones were grouped into two main geomorphic provinces. The northern province is marked by extensive muddy intertidal flats and dominated by a depositional and low-energy environment. The southern geomorphic province is characterised by relatively steep beach profiles, rocky/sandy tidal flats and a moderate to high-energy environment. The study has demonstrated that pollution, benthic ecology and other environmental conditions of the coast are a function of coastline geomorphology, sedimentology and related processes. The geomorphological information was used to determine the coastal vulnerability and to assess the environmental impacts of development projects and other human activities. Several strategies were outlined to integrate the geomorphic approach into the management of the coastal resources.     

Reply to Comment on ‘Marine GIS: Identification of mesoscale oceanic thermal fronts’

Geographic information service (GIService) has become popular in the last decade to develop applications for addressing global challenges. Performance is one of the most important criteria to help users select distributed online GIService for developing geospatial applications including natural hazards and emergency responses. However, performance accuracy is limited by the single-location-based evaluation mechanism while service performance is dynamic in space and time between end-users and services. We propose a spatiotemporal performance evaluation mechanism to improve the accuracy. Specially, a cloud and volunteer computing mechanism is proposed to collect performance information of globally distributed GIServices. A global spatiotemporal performance model is designed to integrate spatiotemporal dynamics for better performance evaluation for users from different regions at different times. This model is tested to support GIService selection in global spatial data infrastructures (SDIs). The experiment confirms that the proposed model provides more accurate evaluations for global users and better supports geospatial resource utilizations in SDIs than previous mechanisms. The methodology can be adopted to improve the services of other regional and global distributed operational systems.     

数字地形分析应用适配性知识的案例表达与推理方法

数字地形分析(Digital Terrain Analysis, DTA)在应用时依赖于建模知识,尤其是关于所建的应用模型是否与研究区特点、数据等条件相适配的知识(称为“应用适配性知识”);由于这类知识难以形式化表达,现有的数字地形分析工具对此类知识缺乏利用,从而导致普通用户在应用数字地形分析时建模困难。针对该问题,设计了一套数字地形分析领域应用适配性知识的案例表达与相应的推理方法。以美国32个河网提取案例为例,通过交叉验证,初步表明案例及其推理应用方法适合于数字地形分析领域应用适配性知识的形式化表达与应用,该方法通过与建模环境的集成,可大幅降低数字地形分析应用建模难度。     

南通海岸带滩涂开发类型选择与空间功能配置研究

海岸带滩涂开发类型选择与空间布局是海岸带综合管理研究的重要内容,对于促进海岸带可持续发展具有重要意义。以海岸带资源环境-社会经济条件与滩涂开发类型对应关系透视为基础,结合南通海岸带滩涂条件、开发类型演变和区域发展背景分析,提出该地区生态旅游、农业和港口–工业–城镇多元化的滩涂综合利用模式,集成适宜性评价与分区、多部门规划冲突与协调等方法,探讨了南通海岸带滩涂地区生态与旅游、农业和港工城等功能区的空间配置路径。南通海岸带地区三类空间适宜比例分别23.5%,32.7%和43.8%,可以作为海岸带综合管理政策制定的参考。     

Exploring the impacts of future tourism development on land use/cover changes

Land use/cover changes (LUCC) are central to tourism because land is used in multiple ways as a resource for tourism-focused activities. Tourism is essentially a geographical phenomenon, encompassing the movement and flow of people (seen as the demand side) and spatial distribution patterns relating to land use consumption (seen as the supply side). However, the impacts of tourism on LUCC are difficult to track and monitor. Contributing factors of this problem include a lack of empirical studies, shortage of micro-level LUCC datasets, and scarce methodological frameworks which can be used for assessments. This paper aims to provide a LUCC modelling approach in order to explore the impacts of tourism development on built-up areas. We developed a Cellular automata model (CA) which integrates Markovian transition probabilities and logistic regression transition suitability maps. LUCC rules for tourism development are framed within the national land use policy guidelines for the development of new tourism accommodation establishments (TAE). This primarily takes into consideration land cover compatibility and the proposed development's proximity to the coastline.Three scenarios were established to explore the impacts of tourism development in LUCC for the year 2020 in a Portuguese coastal region: business as usual (BAU); tourism trends (TOUR); and natural restrictions (NATR). TOUR results indicate that the tourism and urban land use/cover growth is higher and focuses heavily on the coastal region (within 5,000 m) when compared to the other scenarios. The overall results for BAU and NATR show a general convergence with the land use policy guidelines in terms of tourism nucleation and new TAE distance to the coastline.