International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures Research (Joint Research Centre of the European Commission)
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Beyond SDI: Integrating Science and Communities to Create Environmental Policies for the Sustainability of the Amazon
Get PDFThis paper will explore ways to go beyond the traditional SDI (spatial data infrastructures) in the direction of the Digital Earth, with the objective of supporting environmental policies that will lead to sustainability. We use the Amazon region as a starting point for the discussion. Environmental policy making for a place such as the Amazon has to take into account that phenomena occur and are modeled in various geographic scales, ranging from microbiology to planetary climate impacts. There are also multiple and sometimes conflicting views on the same reality, including the many scientific disciplines, governmental and non-governmental views, and the view of the local populations. Currently, the combination of technologies, people, and policies that defines an SDI is probably the best approximation we have to solve these problems, but some important elements are missing. A broader SDI would be an enabler for understanding space, not only delivering general-purpose maps, but disseminating spatial data to support policies for sustainable development. We think it is necessary to go beyond SDI to integrate science and communities in the effort of creating, enforcing, assessing, and revising environmental policies. We discuss the limitations of current SDIs with regards to data and information flow, semantics, and community building. We also review the information needs and modeling challenges for SDIs when used as a support for environmental policy making
Impact of Global Earth Observation – Systemic view across GEOSS Societal Benefit Areas
Get PDFGlobal Earth Observation (GEO) is perceived as instrumental to attain sustainable development goals and to be a major driver of how the society–technology–environment system is managed. However, appropriate scientific methodologies to assess the benefits of GEO and validate investments in earth observation infrastructure development have been missing. This paper presents the systems approach to measure and analyze the impact of Global Earth Observation across nine GEOSS Societal Benefit Areas. The described methodology framework was used as part of global-wide earth observation assessment conducted during the European Commission sponsored project “Global Earth Observation – Benefit Estimation: Now, Next and Emerging” (GEOBENE). The applied systems approach enabled integration and aggregation of GEOBENE project findings. Apart from the assessment framework, there are described specific tools used for the GEO’s impact assessment, i.e. system dynamics model and based on it freely available simulator, as well as some assessment results. Although the total system benefits are strongly policy scenario dependent it was found that improved data due to use of Global Earth Observation and the data availability for community has a great potential in shaping the sustainable future of our planet
Aspects of Licensing and Pricing Model for a Multi-producer pan-European Data Product
Get PDFA customer-driven pricing and licensing model is a prerequisite for the business success of EuroDEM. Additionally, the implementation of the pricing and licensing model underpins the goals of INSPIRE and PSI Directives. EuroDEM is a pan-European geoinformation product that covers 40 countries in Europe. National Mapping and Cadastral Agencies own the DEM but EuroGeographics, whose activities focus on promoting the European Spatial Data Infrastructure, represents it collectively. A systemic approach to the development of the pricing and licensing model is introduced. The customer’s needs, competing products, national pricing and licensing rules and principles, and the European Union’s information policies have an effect on the model. Furthermore, the will of human beings to act and contribute to common goals is crucial. As a result, a proposal for a new pricing and licensing model is presented
Assessing Geographic Information Enhancement
Get PDFAssessment of geographic information infrastructures (or spatial data infrastructures) is increasingly attracting the attention of researchers in the Geographic information (GI) domain. Especially the assessment of value added GI appears to be complex. By applying the concept of value chain analysis to geographic information, this paper provides a research framework for unambiguously assessing GI value adding. The framework is applied to two types of geographic information in the United States and Europe. The presented research shows that the framework allows for true comparison of GI enhancement in different jurisdictions. This should result in better understanding of the level of GI enhancement in a specific jurisdiction and accordingly in effective decisions stimulating GI enhancement, geographic information infrastructures and information societies
Competence management within organisations as an approach to enhancing GIS maturity
Get PDFThe national spatial data infrastructure (NSDI) and GIS maturity of user organisations are mutually dependent. Only when the GIS maturity of user organisations is at a high level can they direct their needs to the development of an NSDI and the benefits of the NSDI come true to their full extent. To raise their GIS maturity to a level where user organisations can both utilise spatial data comprehensively in their businesses and contribute to the development of the NSDI, we propose a GIS maturity enhancement model in which competence management is the fundamental theme. The model suggests the means to improve the GIS maturity of an organisation. The model was motivated by user interviews in Finland, where the technical standard of GIS is not a hindrance to further development, but better exploitation of human competence seems to be the way forward
Towards Voluntary Interoperable Open Access Licenses for the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS)
Get PDFAccess to earth observation data has become critically important for the wellbeing of society. A major impediment to achieving widespread sharing of earth ob-servation data is lack of an operational web-wide system that is transparent and consistent in allowing users to legally access and use the earth observations of others without seeking permission from data contributors or investigating terms of usage on a case-by-case basis. This article explores approaches to supplying a license-based system to overcome this impediment in the context of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems. It discusses the benefits and drawbacks of the explored approaches and suggests an integrated legal and technological approach for supplying an effective web-wide sharing environment for earth observation data
From Here to Eternity: An Experiment Applying the e-Framework Infrastructure for Education and Research and the SUMO Ontology to Standards-based Geospatial Web Services
Get PDFA number of efforts have been made in recent years to define standards for the description of resources (including web services) in services oriented architectures. These standards often use description logic ontologies (for example, OWL-S) and are intended to be machine-readable. They have been applied to geospatial web services to describe the functions that those services perform in a way that can be automatically interpreted by systems. By contrast, little effort has gone into the development of human readable descriptions of resources in a services oriented architecture, other than using unstructured natural language. e-Framework is an infrastructure for the higher education environment that provides a typology of human-readable artefacts that can be used to describe resources, and provides an internal structure for those artefacts. e-Framework has thus far not been used with geospatial information even though geospatial information has a number of important roles in education and research, and has a well-organised community of users and creators.
This paper applies the e-Framework infrastructure to OGC web services, and also recommends the refinement of e-Framework with the use of the SUMO Upper Level Ontology to define Service Genres, the most abstract level of artefacts in e-Framework. It then illustrates the ways in which the Open Geospatial Consortium standards and specifications may be described in e-Framework. The work evaluates SUMO for e-Framework purposes, finding that its use for Service Genres is possible and offers a number of gains. It also evaluates e-Framework from a geospatial perspective, and shows that e-Framework’s constraints on resource descriptions do not suit the large and complex nature of geospatial web services
Assessing Spatial Data Infrastructure Policy Strategies Using the Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis
Get PDFAssessments of Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) strategies are rather scarce. When evaluations do occur, they usually cover only one aspect of a certain initiative or infrastructure, without taking into account all the other impacts it might have. Moreover, similar methods, such as the Cost-Benefit Analysis, are used in most situations. However, these techniques are only suited for very specific objectives as they require exclusively monetary information and they do not include the objectives or perceptions of the many relevant stakeholders of the SDI environment.
This is why a new methodology for assessing SDI strategies is presented in this paper, namely the Multi-Actor Multi-Criteria Analysis (MAMCA). This technique is an extension of the original Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) and allows for structured and extensive stakeholder participation during the entire evaluation procedure. The methodology provides a new assessment framework that takes into account all the different criteria and actors of the complex SDI decision making context. In order to illustrate the opportunities and strengths of the MAMCA in the SDI context, a case study will be presented, where possible policy strategies for the SDI in Flanders will be assessed. In this paper, which forms the first section of a two-parted article, the methodology of the MAMCA method and its possible merits for the assessment of an SDI are illustrated, together with the first three steps of the case study. The second paper, which will be published at a later date, will document the four following MAMCA steps of the case study as well as its global results and possible future recommendations
Value of spatial data: networked performance beyond economic rhetoric
Get PDFAssessing the economic value of spatial data is problematic for various reasons – conceptual as well as operational. The paper argues that understanding the value of spatial data will benefit from the market discourse and salient conditions can be identified when viewed in terms of market transactions rather than in terms of neoclassical economic rhetoric. Therefore, spatial data markets can best be understood as socio-technical actor networks. Moreover, spatial data are multifaceted and are likely understood differently by different people. Space matters but differently at different spatial levels, and different decision-making contexts and styles may require different types of data and information. Hence, the paper argues that the value of spatial data is added through a complex value network rather than a sequential value chain. Consequently, the SDI-assessment discourse is of particular relevance for assessing the value of spatial data when understood as networked performance; specifically, the multi-view approach. In conclusion, the paper recommends a deliberative, pragmatic and actor-network focus on spatial data and transdisciplinary framing of assessing their value
Systems of Systems as a Conceptual Framework for Spatial Data Infrastructures
Get PDFThis paper proposes Systems of Systems (SoS) as a conceptual framework to support the creation, evolution and study of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs). After reviewing the relationship between SDIs and generic Information Infrastructures (IIs), a comparison of the latter and SoS is presented. The conclusions of this comparison lead us to propose that IIs can be considered as SoS with several distinctive characteristics. This would allow the SDI community to consider a new set of techniques, methods and tools, coming from the SoS community, to advance in SDI research and development