European CZM and the GSDI Initiative
545
organisations from around the world and from almost all the GI sectors, representing
20 countries
The main goals of the conference were:
to minimise duplication of national efforts and the cost of research and
development on a global scale
to identify the critical opportunities and threats inherent in creating a global
spatial data infrastructure
to create a standardised vocabulary with which the many issues could be
unambiguously discussed across the globe
and
to define the new concepts needed to facilitate an ongoing dialogue between
diverse professions to design, implement and extend spatial data
infrastructures needed in building and using geo-information products and
service in a GSDI.
Speakers from many nations presented their views on what GSDI might or
might not be, how it could evolve in either a planned or ad hoc fashion, what benefits
could accrue to global GI users if a GSDI followed some agreed development path, and
even who had the right, let alone the legal mandate, to attempt such a venture as to
define a GSDI implementation route. It was agreed that any GSDI would by default be
built upon the scores of NSDIs already in place or being created around the globe.
Therefore, it was important that all creators of NSDI policies should be made fully
aware of the global ramifications of their evolving spatial infrastructures.
The meeting reached a consensus that it is the right time to start thinking
about the major issues implied in the concept of a GSDI and a possible way forward,
even if this can not yet be formalised as an ‘implementation plan’. It was proposed
that the participants to this first meeting comprised a GSDI Forum, which should be
extended to all sectors in the Spatial Data/Geographical Information communities,
world-wide. It was also accepted that there was no need to create new ‘artificial’
global projects in order to investigate the main issues. Rather, existing global projects,
such as those of the G7 and other international projects (Earthmap, Global Mapping,
other international environmental and geophysical projects, African projects like
Africover, etc.), should be examined to see if common problems were being met and
could be overcome.
Although this first GSDI Forum meeting arrived at no major conclusions in
regard to GSDI, it became apparent that some body or Forum is needed to review and
comment upon the practical problems being faced today by global GI projects.
Exchange of data sharing and data use/re-use experiences from across disciplines was
considered crucial, e.g. case studies prepared by participants in the Land-Ocean
Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) project could be most useful.
545
organisations from around the world and from almost all the GI sectors, representing
20 countries
The main goals of the conference were:
to minimise duplication of national efforts and the cost of research and
development on a global scale
to identify the critical opportunities and threats inherent in creating a global
spatial data infrastructure
to create a standardised vocabulary with which the many issues could be
unambiguously discussed across the globe
and
to define the new concepts needed to facilitate an ongoing dialogue between
diverse professions to design, implement and extend spatial data
infrastructures needed in building and using geo-information products and
service in a GSDI.
Speakers from many nations presented their views on what GSDI might or
might not be, how it could evolve in either a planned or ad hoc fashion, what benefits
could accrue to global GI users if a GSDI followed some agreed development path, and
even who had the right, let alone the legal mandate, to attempt such a venture as to
define a GSDI implementation route. It was agreed that any GSDI would by default be
built upon the scores of NSDIs already in place or being created around the globe.
Therefore, it was important that all creators of NSDI policies should be made fully
aware of the global ramifications of their evolving spatial infrastructures.
The meeting reached a consensus that it is the right time to start thinking
about the major issues implied in the concept of a GSDI and a possible way forward,
even if this can not yet be formalised as an ‘implementation plan’. It was proposed
that the participants to this first meeting comprised a GSDI Forum, which should be
extended to all sectors in the Spatial Data/Geographical Information communities,
world-wide. It was also accepted that there was no need to create new ‘artificial’
global projects in order to investigate the main issues. Rather, existing global projects,
such as those of the G7 and other international projects (Earthmap, Global Mapping,
other international environmental and geophysical projects, African projects like
Africover, etc.), should be examined to see if common problems were being met and
could be overcome.
Although this first GSDI Forum meeting arrived at no major conclusions in
regard to GSDI, it became apparent that some body or Forum is needed to review and
comment upon the practical problems being faced today by global GI projects.
Exchange of data sharing and data use/re-use experiences from across disciplines was
considered crucial, e.g. case studies prepared by participants in the Land-Ocean
Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) project could be most useful.