SDI: How We Get There

Author: David Swann
Date: 22 February 2010

Tags: SDI, Spatial Data Infrastructure, data, NZGO, geoportal, SDI roadmap

In previous blog posts, I've covered what Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is and what some of the impacts will be for agencies wanting to participate in it. Now, let's take a look at what we've been doing to establish SDI, how it might function, and what a roadmap for a healthy SDI looks like.

This is the third of three posts introducing SDI in New Zealand. To catch up on my previous SDI updates, see:

• SDI: An Introduction
• SDI: What it Means for Agencies.

What has the NZGO been doing?

The New Zealand Geospatial Office (NZGO) has been working to coordinate initial SDI implementation, mainly across the natural resources sector. As this initial work has progressed, we are now clearer that we already have many of the components of SDI - we're referring to this as 'the SDI we didn't know we had'.

• We have many government organisations providing services of geospatial information (but not always using open standards).
• We have some government organisations that are consuming services of geospatial information.
• Conspicuously absent are the catalogue portals that make the discovery of data so easy.

This informs us that our efforts need to focus on establishing geoportals. LINZ has been working with Ministry of Research, Science and Technology, and the Department of Internal Affairs to build a demonstration geoportal that links to the DIA's data.govt.nz initiative. We're hoping to launch the prototype shortly. In addition, the Department of Conservation will be standing up a geoportal in the middle of 2010 as an extension of their internal SDI initiatives.

Will there be one New Zealand government geoportal?

One of the elegant aspects of SDI is that catalogue nodes (geoportals) can harvest metadata from one another. So if metadata gets posted onto any one catalogue node, all other nodes can harvest that metadata. This allows each organisation to establish geoportals that meet their own business, architectural and technical needs.

What is clearly needed is one geoportal that contains everything. The model for this is the United States 'Geospatial One Stop' at www.geodata.gov. It is important to appreciate that this is not the 'only geoportal' for the whole US: most states, most federal agencies and most cities will have their own focused geoportals. So if we were to use this as the model, we should aspire to create www.geodata.govt.nz as a national geoportal but encourage the establishment of focused geoportals in central government agencies, regional councils and territorial local authorities.

What does the SDI roadmap look like?

We're becoming clearer about the nature of the SDI roadmap. As we see embryonic SDI emerge in the coming weeks, I'm confident we will see a rapid, if slightly chaotic, growth in adoption. It's important we appreciate this chaos as a desirable aspect of early SDI since it represents a release of pent-up demand.

We cannot approach SDI like a normal program of work where we design, then develop and then build. Remember that SDI is not a system! We can only establish SDI using the data and systems we already have... and then evolve forward to gradually improve data, improve connections between systems and develop better geoportals.

Once underway, we can connect emerging SDI to other streams of work that will gradually define a more orderly direction for SDI:

• There will be a need for legislative development that will eventually establish a mandated framework for SDI in New Zealand. As with any legislative process, this will take several years to develop. By running this in parallel with emerging SDI, legislation will be informed by real experience and will eventually direct SDI development.
• Out of the legislative development will emerge the governance framework for SDI - the steering committee and working groups. Pending formal governance arrangements, it is recommended that the formation of domain and functional user groups be encouraged.
• The New Zealand Geospatial Office will provide guidelines for agencies that will explain how best to connect existing systems and programmes of work into emerging SDI. Current thinking is that these connections will be low risk, low cost and easy to accomplish. This will include the recommended standards that will need to be implemented.
• Work will continue on fundamental data set identification. This work will benefit significantly from emerging SDI since it will expose data sets to much broader communities of stakeholders. It is very important to appreciate that defining 'fundamental' can only be done from the perspective of the use of data; one organisation's junk is another organisation's fundamental data. What SDI enables is a gradual rationalisation and improvement in government geospatial information.
• SDI relies on geospatial expertise. It is this expertise that makes sure that data provision is 'fit for purpose' and that data consumption is appropriate. Work will continue on geospatial capacity building.

That's the last in this series of posts introducing SDI and the current thinking around implementing it in New Zealand. We'll have more to say as this work develops, so stay tuned.

What do you think of the work we've done so far? Do you think we're on track? Or is there anything you think we might have missed or need to consider?

Share your ideas below or contact us.

David Swann