This article by Ron Lake, the original creator of Geography Markup Language, suggests that Spatial Data Infrastructures can make an important contribution to the security of our nations and the environment.

"The most often quoted definition of a Spatial Data Infrastructure is that it is a framework of spatial data, metadata, users and tools that are interactively connected in order to use spatial data in an efficient and flexible way. Another definition is the technology, policies, standards, human resources, and related activities necessary to acquire, process, distribute, use, maintain, and preserve spatial data.

The difficulty with this definition is that it provides little insight as to what the software component of the infrastructure might amount to, or what the benefits and objectives of the infrastructure might be."

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