Spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) are being established across the globe in the most diverse political, institutional, and legal settings. The ultimate objectives of the SDI initiatives are promoting economic development, stimulating better cooperation and government, and fostering environmental sustainability. The book provides an overview of SDI policies, concepts, and practices associated with the design and implementation of an SDI to support spatially enabled societies. Technical aspects such as standards, networks, metadata, and clearinghouse concepts focus on developed and developing countries.

Author Biography

Professor Abbas Rajabifard Abbas Rajabifard is Director of the Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Administration and Head of the Department of Infrastructure Engineering at the University of Melbourne. He is the immediate Past President of the Global Spatial Data infrastructure (GSDI) Association. He is a member of Joint board of Geospatial international Societies and GSDI representative at the United Nations Global Geospatia Information Management Committee of Experts. He has been involved with many international and local geospatial organizations including as Vice Chair of Working Group 3 of the United Nations supported by the Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific (PCGIAP), a member of ICA-Spatial Data Standard Commission, and a member of Victorian Spatial Council. Abbas has been an Executive Board member and national representative to the PCGIAP (1994-1998), member of International Steering Committee for Global Mapping Project (1997-2001), and a member of the UN-ESCAP Group of Experts to develop Guidelines on GIS Standardisation for Asia-Pacific (1995). Abbas has authored or co-authored over 250 publications including eight books, and his publications focus on SDI, land administration, spatial enablement, and spatial data management. He has also over 18 years of teaching experience in different areas of the spatial data disciplines and in particular on SDI, land administration, and GIS. In recent years he has focused more on the design and development of SDIs in different jurisdictions including spatially enabled platform and virtual jurisdictions including Virtual Australia. He provides academic and research leadership in the Centre for SDIs and Land Administration; coordinates research activities of the PCGIAP-Working Group 3 (Spatially Enabled Government) benchmarking worldwide cadastral systems, marine SDI and marine administration, and currently working on projects including natural and built environment data integration as part of National SDI and development of a Seamless SDI model. In addition, Abbas has successfully managed and coordinated different research projects funded by local, national, and international organizations. He has consulted widely on SDI, Land Administration, GIS applications, and spatial data management to many national government agencies and different ministries. Associate Professor Joep Crompvoets Joep Crompvoets is currently an Associate Professor at the Public Management Institute of Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, and his research interests are focused on the exploration of technological, organizational, legal, and financial challenges in developing SDI and providing access to spatial data, SDI-assessment, SDIs, and E-government as well as interdisciplinary SDI-research. Crompvoets has written more than 130 scientific papers related to Spatial Data Infrastructures in some manner (articles in peer review journals, professional journals, conference proceedings, books) and was most recently the coordinator of the interdisciplinary project "SPATIALIST: Spatial Data Infrastructures and Public Sector Innovation in Flanders, Belgium." The main objective of this project was to determine the technological, legal, economic, sociological, and public administrative requirements of having a successful Spatial Data Infrastructure in Flanders. Other recent projects include an international project, "Development of a Framework to Assess National Spatial Data Infrastructures" funded by the Dutch Innovation Programme; "Space for Geo-information" European Space Agency (ESA) User Services Vision 2010-2015; INSPIRE State of Play, EUROSTAT, Europe (2009-2011); and INSPIRE Atlas of implementation methods. He currently serves as Secretary-General of EuroSDR and is an honorary research fellow at the Centre for SDIs and Land Administration at the University of Melbourne.