The Americas’ Spatial Data Infrastructure

Abstract

During the last decade, the production of geospatial information has increased considerably; however, managing and sharing this information has become increasingly difficult for the organizations that produce it, because it comes from different data sources and has a wide variety of users. In this sense, to have a better use of geospatial information, several countries have developed national spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) to improve access, visualization, and integration of their data and in turn, have the need to cooperate with other countries to develop regional SDIs, which allow better decision making with regional impact. However, its design and development plan requires, as a starting point, to knowing the level of development of the national SDIs to identify the strengths and gaps that exist in the region. This document presents the methodology developed and the results obtained from the evaluation of the status of implementation of the SDI components in each of the member countries of the Regional Committee of United Nations on Global Geospatial Information Management for the Americas (UN-GGIM: Americas), which will contribute to the equal development of SDIs in an integrated and collaborative way in the Americas.

Improvement of Disability Rights via Geographic Information Science

“…Some of the benefits of developing an SDI are improved access to data, reduced duplication of effort in collecting and maintaining data, better availability of data, and interoperability between datasets. Although SDI development is an accepted task for most organizations and nations, and examples exist for various problem domains such as topographic mapping, indoor, health, marine, arctic, and so forth [65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73], attempts at developing data models for the improvement of disability rights are new within the literature [74]. As explained by Rajabifard et al [63], an SDI can be an enabling platform for sustainable development challenges.…”

Strengthening resilience in the Caribbean region through the Spatial Data Infrastructures

“…An alternative of solution are Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI), created to manage, integrate, process, visualize, access, exchange and effectively analyze the geospatial information produced by different organizations (Paganini et al, 2018). An SDI is defined as a set of technologies, policies, human resources and inter-institutional agreements necessary to facilitate availability and access to spatial data (Infrastructures, D. S. D., 2004), whose objective is to establish a common platform with organized geospatial information for informed decision-making, in different sectors (Zivkovic, 2013 A regional SDI is a platform in which the member countries of a region can access, use, and disseminate geospatial datasets in an easier, faster, and safer way (Rajabifard & Williamson, 2004), creating communities that, through development of alliances, can collaborate and exchange standardized geospatial data that can respond to regional needs and interests through informed decision making (Merodio Gómez et al, 2019). The implementation of regionaland even global -SDIs, arises of the need to create data-sharing communities at different geographical scales (Merodio Gómez et al, 2019).…”

Perspectivas para la integración de información oceánica en México

“…Pero, al generarse en distintos sectores, esta gran cantidad de información posee diversas características (por ejemplo, resolución espacial, escala, precisión, temporalidad y formatos de entrega, entre otras) que, a menudo, resultan en una falta de confianza en el usuario, así como en dificultades en la interoperabilidad, ya que no todos están apegados a estándares y normas dentro de sus procesos de producción (Merodio et al, 2019). Por ejemplo, en México existen múltiples organizaciones académicas, de gobierno, de la sociedad civil e instituciones y organizaciones privadas que generan y hospedan una gran cantidad de datos oceánicos de múltiples campos de investigación, los cuales, sin embargo, no siempre son accesibles, visibles, y se encuentran dispersos en formatos muy diferentes (Palacios-Abrantes et al, 2019).…”