Initiatives And Challenges Of Spatial Data Infrastructure In South Africa

Initiatives And Challenges Of Spatial Data Infrastructure In South

Africa

Dr Derek Clarke

National Geo-spatial Information, South Africa

Geospatial World Forum 2011

Early efforts to establish SDI in South Africa – 1985 to 1997

• Voluntary basis;

• Lack of available digital geo-spatial information, so most effort into converting data;

• Problem with technical interoperability to share data – exchange standard developed, but very limited implementation;

• Limited knowledge;

• Very few organisations – public sector mainly;

• Private sector companies start to emerge to provide data conversion services.

Initiatives and Challenges of Spatial Data Infrastructure in South Africa

Change in approach – 1998 to 2004• Restructure of component for SDI;

• First major inter-departmental effort to build database from disparate datasets;

• Boost for private sector providing data conversion services;

• GIS community growing;

• NMO initiates policy on pricing for geo-spatial data – cost of supply only;

• Change to legislative approach;

• Spatial Data Infrastructure Act of 2003, enacted in Feb 2004.


The ‘what happened years’ – 2005 to 2009• No leadership;

• SDI Act partial implementation;

• Committee for Spatial Information not established;

• Very limited development of SDI;

• Limited co-ordination of data;

• Duplication of geo-portals spring up.


New efforts – 2010 to present• Responsibility for SDI handed back to NMO;

• Committee for Spatial Information (CSI) established;

• Initial work of CSI;

• Restructured component to administer implementation of SDI.


SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE ACT

- Establishes the South African Spatial Data Infrastructure (SASDI);

- Establishes the Committee for Spatial Information (CSI);

- Establishes an electronic metadata catalogue;

- Provides for policies, standards and prescriptions to facilitate the sharing of geo-spatial information;

- Provides for avoidance of duplication of data capture;

- Appointment and responsibilities of data custodians.


Comments on legislation for SDI:• Must be inclusive of all applicable

stakeholders;• Must be clear on the powers of the Minister;• Limit the involvement of the Minister to

political leadership and key legislative matters e.g. making regulations;

• Must be clear on the powers and duties of the governing body/council;

• Strong governance;• Appointment of members: simple process,

non-cronyism;


Comments on legislation for SDI (cont.)• Clear on what geo-spatial data is subject to

provisions of legislation;• Clear on what are the responsibilities for all

role-players;• Only key provisions to be in Act and use

Regulations for more detailed provisions – easier to amend;

• Must be enforceable;• Must monitor compliance;• Penalties for non-compliance.


Comments on Powers and Duties of Governing Body/Council:

• Representative body;• Provide strong and clear leadership to the

GI community and all stakeholders;• Able to advise all levels of government;• Must be recognised as an authoritative

body;• Appropriate powers;• Exercise good governance and be

accountable;


Comments on Powers and Duties of Governing Body/Council (cont):

• Make policies and issue guidelines;• Establish standards;• Committed members;• Members knowledgeable about SDI and

GI management;• Good communication with all role-players

and stakeholders.


The strategic objectives of the Committee for Spatial Information (CSI) are –

• Embedding SASDI (and therefore CSI), in the realities we face as a country;

• It must fulfill its role and make sound contribution in addressing the inequalities we face, services we require, our education and health needs and in changing our employment status;

• In doing so, it must enable us to create an integrated system of relevant and reliable geo-spatial information that will effectively support development and the 12 Outcomes of Government, and allow us to know our people, know where they live, how they live and address their needs;


Strategic objective of CSI (cont.)This can be achieved by:• Ensuring access to and use of geo-spatial

information by policy-makers and planners at all levels in the public sector and community leaders for effective and efficient decision-making.

• Establishing a synergistic-cooperative approach wherein institutional commitment by all stakeholders to communication, cooperation, coordination and collaboration is essential.

• Empowering citizens and communities by providing them with access to relevant, current, accurate and comprehensive geo-spatial information.


Identification of key strategic focus areas:

A. Data• Identify and prioritize the fundamental or core data sets for

the SASDI.• Identify the custodian(s) for each fundamental data set.• Determine the actual feature types and feature attribute

types required for each fundamental data set.• Produce a realistic schedule for making available each

fundamental feature type and each fundamental attribute type, and then for updating them.

• Allocate unique identifiers to each instance of a fundamental feature type.

• Determine what VGI can be used in the SASDI to supplement the official data sets.

• Develop the standards and policies for the quality of the data.


B. Metadata• As a quick-win, populate the Spatial Metadata

Discovery (SMD) with a critical mass of relevant, quality and current metadata records. The SMD will probably need to support several metadata standards.

• Identify and/or develop suitable tools for capturing metadata and make them available to the data custodians.

• Produce a realistic schedule for making available the metadata for each fundamental data set, and then for updating the metadata.


C. Services• Identify and prioritize the online (Web-enabled)

services required to be provided through the SASDI.

• Identify the responsible parties for each service.

• Produce a realistic schedule for making the services available.


D. SDI Act and its Regulations• Identify the urgent changes that are needed in

the SDI Act.

• Identify the priority Regulations required to implement the SDI Act now.

E. Policies• Prioritize the policies that are needed for the

CSI and the SASDI.

• Develop the priority policies.


F. Education and training• Ensure that the members of the CSI and its sub-

committees are sufficiently well versed in GIS, SDI, metadata, standards, ICT, IPR, privacy, liability and related issues, to be able to function effectively and efficiently.

• Provide forums for sharing experiences and discussing issues with data, metadata, standards, systems, etc.

• Determine the education and training needs for the various stakeholders in the CSI and the SASDI, and develop an overall framework of these needs.

• Develop a plan for funding the actual preparation of education and training materials, getting formal accreditation and the presentation of courses, etc.


F. Education and training (cont.)

• Promote research in the field of SDI, both to address issues that arise and to develop advanced SDI skills in South Africa.

• Ensure geo-spatial data literacy amongst all users.

• Identify organisations with which CSI should partner to promote relevant education and training.


G. Promote awareness• Make users and producers of geo-spatial

information aware of SASDI.

• Make users, producers and the general-public aware of the availability of geo-spatial information.

• Promote the use of geo-spatial information in policy development, decision-making and research.


Some challenges we face:• Amend the SDI Act;• Promulgate Regulations;• Key policies developed and implemented;• Key standards implemented;• Recording of metadata by data collectors;• Metadata collection from data collectors;• Functional geo-portal, with services including

data fusion, source transparent to user;• Awareness of geo-portal to discover available

geo-spatial data;• Capacity building of CSI members and users;• Semantics – common language/understanding;• Compliance monitoring.



The success of the SA Spatial Data Infrastructure will depend on strong leadership from the Committee for Spatial Information and commitment from the key data custodians.

Initiatives And Challenges Of Spatial Data Infrastructure In South Africa

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