National Spatial Data Structure NSDI | A Revolution

What is NSDI?

National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) is defined as the technologies, policies and people necessary to promote sharing of geospatial data throughout all levels of government. Throughout the world, many NSDI initiatives have been established and many researchers have studied it from many aspects. for example NGIIP in Nepal, NSDI in India, NSDI in the USA, the SNIG in Portugal, Australia’s ASDI, Malaysia’s NaLIS, and South Africa’s NSIF.

The role of geo-information is crucial to developing countries like Nepal. FGDC has been working to develop policies and partnerships for the past two decades to advance the development of NSDI. The development of NSDI in Nepal is not in full phase and there is the utmost need for the development of the National SDI for the collection, storage, processing and dissemination of spatial data at the national level.

Objectives of an NSDI

The sole motive of developing NSDI is to strengthen planning and resource management in Nepal through the development of a geographic information infrastructure for access to geographic and related data for decision making. If I were to develop the NSDI of Nepal, I would have the following steps to be implemented:

Similarly, if I were to develop NSDI for our country, I must have the objectives to develop such a geospatial data infrastructure platform that would facilitate data sharing among various data-related bodies throughout the nation like the Survey Department, Central Bureau of Statistics and other participating agencies.

NSDI and its Approaches

SDI is not a single element rather it is the integration of plan, policy, standards, data, formats etc. This Methodology is simple and just demonstrates how the SDI was conceptualized. NSDI procedures are initiated by assembling both the framework and the fundamental datasets with certain standards, norms, rules, policies etc accepted in order to define the metadata service. While defining the metadata they are simply just consisting of the name of the publisher, date of publication, cost of the data etc.

Then the database is formed constituting the different layers of images at a different scale. Next user queries the data on geoportal using keywords and retrieves the results according to user demands needs and requirements and geoportal retrieves the result in the communication network.

Policies

For any organization to flourish in its respective field, it must be guided by a number of policies and plans. Considering the policy-making there are many forums, seminars, conferences etc. being held for formulation and implementation. But still, there is no concrete NSDI policy which makes all the policies come under one umbrella. However, the legal framework of NDSI enables to the creation of equal rules relating to the exchange, sharing access to and use of spatial data and services. It also serves to establish sound technical interoperability and institutional cooperation under SDI.

Organizational structure

There are certain committees that are involved in the development of an organizational structure to determine its quality and guide it into a set of principles. It controls the workflow and development of the developed SDI in the country. It consists of members from the high administration level to a basic or technical level that manages the overall NSDI environment. Some of the components which reinvolved to form an organizational structure of NSDI are listed below:

1. Ministry in Charge: It ensures political advocacy, administration advocacy, financial advocacy and provision, i.e. Nepal Government
2. Lead agency: an institution in charge of coordinating the actions regarding the development and operation of the entire structure i.e. Survey department of Nepal.

• Network of a data producer and data user: The organizations like Nepal Remote Sensing and Photogrammetric Society (NRSPS), Nepal GIS Society, Nepal Surveyors Association (NESA) etc. and everybody who uses data for their benefit.

1. Other partners: This includes the ministry of health, the ministry of the forest, the central bureau of Statistics etc.
2. Steering Committee: This organ works towards the achievement of the SDI objectives. For e.g. National Geographical Information Infrastructure Programme (NGIIP)
3. Legislative body: The ministry that regulates NSDI through certain norms and policies.
4. Telecommunication service providers: The ISP like Worldlink, NepalTelecome etc. establish communication between user and server.

Standards

It has been very certain that only the organizations that follow proper standards are at the peak of success. Likewise for an SDI to flourish, it must follow every standard defined by the authority. Those standards include dates, identification, extent, specifications, formal standards, and documented practices during and after the formation of SDI in the country. They ensure the quality, safety and efficiency of products, services and systems. Generally, an SDI will work based on standards such as; ISO (International Standards Organization), W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium), other National Standards Organizations.

e.g. Nepal has only followed ISO 19115, for which other standards must be implemented in this NSDI.

Data Producers

Data are the functional and fundamental units of not only for SDI but also for various other organizations. Varieties of geo-data with some statistical features and information are required in SDI. There should be proper linkage, mutual understanding and coordination between the SDI developer unit and the following data producer unit to acquire quality data. The stakeholders that are involved in the data acquisition and collection process are:

Survey Department

It has various subdivisions that help to collect various data throughout the country. This makes it easier to collect and assess the data. Following are the smaller units that work under Survey Department:

• Topographical Survey Division
• Geodetic Survey Division
• Cadastral Survey Division
• National Geographic Information Infrastructure Division
• Land use Resource Data

Department of Mines and Geology

Department of National Park and Conservation Area

Data users

Analyzing the trend of using the geodata shows there are increasing trends. The users are from a variety of different fields including students for research and their projects, the ministry of energy for constructing the hydropower project, the department of road needs a topographic map for road construction, and the daily transaction of the land property value. Some comments from them were data accuracy is low and only limited formats are there.

National geo-portal establishment

A geoportal is defined as a type of web portal that is used to find and access geographic/geospatial information that is associated with geographic services (edit, display, analyze etc.) through the web. Geoportals are one of the most important key elements of a Spatial Data Infrastructure. The NSDI creates conditions for raising the level of technical interoperability between institutions and the development of e-services for the distribution of geospatial data which results in better planning and decision-making for the national and public institutions and users. The National Geo-portal is functioning as a shared web platform on which members of the NSDI.

Metadata

Metadata is simply ‘data about the data. It provides information which allows resources to be discovered by interested parties searching for resources, evaluated, accessed, and understood, enabling proper utilization. It is both used and collected during the resource creation process.  For the metadata creation in the national geo-portal, a metadata editor is implemented that is compatible with the national profile of metadata. Metadata on the geo-portal is based on the following principles:

1. Metadata is published in the metadata catalogue to which users may have access and the Catalogue enables users to find, evaluate and how to access the dataset or service,
2. Metadata is generated according to the ISO/INSPIRE standards using the national metadata profile.
3. All members of the NSDI must create metadata for spatial data sets and services in their jurisdiction, and make sure that metadata is up to date,

Development of an NSDI

The development of NSDI is a continuous process and challenges are likely to occur during the process. In order to address limitations and effective implementation of NSDI, a national policy on SDI should be formulated and adopted. For the smooth operation of the NSDI, the staff involved in this work must be dedicated, honest and cooperative in nature. The establishment of NSDI and its implementation gives the opportunity to share data, avoid wasting time, efforts and resources among different agencies or government departments and hence promote good governance.

Also, refer to Spatial Data Infrastructure for the basics of an SDI.