SDI Convergence - Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association

management issues. They do not follow the rules of administrative hierarchies, but cut
across political-administrative boundaries. Since SDI development approaches mostly
chose political-administrative boundaries as a starting point, the authors stress the
need to re-examine SDI development approaches to accommodate the needs of
catchment governance and management.
The contributions in this volume should contribute to SDI development around the
globe. It is likely to support the ultimate dream of many in the SDI community: to reach
a status of a true infrastructure: it becomes only visible upon break-down; “we are most
aware of it when it fails to work- when the server is down. The electrical power grid
fails, or the highway bridge collapse” (Star and Ruhleder, 1996). Although it will probably
never happen that one will say that “the SDI is down”, the many developments in
society, all impacting on the status of SDI, are such that in the future the SDI community
will truly converge into the information infrastructure community which will also
cover geographic information.
REFERENCES
CNA (The CNA Corporation) (2007). National Security and the Threat of Climate
Change, at: http://securityandclimate.cna.org/.
Crompvoets, J., A. Rajabifard, B. van Loenen, T. Delgado (2008). A Multi-View
Framework to Assess SDI. Space for Geo-Information (RGI), Wageningen University
and Centre for SDIs and Land Administration, Department of Geomatics,
The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
Star, S.L. and K. Ruhleder (1996). Steps Toward an Ecology of Infrastructure: Design
and Access for Large Information Spaces, Information Systems Research, 7 (1):
111-134.
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