SDI Convergence - Global Spatial Data Infrastructure Association

The concept of spatially enabled government that is emerging as a result of these
trends presents important challenges for those involved. The initial development of
SDIs was largely in the hands of small elite of spatially aware professionals from the
fields of geography, planning, surveying, land administration and environmental science.
This elite not only dominated the production of geographic information, but were
also its main users. In recent years, as a result of the development of location based
services and the expansion of eGovernment activities the position has substantially
changed to the extent that the vast majority of the public are users, either knowingly or
unknowingly, of spatial information (Masser et al., 2008). As a result many traditional
professional practices must be drastically altered to ensure that SDIs develop in such a
way that they provide an enabling platform that will serve the wider needs of society in
a transparent manner.
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4. SDI IMPLEMENTATION IN THE CONTEXT OF MULTI LEVEL GOVERNANCE
Many national SDI documents seem to abide by the principle of 'one size fits all'. They
suggest that the outcome of SDI implementation will lead to a relatively uniform product
at the sub national level. However, there is both a top down and a bottom up dimension
to national SDI implementation. National SDI strategies drive state wide SDI strategies
and state wide SDI strategies drive local level SDI strategies and the outcomes of
these processes are likely to be that the level of commitment to SDI implementation will
vary considerably from state to state and from local government to local government.
The top down vision of a SDI emphasises the need for standardisation and uniformity
whereas the bottom up vision stresses the importance of diversity and heterogeneity
given the different aspirations of the various stakeholders and the resources that are at
their disposal. Consequently the challenge to those involved in SDI initiatives is to find
ways of ensuring some measure of standardisation and uniformity while recognising
the diversity and the heterogeneity of the different stakeholders. This is likely to become
increasingly important as sub national agencies take over the operational activities
associated with SDI implementation.
The SDI that emerges from this process will have many features in common with a
patchwork quilt or a collage of similar, but often quite distinctive components. The
patchwork quilt analogy assumes that the SDI outcome will be like the product of similar
pieces of cloth of various colours sewn together to form a bedcover. This is a particularly
useful where the SDI participants are largely administrative regions with similar
functions in the hierarchy. The collage analogy, on the other hand, is based on the notion
of a picture that is built up from different pieces of paper and other materials. This
is most useful where the participants such as transportation and environmental agencies
cover overlapping administrative districts (Masser, 2007, p. 80-82).
These two analogies broadly correspond to the two types of multi level governance
identified by political scientists such as Hooghe and Marks (2003) whose key features
are summarised in Table 3. Type 1 governance describes jurisdictions at a limited
number of levels as in the patchwork quilt model. These jurisdictions are essentially
general purpose in that they bundle together many different functions such a housing,
education, roads and environmental affairs. Membership of such jurisdictions is usually
territorial in terms of nation, region or community and they are characterised by non
intersecting memberships between different jurisdictions at the same level. In other
words, a citizen may belong to only one of these jurisdictions. A limited number of levels
are involved in these jurisdictions which are intended to be stable for periods of
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