From planning the routes of a meals-on-wheels operation to understanding the extent of the population affected by a natural disaster, geospatial data are a fundamental component of the operations of all civil society organizations (see box below). Unfortunately those data are often also the least understood, most casually treated data until they become critical to a particular purpose. By then, it is often too late to assemble the needed resources in terms of expertise, hardware, software, data, and operating procedures needed to quickly bring usable geospatial data to the decision makers.

   Data, once collected, is often not in a form usable outside the organization and is also often not easily found when others are searching for data. There is no “Google for data” yet. Additionally, there are enormous amounts of data being generated from countless sources, ranging from individuals recording locations with a handheld GPS unit to satellites generating terabytes of data per day. These data can provide tremendous benefit to civil society organizations if they can learn how to access and use them.

   What these organizations need is a combination of services, tools, and content that will enable them to go about their charitable work without having to become geospatial experts or incur large expenses. This is particularly true of smaller organizations that can’t afford staff dedicated to managing their data. The services, tools, and content should themselves be interoperable, and should facilitate the work of organizations in such a way that their data can be reused by others. When considering any locality, be it inner-city Boston or a game reserve in Namibia, there are many distinct charitable organizations working there. It should be easy for them to collect and exchange data, or for them to offer each other services related to that data. At the same time, it should be easy for organizations to manage their data based on outside concerns such as privacy laws and copyright restrictions.

   There are many, somewhat interrelated activities underway at many different levels, all geared towards developing a coherent, interoperable infrastructure to support data collection, publishing, searching, distribution, and use. These activities are still in early stages relative to the magnitude of the problem of a fully interoperable geospatial data infrastructure.

   The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the Open GIS Consortium (OGC, which recently changed its name to the Open Geospatial Consortium) are working on standards. Software vendors are implementing them, and the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) Association has developed a GSDI Cookbook. Many government agencies are developing reference architectures (notably, among others, the FGDC in the US, GeoConnections in Canada, and GDI-NRW in Germany).

   Civil society organizations themselves are working together. The recently formed Spatial Information Management Advisory Group (SIMAG), a collaborative association of five UN Organizations, the Joint Research Centre of the European Union, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), EOGEO, and a number of leading universities work toward international cooperation in spatial information management capacity development.

   The Free and Open Source community is also doing its part. The FreeGIS.org website lists 241 software packages, and an increasing number of these implement standards.

   As a community, we have come a long way, and it’s clear that we’re making progress. Let’s not stop until civil society organizations have access to all the data, tools, and services they need to do their jobs. Let’s give them sustainable spatial data management.

About the Author

   Allan Doyle, in addition to his “day job” working on interoperability and standards, co-founded EOGEO, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing sustainable Earth Observation and Geospatial Information and Communication Technologies that are vital to the operation of civil society organizations and to the well being of individual citizens. He can be reached at [email protected].