Beyond Spatial Enablement

Over 650 years of experience in spatial information management, land administration and spatial enablement were infused into 22 presentations aligned with the theme of the Forum, ‘Beyond Spatial Enablement - Land Administration to Support Spatially Enabled Government'.

The GSDI Association was delighted to be part of the 4^th UN Land Administration Forum for Asia and the Pacific. The committee, led by Prof Abbas Rajabifard (GSDI President) and Mr Greg Scott (Chair, Permanent Committee on GIS Infrastructure for Asia and the Pacific-PCGIAP Working Group on Spatially Enabled Government), organised a world-class Forum attended by 110 participants from different countries.

This event was jointly organised by the PCGIAP, Centre for SDI and Land Administration (CSDILA), The University of Melbourne, including support from the Australian Government through Geoscience Australia, GSDI Association, FIG and ICA.

The Forum was preceded by a day of collaborative workshops by CSDILA in the areas of national land infrastructure, spatial metadata automation and 3D property management. The event provided a forum for sharing trends, strategies and a vision for a spatially enabled future and included several inspiring keynote addresses.

Speakers from organisations ranging from local governments to the World Bank reported on spatial enablement initiatives currently occurring around the world. Participants learned of new initiatives that the UN and member countries are implementing in support of spatially enabled government and society, for instance. Data silos both within and between organisations were identified as constraining the realisation of spatial enablement: ready discovery, access, use and sharing of spatial data remain a significant challenge. However, the convergence of economic, social and environmental drivers has provided spatial enablement with an increasingly prominent profile on both local and global stages, as the use of location-specific information in initiatives for addressing the Millennium Development Goals has demonstrated.

Key emerging trends and future directions raised in the discussions included:

• user participation trends;

• location as the fourth element of decision-making;

• the need to differentiate between high accuracy data (the new concept of ‘AAA information') and other data (including crowdsourced);

• evolving standards;

• the growing awareness for open access to data;

• a focus on service delivery; and finally,

• a caution that the move to achieve spatial enablement could result in spatial dependency.

These elements will form the basis for the development of new strategies to provide the foundation for future international activities by participants in line with the objectives of both GSDI and FIG. In addition to influencing the MoU arrangements that currently exist between these organisations, they may also have a bearing on future collaborations with, for instance, the ICA and the ISPRS.

Alongside the Forum, the CSDILA also celebrated its 10 year anniversary. For more information about the Forum (including presentations) and its outcomes, visit: 1.

Learn more about the GSDI Association and how to participate here: 2.

Dr. Abbas Rajabifard is president

of the GSDI Association. He is director of the Centre for SDIs and Land Administration in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering at the University of Melbourne in Australia.