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The traditional divide between land and sea in terms of acquisition technology is beginning to disappear. Advances in satellite and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technologies in particular have the potential to provide “fit for purpose” data across the coastal zone. Furthermore, many of the strategic issues for SDI development, including overall national policy, governance and information management are common to both the land and marine domains. Some of the strategic challenges include ontologies, standards for interoperability, assessing economic value, data accessibility, human capacity and governance arrangements.

The author has recently been working internationally on a number of national-scale projects that aim to take an holistic view of Spatial Data Infrastructures, bridging the traditional divide between marine and land-focused efforts. He will outline some of the key learnings from this work illustrated with examples of best practice.

These experiences have revealed many opportunities for synergies between the communities. They are pertinent and timely in a period where the roles of National Mapping Agencies (NMAs) and Hydrographic Authorities are under scrutiny in many countries.

To this background he will begin by considering the economic drivers which are push factors for more integrated approach. These include the need internally within SDI-lead organisations for efficiency and externally for the link between socio-economic development and SDI to be more clearly articulated. The consequent impact on national policy frameworks and how these play out through organisational re-structuring and information management will then be examined. The final part of the presentation will focus on how respective communities can work more closely together and in the process become more relevant and visible in a world of rapidly changing requirements.

spatial data infrastructure;management; economic value