Digital geographic data exchange standards and products: descriptions, comparisons and opinions

Abstract

As the 21st century begins and this nation's economy continues to be transformed by technology from one dominated by production utilising natural resources to one based on service, transportation, and information, it will require the support of an information infrastructure. This infrastructure will include not only myriad data sets, but also complex systems for coordinating, storing, processing, managing, and distributing them. From this perspective it would appear that ‘(the major mapping and charting organizations)’ should be transformed from mapping service organisations to the federal agencies responsible for structuring and coordinating the geographic or spatial component of the national infrastructure. They would serve and be served by data users in all sectors of the economy, not just organisations with natural resource or earth science management responsibilities. Such a transformation can take place gradually, but it requires a clear vision of ultimate goals so that technological and institutional developments occur in an orderly, purposeful fashion. Such a transformation will not take place without substantial investment in the public and private sectors and a reordering of traditional priorities and organizational structures. Although the field is still emerging, it is clear that GIS technology, to which computers are central, will be pervasive. The need for a high-quality, comprehensive, current national base data to serve as the geometric framework to which specialized data sets (themes, overlays, coverages, layers—whatever terminology comes to be widely accepted) can be registered is developing at a faster rate than anyone could have predicted. Pressure is mounting for the immediate digital equivalent of topographic maps that were decades in the making. If such data are not available soon, untold millions and possibly even billions of dollars will be spent to create redundant data bases that will only meet users' short-term needs. This country has a tradition of localized control in the public sector and a belief in the power of free-market forces operating in the private sector to best serve the national interest. But in an era of instantaneous nationwide and worldwide transmission of information, it no longer may make sense to compartmentalise data production responsibility in quite the same ways as in the past. Survival in an increasingly global economy, dominated by ever larger private/public sector coalitions may be possible only if commitments are made in this country to a national policy for increased information development and sharing.