Factors impeding the development of Oman spatial data infrastructure

Abstract

Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is an innovative concept introduced more than twenty years ago to allow the sharing and reuse of geospatial data. The National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), an SDI expanded to the national level, is now widely considered as an essential basic infrastructure for a country in this information era. To date countries all over the world, irrespective of their size, economic strength, political stability and population size, have developed, developing or considering developing their own SDI. A number of developed countries had successfully developed an impressive operational SDI while others are still progressively developing theirs. Yet for other countries the SDI development still remains an innovative concept. Understandably, besides the political and economic factors, many interrelated technical and non-technical factors can affect the development of SDI, the complexity of which can increase with the increase in the level of jurisdictions involved in spatial data sharing. Oman was one of the countries that had taken up the early initiative but unfortunately all that was known of the initiative was some feasibility studies conducted by non-national institution. Therefore this research has attempted to investigate the factors impeding the SDI development of Oman as an effort to revive the initiative to develop an operational Oman SDI, seen as an integral infrastructure to Oman’s future development and an important component in disaster and environmental management. Through this study, it was found that SDI is about communications between SDI participants to share spatial data. Through the thorough review of the data gathered from interviews and questionnaires, this research methodology was supported by systematic inspection and analysis of the essential data. The main stumbling block to Oman’s effort in building the SDI is the non-technical factors, including the human aspects entailing the lack of knowledge and awareness of spatial data and use of GIS, lack of knowledge on SDI concept and SDI benefits, and also the lack of cooperation, collaboration and coordination among the participants. It can be concluded that the lack of knowledge and awareness make communication between SDI participants difficult, thus almost impossible for cooperation, collaboration and coordination. This had left Oman with no option but to leave the initiative as an innovative concept, are now identified to be given the highest priority to enable Oman to pave the way forward.