79
IRAN SDI INITIATIVE: STUDY PHASE OF NSDI
A. Mansourian and M. J. Valadan Zoej
Faculty of Geodesy & Geomatics eng., K.N.Toosi University of Technology, No. 1346, Vali-e-asr St., Mirdamad Cross,
Tehran 19967-15433, Iran, P.O.Box 15875-4416
{mansourian , valadanzouj}@kntu.ac.ir
Commission VI, WG VI/4
KEY WORDS: National Spatial Data Infrastructure, Iran, Study Phase
ABSTRACT:
In Iran, development of National SDI (NSDI) was formally started from 2005, according to the law of "the fourth economic, social,
and cultural development plan (2005-2009)", enacted by parliament in 2004. As the first step, referring to the mentioned law, the
ministerial board assigned the National Center for Spatial Planing (NCSP) in Iranian Management and Planning Organization
(MPO), as secretary and coordinator of NSDI in Iran. As several valuable spatial data activities had been individually conducted by
national mapping agencies, ministries, and national organizations, NCSP decided to make a comprehensive study with respect to
spatial data, from an SDI perspective, in Iran. The study aimed at:
1. Investigating the experiences of different countries involving in development of SDI
2. Assessing current status of Iran from an SDI perspective
3. Development of NSDI Strategic Plan for Iran
4. Development of NSDI conceptual model for Iran
5. Development of NSDI action plan
K.N.Toosi University of Technology was requested to carry out the study, in the context of a research project. This paper describe
the results of the research briefly, with particular emphasize on the second and the fourth steps.
1. INTRODUCTION
Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) has been recognized as an
essential requirement for knowledge-based sustainable
development. Development of SDI is a challenging task which
requires attention to different social, technical, economical, and
institutional topics (Masser, 2005). Currently, more than half
the world's countries claim that they are involved in some form
of SDI development (Crompvoets et al 2004), as part of their
infrastructural activities. Budhathoki and Nedovic-Budic (2006)
highlighted that such wide interests in developing SDIs is
because of a functional SDI is an important asset in the societal
decision and policy making, effective governance, citizen
participation processes and private sector opportunities.
As a general definition, Masser (2005) maintains that SDI:
"...supports ready access to geographic information. This is
achieved through the coordinated actions of nations and
organizations that promote awareness and implementation of
complementary policies, common standards and effective
mechanism for the development and availability of
interoperable digital geographic data and technologies to
support decision making at all scales for multiple purposes.
These actions encompass the policies, organizational remits,
data, technologies, standards, delivery mechanisms, and
financial and human resources necessary to ensure that those
working at the (national) and regional scale are not impeded in
meeting their objectives".
Iran is a developing country located in the Middle East region,
with a centralized governmental system. Development of Iran
NSDI was formally started from 2005 according to the
enactment of the parliament in 2004. Referring to the enactment,
a high level document entitled "the NSDI Special Development
Plan Document (NSDI-SDPD)" (MPO, 2005) was prepared and
then approved by the ministerial board. The document includes
mandating statements for NSDI development. It also clarifies
the Iran NSDI vision, core components, coordinator, and
secretary as well as main stakeholders.
2. IRAN GENERAL SDI MODEL
Figure 1 shows the general Iran SDI model including its core
components and their relationship with each other (Mansourian
and Valadan 2008). The general model illustrates that, by better
use of technologies, proper policy-making, standardization and
creating accessing networks, the relation between people and
data can be facilitated (Figure 1). NSDI-SDPD has also
accepted the hierarchy nature of SDI for Iran, including the
horizontal and vertical relationships between different levels of
SDI from local to national.
By adopting the Luzet (2004) model, NSDI-SDPD mandates
ministries and national organizations to be the main
stakeholders and data custodians of Iran NSDI. They must
accept the responsibility of production and updating the NSDI's
data, based on and during their daily businesses. In other word,
stakeholders should produce data through their daily businesses
including road management, urban planning, land management,
tax collection and so forth. Although there may be many data
providers, the datasets they provide must be integrated in order
to develop NSDI's datasets. Once these datasets are shared
between data users, each user does not have to develop the data
by oneself; the user can avoid duplicated efforts of data
production. Consequently, by sharing the cost of developing the
NSDI's data, data production cost can be minimized and shared
between the users.