Data Revelations in Qatarwhy the same standards won't work in the U.S.by Nancy Tosta, Director of Forecasting and Strategy, Puget Sound Regional Council, Seattle, Washington. |
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This article first appeared in the Geo Info Systems magazine and is reprinted with the permission of the author
A few months ago, during the GIS/GPS Conference in Qatar, I discovered - somewhat to my surprise - a National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). I'd also heard about the 1992 Exemplary Systems (URISA, Washington D.C.) and 1995 Highest Technological Achievement (ESRI, Redlands, California) awards that the Centre for Geographic Information Systems (CGIS) had received.
After my years of pushing NSDI around the United States, seeing the principles operating in Qatar was quite a revelation. High resolution, fully integrated GIS are available to all agencies and the public. The agencies make use of the same base information, so all new data collected are also integrated.
I've been thinking about the factors that have contributed to Qatar's success and what they might reveal about NSDI efforts in the United States, as well as those elsewhere in the world.
MIGHTY MICROCOSM
Although Qatar is a country, it is referred to as the 'State of Qatar'. It sits on the east coast of Saudi Arabia, on the Persian Gulf with an area of roughly 4247 square miles, somewhere between the size of the states of Delaware and Connecticut (Wright, 1996). Most of the country is desert.
Qatar's population in 1995 was about 641,000, equivalent to the 1995 population of North Dakota (Qatar Central Statistical Organisation 1996). Every state in the United States except Vermont, Wyoming and Alaska has more population than Qatar; so do 14 cities and 62 metropolitan statistical areas (Hoover's Inc. 1996).
It has relatively few institutions. The national or 'State' government includes the typical number of agencies - maybe 20 - that you'd expect to find in an environment that size. There are essentially three cities: Doha, the capital, with a population of approximately 200,000; Rayyan with a population just over 91,000; and Wakrah, with a population under 25,000 (Wright, 1996). Qatar is a traditional Monarchy ruled by an Emir, who can issue mandates that are to be obeyed. The economy is dominated by oil, banking and shipping services (Wright, 1996).
GIS CITY
One of
the amazing sights at the Qatar GIS/GPS '97 Conference was
the 'GIS City'. Most conferences, whether state, national or
international sponsor an exhibit of GIS software, hardware
and service providers. Qatar's exhibit was a simulation of a
networked city depicting the linkages among Qatari agencies
sharing data and GIS resources. All agencies - 16 in all -
using GIS in Qatar are linked with GISnet, which is a
dedicated 100 megabits-per-second FDDI fibre optic network.
The public can also access GIS data via this network.
The underlying data "infrastructure" that supports Qatar's GIS efforts was depicted at the entrance to the GIS City. The digital database comprises 6,000 horizontal control survey monuments for the country and 4,500 vertical control stations; digital orthoimagery (10 centimetre pixels in urban areas, 1 meter elsewhere); digital elevation models (again, 10 centimetres vertical accuracy in urban areas and 1 meter elsewhere); and an impressive collection of vector layers (for example, streets, buildings, zoning, land use etc.) at 1:1000 scale in urban areas and 1:10,000 for the rest of the country. These databases are used by all of the national agencies that have a need for geospatial data including agriculture, health and environment.
CGIS has an in-house staff of 116, more than 50 others work for other agencies but train or operate out of the Centre. CGIS sets standards, provides training, supports the National GIS Steering Committee, creates data sets, and in general co-ordinates all aspects of GIS development and use throughout Qatar. Agencies, utilities, and municipalities are allowed to develop their own GIS, but must comply with national standards. The entire exhibit hall was set up to depict the interrelationships among these agencies and their shared database. Since its creation, the organisations have played critical roles in conducting pilot studies, guiding standards development, ensuring that standards are implemented in all the agencies and overseeing the development of co-ordinated data sets.
NOT ALL NSDIs ARE ALIKE
I provided background statistics earlier to help establish the monumental differences in levels of complexity - geographically, socially, and institutionally - between the State of Qatar and the United States. The larger the area and the more the development, the greater the expense to build data sets. The more the development, the greater the likelihood that high resolution data will be needed for decision-making. The more institutions and players, the greater the time commitment in co-ordination efforts. The more existing GIS activity, the greater the difficulties in GIS co-ordination.
In my mind, the following factors made nation-wide GIS co-ordination possible in Qatar:
- highest level political support:
- political will and authority to mandate and enforce standards;
- outstanding technical leadership;
- small and relatively uncomplicated geography;
- few institution;
- adequate funding; and
- little existing GIS activity.
It wasn't just that one of these factors existed; I would argue they were all necessary to one degree or another. How does the United States - or for that matter, any other country - compare? Let's go down the list.
Highest level political support. Yes, to some extent. President Clinton did sign Executive Order #12906 mandating the creation of the NSDI through various federal actions. And the Secretary of the Interior Babbit does chair the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). But no other Secretaries sit on the FGDC and many agency representatives are not "highest" level.
Political will and authority to mandate and enforce standards. Not exactly. Although Secretary Babbit chairs the FGDC, not even his own agencies in the Department are totally committed to carrying out the actions of the Executive Order. It's not that they don't care or make an effort, it's just that the federal government is an organisation with lots of players and even more agendas. On the other hand, agencies have and do continue to reconcile differences and redundancies in data collection, but this is usually a tedious, very long term process with meetings, meetings and more meetings. Sometimes it works at the end and sometimes the players keep changing and the meetings keep going. Besides, for the most part, the federal government cannot control local or state government actions. No standards adopted by the federal government are mandatory at other levels of the government.
Outstanding technical leadership. Who do thousands of US GIS users look to for guidance when developing their GIS? There are many federal geospatial database managers and in some areas probably more experts than anywhere else in the world. The FGDC has worked to create committees and a review process for standards to encourage involvement from the state and local governments and private - and academic - sector representatives. These committees provide some level of technical leadership.
Small and relatively uncomplicated geography. Hardly! If nothing else, the United States is big and complicated: more than 850 times the size of the State of Qatar, encompassing nearly every ecosystem imaginable - with the possible exception of various tropical rain forests. More than 144,000 square miles are estimated to be developed in urban and transportation uses.
Few institutions. No, again. There are 13 major executive departments in the federal government with as many as 90 separate agencies and bureaus under them. Additionally, there are over 60 independent agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Each of the 50 states has tens or hundreds of agencies as do most of the 3000 counties, 19,000 municipalities and 16,000 townships, along with nearly 46,000 schools and special districts. All told, there are more than 85,000 units of government in the US not counting all of the agencies that make up those governments.
Adequate funding. Who knows? Given the level of institutional and geographic complexity in the United States, what's adequate? The CGIS in Qatar expended approximately $5 million to build the base data sets previously described. Additional funds were expended by each agency to build other specific data sets. A 1993 Office Management and Budget (OMB) study reported that the federal government spends more than $4 billion annually on the collection and management geospatial data.
Little existing GIS activity. No, the United States does not meet this criteria. There are thousands of GIS efforts in the US. No one knows how many, but it's unusual to find an agency or jurisdiction (unless it's so small as to not even have a computer) not using or contemplating the use of GIS.
THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY
So where does all this leave us here in the United States? Other nations may be smaller than the United States, less complex geographically or institutionally and have less GIS activity, hence "scoring higher" with Qatar's criteria. But I can't think of one that would come close to meeting the conditions in Qatar. Also my feeling is that what's been done in Qatar is not likely to be replicated around the world, at least not at the national level.
Qatar, to its credit, identified the data needed for decision-making at all levels, including where most decisions are made - locally - and developed the highest resolution data to support these types of applications. Their small size allowed them to consider this a national spatial data infrastructure.
In the United States, several states and various metropolitan regions are on their way to accomplishing something similar to Qatar's NSDI. These are not national spatial data infrastructures, but they cover areas as large or larger than Qatar, involve more existing GIS users and are building data sets that are useful for decision-making.
The FGDC recognised long ago that the challenge of building a national spatial infrastructure in the United States was not necessarily uniformity, but rather consistency. If nothing else we are too 'sophisticated' in our GIS development - too far gone may be another way to say it. The FGDC has encouraged partnerships at the local level with incentive funding and is also addressing development of basic guidelines for building data sets. These guidelines or standards will encourage local high resolution data bases to contain common features to allow integration or generalisation to build larger-area data sets from multiple jurisdictions. The FGDC is still working on these standards. Though it may not be coming from the highest levels of authority as it did in Qatar, the FGDC has been a critical force in raising awareness about data-sharing possibilities in the United States. Perfection is unlikely.
THINKING GLOBALLY, ACTING LOCALLY
Some argue that as more nations consider development of spatial data infrastructures we should address the possibility of a global spatial data infrastructure. I certainly recognise and appreciate that the world has become a global economy and many issues are global in nature. Although global sustainability may be of concern - and data that allow modelling of global climate and air pollution are critical - it is because millions of local decisions are made that sustainability is in question. The cumulative effect of innumerable local decisions made without the value of good information is changing the world. Is it more important to direct our limited resources for geospatial data globally or locally? Perhaps the global question is more one of how we can best network our local databases.
Meanwhile, something is growing in the United States that does not exist in most other parts of the world: an incredibly rich network of data development experts at the local level who are beginning to understand the value of geospatial data for sound decision-making. The United States will probably never accomplish what Qatar did, but maybe there's another way to look at it. We could have 850 times the number of people caring about and using geospatial data for decision-making as Qatar does. We are beginning to put in place complex, robust, integrated geospatial data systems that will ultimately affect every land use decision made in the United States. Hats off to Qatar for their national spatial data infrastructure - I had an enlightening, exciting and wonderful visit. At the same time I'm humbled by the efforts of the thousands of dedicated local database builders in the United States. There's not a lot of glory in what they do, but there is value.