The development of a frameworkand associated tools for the integration ofmulti-sourced spatial datasets

The world of today heavily relies on spatial data to manage the natural and built environments.Monitoring and controlling the impact of human activities on environment and the impact of naturalenvironment changes (including natural hazards) on built environment is a major policy driver formany jurisdictions. The mitigation of natural hazards including tsunami, earthquake and landslide andsecuring citizens against them has become another priority of nations , especially after Indonesia’stsunami. September 11 was also a remarkable point in history which attracts attentions towardsproviding more efficient counter-terrorism initiatives to secure citizens.In many countries meeting sustainable development objectives including social cohesion andenvironment protection together with economical growth is the most overwhelming policy driver. Inthese countries most of legislations and decisions are made, if they meet sustainable developmentobjectives.All above mentioned activities try to control the natural and built environments and monitor theimpacts of one environment on the other one. To control and monitor built and natural environments,the components of these environments need to be integrated to provide the factual model of realworld. Effective access and use of spatial data has been addressed by developing SDIs (Spatial DataInfrastructures) which one of its objectives is to address and provide requirements for effective dataintegration.The effective integration of built and natural environmental datasets is an ultimate goal of manyspatial decision making systems which has not been fully achieved, however technical integration andinteroperability of multi-sourced spatial data have received much attention. The integration of multisourcedspatial data due to the diversity of data providers needs more than technical tools andconsiderations. Institutional, social, legal and policy requirements must also be taken intoconsideration in order to achieve effective integratio18-22 September 2006