Investigating current challenges for developing Urban Spatial Data Infrastructure

Nowadays with expansion of information technologies, electronic cities have increased more than before and there is no doubt in near future, information will play the key role in planning and management of many cities. Regarding the fact that most of this essential information has spatial aspects, appropriate infrastructure will be needed to manage these cities effectively. Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is an initiative intends to create a collaborative environment among data producers, value-adders and end-users for spatial data production, access and usage. Facilitating of spatial data sharing is the main goal of SDIs. It is obvious that by application of such mechanism in cities, the custodian organizations would function harmonically and cost, time and extra efforts will be saved. Local SDI (LSDI), aims to paving the way for exchange of information amongst city organizations by creating a series of standards and policies, developing technologies, training expert personnel, proper funding etc. Most of developed and developing cities have constructed LSDI for efficient planning and management of municipalities in recent years. In this paper with consideration of LSDI activities in various cities, the major problems of building LSDI with particular emphasize on developing cities is discussed and the main factors for development of LSDI is analyzed