Collaborative custodianship through collaborative cloud mapping: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Collaborative custodianship refers to an arrangement where a number of custodians work together to produce integrated datasets for a spatial data infrastructure (SDI), e.g. local authorities contributing address or street data to a national SDI dataset. Collaborative cloud mapping allows for ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand, configured and tailormade mapping with resources shared between various entities collaborating on a specific initiative, such as an SDI or for disaster management. This paper presents the results of a workshop in South Africa during which case studies from the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria of collaborative custodianship of address data were presented, and OpenStreetMap as a case study of collaborative cloud mapping. Subsequently, challenges and opportunities for implementing similar initiatives in the context of the South African SDI were debated in break-away sessions. The results from these sessions were analysed using the PESTEL framework.