Spatial data content standards for Africa

Abstract

The authors provided an introduction to data content standards for digital geographical information in this presentation, and summarised their assessment of 170 standards that they identified as candidates for further examination. Of these, they selected 14 standards containing data dictionaries or feature catalogues, and compared their feature types. They have also provided some advice and recommendations on data content standards (particularly for data dictionaries and feature catalogues) for Africa; The project was initiated by EROS Data Center of the United States Geological Survey (USGS/EROS) together with EIS-Africa, to develop guidelines for spatial data content standards in Africa and executed by the CSIR. Funding was supplied by the United States Agency for International Development (US AID).