The website for the initiative of National Spatial Data Infrastructure for Botswana was developed within the Establishment of a National Geographic Information System project.
NSDI – is an established framework for linking geographic data from different organizations. NSDI is defined as the technologies, policies, standards and procedures necessary to promote sharing of geospatial data throughout all levels of government, the private sector and the academia.
The goal for this infrastructure is to reduce duplication of efforts among organizations, improve quality and reduce costs related to geographic information, to make geographic data more accessible and to increase the benefits of using the available data.
An SDI consists of four main components:
Institutional Framework
Inter-institutional agreements, Data sharing policies, data pricing policies, institutional responsibilities, legislation, private integrity policies etc
Technical Standards
Establishment of standards concerning data format, data exchange, software, metadata, coding, buying-ordering etc
Fundamental Datasets
Geographic datasets that are needed by a number of institutions in the SDI. Basic map features upon which most attribute data in different institutions is linked.
Technical framework
The actual hardware, communication facilities and other technical solutions needed