Sdi in China:progress and Issues

Spatial Data Infrastructure acts as a fundamental platform to make geospatial data exchangeable to supply geospatial information service widely. China has paid great attention to construct the Digital China Geospatial Framework (DCGF). This NSDI has four layers at National, Provincial, Municipal and County level. DCGF has five components: data sets, technology, legal support and standards, coordination mechanism and facility. The legal system consists of the Law of Surveying and Mapping and some other government statutes. The dataset has been defined in standards from 1:1 million to 1:500 at four administrative levels. A series of fundamental geospatial database has been completed as the kernel of DCGF. A full digital geospatial data production system has been widely established nationwide. The national coordinating mechanism is in action to strengthen the cooperation and data sharing. The national standards are getting more complete to support the DCGF. All the provinces and most municipals have established geomatics centres to carry out the DCGF construction. A lot of experiences have been achieved and the DCGF have been widely used in governments. There are still some issues blocking the establishment of DCGF, such as low frequent data updating, lack of data exchanging and strict classification system. There will be more and more public oriented geospatial product derived from DCGF to speed up the geospatial information industry. DCGF will play an actively role in the harmonious society in China. The author gives a review of DCGF construction according to the components and points out the key issues.