Mountain Gis Portal - a Step towards Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure in the Hindu Kush-himalayan (hkh) Region

Usefulness of Geo-Information technology to address various issues on sustainable development has been well realized. However, the real applications of the technology are hindered due to lack of proper data sharing mechanisms, giving rise to lot of duplication of efforts. Many countries are working on developing National Spatial Data Infrastructures (NSDI) to look after various components necessary to facilitate spatial data sharing to a broad user base. In this context, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has been working on spatial data infrastructure at a regional level in the Hindu KushHimalayan (HKH) region to develop a common framework for sharing data and knowledge for application of GIS to sustainable mountain development. A mountain GIS Portal has been developed using the latest GIS and the Internet technologies. The portal developed to share GIS resources such as metadata, spatial data, application methodologies, publications and training materials will certainly reinforce the NSDI efforts in the countries of the HKH. ICIMOD is also working with its national partners to develop national portals in the similar framework which will be a part of the larger network at the regional level. It is envisaged that this distributed network with a building block approach will ultimately grow into a regional spatial data infrastructure in the HKH.