Author(s)

M. Ajmi, M. H. Hamza, M. Labiadh, M. Yermani, N. Ben Khatra, A. S. Al-Thubaiti, I. A. Moharrem, A. El Arrim

Department of Geography and Geographic Information Systems, Faculty of Arts, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, KSA.
Department of Geology, Faculty of Science and Technology of Tangier, Abdelmalek Essaadi University, Tetuan, Morocco.
Environment Programme, Sahara and Sahel Observatory OSS, Tunis, Tunisia.
Geomatics Branch, Environmental Design Faculty, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, KSA.
Geomatics, Earth and Land Settlement Branch, Department of Geology, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, Tunis El Manar University, Tunis, Tunisia.

Environmental monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems are indispensable tools for sustainable land management, especially in dry and fragile ecosystems. The reporting and dissemination of its products and indicators are the key roles to perform their missions. Furthermore, the overall success of such multilateral projects and networks depends on well-organized infrastructures for spatial data management. A spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is an efficient framework to centralize the management of spatial data and information related to multilateral projects for the best sharing and exchange between partners and stakeholders in order to ensure that they are interactively connected to use the data efficiently and in a flexible manner. This paper outlines the work undertaken in partnership between the Geography and GIS Department of the Faculty of Arts, King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia Kingdom, the Geomatics, Earth and Land Settlement Branch of the Department of Geology, Faculty of Sciences of Tunis, Tunis El Manar University, Tunisia, and the Sahara and Sahel Observatory OSS which is an intergovernmental organization, in order to build a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for the ROSELT/OSS program (Long-Term Environmental Monitoring Observatories Network in the Circum-Sahara of the Sahara and Sahel Observatory). This SDI is entirely developed using Open Source technologies and the extensive suite of OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) standards and specifications, to enable interoperability among and between its different components.

SDI, Geospatial Data, Metadata, Geocatalogue, Webmapping, OGC

Ajmi, M. , Hamza, M. , Labiadh, M. , Yermani, M. , Khatra, N. , Al-Thubaiti, A. , Moharrem, I. and Arrim, A. (2014) Setting up a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for the ROSELT/OSS Network. Journal of Geographic Information System, 6, 150-161. doi: 10.4236/jgis.2014.62016.