Today’s technology plays a crucial role in the effective use of environmental information. This includes geographic information systems and infrastructures. The purpose of this research is to identify the way in which the Polish spatial data infrastructure (PSDI) supports policies and activities that may have an impact on the environment in relation to one group of users, namely urban planners, and their tasks concerning environmental management. The study is based on a survey conducted in July and August, 2014. Moreover, the authors’ expert knowledge gained through urban development practice and the analysis of the environmental conservation regulations and spatial planning in Poland has been used to define the scope of environmental management in both spatial planning studies and spatial data sources. The research included assessment of data availability, infrastructure usability, and its impact on decision-making process. The results showed that the PSDI is valuable because it allows for the acquisition of data on environmental monitoring, agricultural and aquaculture facilities. It also has a positive impact on decision-making processes and improves numerous planners’ activities concerning both the inclusion of environmental indicators in spatial plans and the support of nature conservation and environmental management in the process of working on future land use. However, even though the infrastructure solves certain problems with data accessibility, further improvements might be proposed. The importance of the SDI in environmental management is noticeable and could be considered from many standpoints: Data, communities engaged in policy or decision-making concerning environmental issues, and data providers.

As an important facilitator in e-government and society in general, Open SDI merits an assessment of its characteristics and the monitoring of its development. The aim of the study was the proposal of the SDI openness assessment approach based on existing openness assessment frameworks, as well as the presentation of the Polish Spatial Data Infrastructure (PSDI) development towards openness. The results indicated that ten geodetic and cartographic databases fulfilled ten out of eleven criteria of data openness, according to the methodological assumptions, and reached a 3-star level of openness. The need for further development of the infrastructure towards sharing public administration data is recognized, as well as non-governmental data that meet the open data criteria, thus contributing to the openness of the SDI. The proposed assessment method, referenced to a five-level data openness system and providing clear scoring benchmarking for assessing SDI openness, may be used for comparative analysis of SDI openness in different countries, including EU Member States that draw on the experience of the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive.

Due to the complexity of planning processes, as well as the desire to satisfy stakeholders and entities involved in spatial development and planning procedures, there is a clear need to create a platform for managing spatial development planning information. The aim of this paper is to present a project and pilot version of an urban platform (spatial planning geoportal), which is intended to be a solution used for the creation, analysis, and presentation of spatial data related to spatial planning. To implement the concept of the geoportal, one of the models used in systems and software engineering known as incremental execution was used, together with the language for documenting phases of an IT project – the Unified Modeling Language (UML). The concept includes a formal description of the geoportal functionalities using UML as well as the perspective of solution users and stakeholders. This paper also shows the functionality of the pilot version of the geoportal, which refers to spatial planning at the local level and local spatial development. The spatial planning geoportal presented in this paper adheres to the reform of spatial planning and is intended to help in conducting spatial policy, both at the local and central level. Establishment of the spatial planning geoportal may contribute to increasing the efficiency and quality of the spatial planning system in Poland, as well as other areas such as management of local government units, local and regional transport, and regional planning.

There is a demand for evaluation of spatial data infrastructures (SDIs), to justify and monitor the relations between investments in SDI initiatives and the results obtained. It is also essential to pay particular attention to identifying user communities, and eliciting their assessment of effects deriving from an SDI. The paper introduces a concept of a multi-criteria method which allows to assess effectiveness of the SDI from the user perspective. The application of the proposed method in the Polish Spatial Data Infrastructure (PSDI) and its main access point to spatial data and services called ‘Geoportal 2’ as well as two groups of the national geoportal”s users (spatial planners and land surveyors) presents its potential. The total scores for the Geoportal 2 indicated the investment has potential and is quite effective, although some components of the PSDI (e.g. main access point, datasets, network services, software, hardware, procedures) may need improvements and additional analyses in the future. The contribution of this paper is the multi-criteria method which enables the analysis of outcomes, benefits (impacts) and business value of using SDI business project’s artifacts (outputs) considering the following dimensions: information and support provided, use process, user organizational performance, strategic alignment and business impact on user enterprise.

Implementation of spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) can maximize access to geographic information (GI) and, through geoportals or other access points, serve as a powerful tool in different fields of practice and specialization. In many countries, the most important sources of infrastructure reference data are survey databases and land information systems managed by surveying and mapping services. However, the SDI frequently has a more interdisciplinary character, which influences the value derived from its use by different communities. This paper aims to present the evaluation criteria of SDI usefulness and usability in the implementation of certain land-surveying tasks. The case study focuses on the Polish SDI (PSDI) and its main access point, Geoportal 2. SDI evaluation considers information and support provided by Geoportal 2, as well as the infrastructure’s impact on use process and user organizational performance. Surveyors consider the PSDI a resource for information from geodetic and cart...

As an invaluable source of knowledge about the past, cultural heritage may be an important element of the humanities research infrastructure, along with other elements, such as spatial references. Therefore, this paper attempts to provide an answer to the questions concerning the ways in which spatial information can contribute to the development of this infrastructure and the aspects of storytelling based on cultural resources that can be supported by such infrastructure. The objective of the methodology that was used was to combine the aspects that refer to spatial information and cultural items into a single, common issue, and to describe them in a formalized way with use of Unified Modeling Language (UML). As a result, the study presents a proposal of the Humanities Infrastructure Architecture based on spatially-oriented movable cultural items, taking into account their use in the context of interoperability, along with the concept of creating spatial databases that would include movable monuments. The authors also demonstrate that the ISO 19100 series of geographical information standards may be a source of interesting conceptual solutions that may be used in the process of the standardization of geographical information that was recorded in the descriptions of cultural heritage items in form of metadata and data structure descriptions.