Perspectives on Space and Time in US and Chinese Science - Space-Time Integration in Geography and GIScience - page 16

2.3.2 Challenges and Opportunities

Although significant progress has been made in spatiotemporal data collection and
handling in China, some unique challenges exist. The most significant one is data
sharing. From the above introduction it can be seen that with the exception of
data created by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, most of the data products at
the national level have been developed by governmental agencies. Access to small
amounts of data at limited locations may be possible, but it is extremely difficult to
obtain data for the entirety of China. For example, survey data such as topographic
data at scales greater than 1:1 million are regarded as secret. Although hydrological
data are not regarded as secret they are rarely accessible by the research community.
Even among governmental agencies data are not sharable. For example, both the
State Meteorology Administration (SMA) and the State Hydrology Bureau (SHB)
collect precipitation and temperature data, and the number of weather stations
operated by the latter is an order more than that operated by the former. But they do
not share the data. Neither the SMA nor the research community has the opportunity
to use the weather data from SHB to intensify the observational network and
improve weather prediction. The second challenge is the lack of quality assurance
to the data owned by the governmental agencies. For example, forest inventory
data are collected through reports from provincial forest bureaus, who obtain their
data from reports from the counties. Manipulation of data cannot be well tracked
and quantified. Thus, the credibility of governmental data is uncertain. The third
challenge, as discussed earlier, is the lack of creativity in making use of spatial and
temporal data.
Chinese scientists currently face the best opportunities in history. They are now
relatively well funded even compared with their colleagues in the western world.
More creativity is naturally expected as the outcome. While sharing geographical
data in China is a great bottleneck to the scientific community, additional efforts
must be made to change the Chinese bureaucracy to improve data sharing among
governmental agencies and the general public. The lack of quality assurance of
the governmental data can be alleviated by using direct mapping methods, as in
mapping wetlands and atmospheric quality using widely available remotely sensed
data (Gong 2012b ; Niu et al. 2012 ; Zhang et al. 2012 ). With the same group of
people, the same set of tools, and the same sources of data, the whole China can be
mapped more consistently under proper quality control. It is expected that through
interdisciplinary collaboration and improved quantitative skills, Chinese scientists
will bring more creativity in the analysis and effective use of spatial and temporal
data (Xu et al. 2010 ). Lastly, China has a rich archive of local chronicles that
contain geographic information through time. This unique source has been explored
by some scholars of historical climate (Zhu 1972 ; Zhang 2004 ;Ge 2010 ). More
coordinated extraction of spatiotemporal information from such data sources is
necessary.