Administration of Spaces - A Primer of GIS: Fundamental Geographic and Cartographic Concepts - page 238

and taxes become more transparent. These internal improvements have
focused on two areas: improving administrative activities through the use of
GI technologies and improving administrative coordination between differ-
ent agencies. We will examine some of the successes in improving adminis-
trative activities in Chapter 13. In this chapter, we focus on how government
coordination has been improving because of administrative-led develop-
ments of GI technologies.
Multipurpose Land Information System
Because improving administrative activities can be greatly aided by improv-
ing data sharing, many developments have focused on improving data shar-
ing, not only through technological standards, but by establishing a common
reference base for administrations. The Multipurpose Land Information Sys-
tem (MPLIS) is perhaps the best known and most significant of concepts for
improving administrative data sharing.
MPLIS has its roots in cartographers' attempts to develop multipurpose
cartography in the 1950s. Multipurpose cartography relied on the preparation
of different thematic layers using a common coordinate system that facili-
tated the manual overlay of the layers in the preparation of the printed map.
The thematic layers corresponded to administrative activities—for example,
U.S. states as a base layer combined with another layer of highways or a layer
showing railways to produce maps showing different parts of the transporta-
tion infrastructure.
MPLIS starts with this multiple use concept and simultaneously extends
it and focuses it on local governments, counties, or municipalities. The
extension of the multipurpose cartography concept focuses on making the
resulting combined information the catalyst for administrative coordination.
This is possible because the GI technology developed since the 1960s made
it very easy to combine data as long as a common coordinate system was
used. To make presentation maps a cartographer was still called for, but
maps for administrative analysis or straightforward informational purposes
could now be produced by people working in administrative offices instead
of specialized cartographers.
For the MPLIS to work, a great deal of coordination and data sharing is
required. Administrative resistance is most often the greatest stumbling
block for data sharing. Conflicts between different mandates and different
information needs often impair the development of the MPLIS in local gov-
ernments. The many success stories around the world point to the great sig-
nificance of this administrative concept for the improved efficacy of adminis-
trative cartography and GI.
Spatial Data Infrastructures
In some senses spatial data infrastructures (SDI) are extensions of the core
MPLIS concepts (coordination and data sharing using GI stored in a com-
mon coordinate system) to other levels of government. The first, and still