Blockchain technology is gaining increasing attention across various industries, including healthcare, supply chain, education, business, logistics, disaster management, agriculture, tourism, and energy. As such, it is also becoming of interest to the spatial data infrastructure (SDI). This chapter explored the potential of blockchain technology for SDI and examined its potential role in addressing four key areas of concern regarding SDI: governance structure, facilitating access, capacity building, and data interoperability. Furthermore, the chapter also delved into the challenges that may arise with integrating blockchain technology into SDI. These challenges include scalability, technical complexity, regulatory as well as legal constraints, and cost as well as resource constraints. In addition to discussing the potential and challenges of blockchain-based SDI, this chapter also presented the technical, legal, and social implications that may arise from its deployment.
Top1. Introduction
Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) is a globally recognized infrastructure that aims to manage, share, and disseminate spatial data to a wide variety of users, including government organizations, the public sector, NGOs, academia, and the general public (Masser, 2019). It enables different stakeholders to share and utilize spatial data to facilitate various decision-making processes. However, there are several challenges associated with SDI that need to be addressed, such as governance, managing large volumes of spatial data, data heterogeneity, interoperability, ownership, accessibility, and security. To address some of the aforementioned challenges, blockchain technology can have the potential to serve as a viable solution. By providing a secure, decentralized, and transparent platform, blockchain technology can revolutionize the management of spatial data within SDI
In recent years, there has been a growing interest among researchers and practitioners in the adoption of blockchain technology across various sectors (Bodkhe et al., 2020), including health, supply chain, education, disaster management, and more. Blockchain technology can enable the creation of a secure, safe, and transparent decentralized and distributed database, making it easier to share and handle data securely and efficiently (Monrat et al., 2019). The decentralized nature of blockchain technology has the potential to address issues associated with traditional SDIs, such as data security, interoperability, and ownership.
The primary objective of this chapter is to explore the potential of integrating blockchain technology with SDI, along with the associated challenges and proposed recommendations to address them. The chapter also provides insights into the technical, social, and legal implications of blockchain-based SDI. To achieve this objective, the chapter aims to answer the following research questions:
- 1.
What are the possibilities to integrate blockchain technology into SDI?
- 2.
What are the potential challenges associated with integrating blockchain technology into SDI, and how can these challenges be mitigated?
- 3.
What are the implications of deploying blockchain technology in SDI?
In the pursuit of answers to the research questions, the conceptual framework inspired by Masser, (2019) four pillars encapsulating the future facets of SDI, is used in this chapter. The four pillars include governance structures, facilitating access, capacity building, and data interoperability. These pillars stand as sentinels guarding the realms of SDI's future.
This chapter is structured as follows: First, the concepts of SDI and blockchain are presented. The second section described the methodology used to carry out this research. The potential possibilities of integrating blockchain technology into SDI are discussed in the next section. The challenges associated with this integration are explored in section four. The subsequent section provided a discussion of the findings. Finally, conclusions are drawn, and recommendations for future research directions are presented.
Top2. Theoretical Background
This section presented a detailed description of two fundamental concepts: blockchain and spatial data infrastructure to provide a comprehensive comprehension of the research topic.