Opportunities for Use of the Spatial Data Transfer Standard at the State and Local Level

Dramatic changes in the way that spatial data have been collected and processed over that last 20 years is leading to a rethinking and restructuring on the most efficient ways to handle geographical information. These changes are taking place at the federal, state, and local governmental levels with great potential for the private sector as well. The formal adoption of the Spatial Data Transfer Standard (SDTS) as the federal database transfer standard for spatial databases signals a new era in this long chain of developments. It offers more flexible and efficient database transfers than earlier tools, and will become the workhorse for implementing the new National Spatial Data Infrastructure. It offers organizations a standard that will make possible and practical a much wider sharing of databases than is currently being done today. Use of the SDTS presents an opportunity to many organizations to share data more easily and reduce the duplication of expensive spatial database resources.