Exploring worldwide the impact of society on the success of national spatial data clearinghouses

This paper provides the main results of a worldwide exploration of societal impact on the success of national spatial data clearinghouses for the situation of December 2002. The aim is to explore why several countries have successful clearinghouses, and to identify the societal factors for success in order to enhance the understanding of the societal factors contributing to future clearinghouse advancement. A clearinghouse suitability index was developed in order to indicate the success of clearinghouses. The society of each country was characterised by data of attributes relating to nine societal aspects (economy, education, technology, environment, culture, demography, institution, health care, and jurisdiction). Several explorative analyses were performed based on statistics (e.g. analysis of variance, partial least squares regression). Moreover, the success of potential clearinghouses was predicted for countries with no previously existing facility. These prediction results were compared with the results of the web survey of April 2005. The findings of the analyses highlight the importance of certain societal conditions for the success of national clearinghouses. However, society alone does not fully determine success, since clearinghouse-internal factors such as the introduction of web services, stability of funding and creation of user-friendly interfaces are also important. From a societal perspective, success is likely to be dependent on a combination of attributes from different societal aspects, in particular economy, education and technology. Critical factors for success could be those that raise the level of wealth in the country (e.g. taxes on income, gross domestic product, education expenditure and Internet accessibility). In the near future newly established national clearinghouses, in countries where they have not previously been established, are likely to face serious obstacles or may even fail as result of unfavourable societal conditions. This could, however, be reversed if critical clearinghouse-internal factors are implemented.