Assessing national Spatial Data Infrastructure of Iran based on SDI readiness model

The main objective of this researchwas to determine Iran's National Spatial Data Infrastructures (NSDI) readiness index, with the aim of identifying the basic restrictions that impede NSDI development. The framework of the research is constructed on the basis of survey and SDI readiness model. In this research, Iran's NSDI according toa fuzzy-based modelhas been assessed using 16 decision criteria and five factors, including organisational, people, financial, information and technology factors.The data were collected through the questionnaire and interview with the experienced experts, who work in the government organizations, Universities, and private sector. The results of the implementation of the model demonstrated that Iran's NSDI readiness composite index was 0.44. In addition, the assessment of the factors of Iran's NSDI readiness showed that except technology factor, the rest of them were not developed well. Moreover, the status of the 75% of the assessment criteria was not satisfactory. Enterprise and private sector funding,individual leadership, telecommunication infrastructure, institutional leadership, umbrella legal agreement, politician's vision regarding SDI, metadata availability, SDI culture/education, were identified as the main limiting criteria in the development of the NSDI. Despite the different types of the limiting factors of the NSDI development, Web connectivity, digital Geospatial data availability, human capital and Geospatial software criteria were evaluated at the suitable level of development.Besides, it seems that the non-technical factors (organisational, financial, human resources) were more important limiting factors than the technology factor in Iran's NSDI development. At the end of the paper, some recommendations were presented to overcome the NSDI limiting factors.