We often find that ignorance of what data exist and their inaccessibility hinders the creation of awareness. On a positive note, a few SSA countries have started establishing catalogs describing existing information resources. These catalogs contain data describing existing data, or metadata , which include attributes such as theme, quality, or origin. Analysis of metadata allows potential users to determine whether a data set may be useful in a given application. Data Interoperability Environmental management often needs to integrate data from different sources.
Easy integration requires that data conform to the same standards.
A major lesson learned in SSA is that lack of data interoperability often constitute an insurmountable roadblock to the use of environmental information in decision making. The problem lies with the existence of multiple data projections and coordinate systems, different naming conventions, different database structures and the lack of accuracy standards - a particularly insidious issue. Eliminating these problems requires a sustained and coordinated effort by all members of the EIS community to establish a common data architecture, including widely accepted standards. Applications The operational objective of EIS is to increase the quality, efficiency and accountability of decision-making processes through applications that systematically use environmental information. EIS should always explicitly target their support at specific environmental management processes, following a thorough review and analysis of the extent and manner in which information plays in making decisions.