New directions in valuing geospatial information - how to value goespatial information for policy and business decisioins in the future

Governments are increasingly asking for more evidence of the benefits of investing in geospatial data and infrastructure before investing. They are looking for a clearer articulation of the economic, environmental and social benefits than has been possble in the past. Development of techniques has accelerated in the past five years as governments and industry become more involved in the capture and use of geospatial data. However evaluation practitioners have struggled to answer these emerging questions.

The paper explores the types of questions that decision makers are asking and discusses the different approaches and methods that have been used recently to answer them. It explores the need for better buisness case models.

The emerging approaches are then discussed and their attributes reviewed. These include methods of analysing tengible economic benefits, intangible benefits and societal benefits. The paper explores the use of value chain analysis and real options analysis to better articulate the impacts on international competitiveness and how to value the potential benefits of innovations enabled by the geospatial data that is produced.

The paper concludes by illustrating the potential for these techniques in current and future decision making.