Geographic information (or geo-spatial data) is information which describes phenomena associated directly or indirectly with a location in respect to the Earth surface. Today, there are large amounts of geographic data availalbe which have been gathered (for decades) with different purposes by different institutions and companies. For instance, geographic information is vital for decision-making and resource management in diverse areas (natural resources, facilities, catastrophes, economy...), and at different levels (local, regional, national or even global).Spatial Data Infrastructures...

Metadata play a fundamental role in both DLs and SDIs. Commonly defined as -structured data about data- or -data which describe attributes of a resource- or, more simply, -information about data-, it is an essential requirement for locating and evaluating available data. Therefore, this book focuses on the study of different metadata aspects, which contribute to a more efficient use of DLs and SDIs. The three main issues addressed are: the management of nested collections of resources, the interoperability between metadata schemas, and the integration of information retrieval techniques to...