Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure (RSDI) for Sustainable Mountain Development in the Hindu Kush-Himalyan (HKH) Region

Poverty alleviation and sustainable development of the mountain people in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region have been the main agenda of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). Realizing the potential of geographic information (GI) for sustainable mountain development, ICIMOD through its Mountain Environment and Natural Resources Information Systems (MENRIS) programme, has been working on promoting the use of GIS and related technologies in the HKH region. To this end, MENRIS is operationlising its strategy with four programmatic components, namely - capacity building and networking, integrated GIS data management, applications and spatial decision support systems, and metadata clearing house, which are essential elements of Regional Spatial Data Infrastructure (RSDI). Partnerships among the national and regional institutions and their capacity building have been the major strategies of MENRIS for the development of RSDI. The partnership initiative was designed to extend the full functional capabilities of national institutions by developing mutually supportive relationships with a focus on training and dissemination of geo-information technology and its applications. This paper describes the continuing efforts of ICIMOD to develop a sound RSDI to attain the common goals of an accurate geo- information base, which can then be used to support varieties of mountain specific applications. The paper also describes the current initiative in developing a network based architecture called Mountain GIS Portal.