Big Data – a step change for SDI?

Abstract

The globally hyped notion of Big Data increasingly influenced the scientific and technical debates about geospatial data handling and management. Accordingly, we see a need to revisit the happenings of the past years, to present the recent Big Data landscape from an infrastructural perspective, and to draw the major implications for the SDI community. We primarily conclude that it would be too simple and too naïve to consider only the technological aspects that are underpinning geospatial (web) services. Instead we request SDI researchers, engineers, providers and consumers to develop new methodologies and capacities for dealing with (geo)spatial information as part of more general knowledge infrastructures.