Governmental digital cartographic data distribution policies can benefit environmental efforts and global change research. Currently, there are two main approaches towards data dissemination. The UK represents the cost-recovery approach where the data users help cover the costs of data creation and data are copyrighted. Alternately, the U.S. federal government distributes data on the basis of the marginal dissemination costs and does not copyright data that have been generated using public funds. The UK approach, which is typical of most of Europe, is more responsive to Its data users and can engage in partnerships with private companies in data development efforts, but the cost of data may limit basic research as its cost goes beyond the reach of many users and the copyright restrictions prevent open data sharing between scientists. This can have a significant impact in the area of basic environmental research, which is data intensive, and often requires many data sets from different time periods. In the United States, data are freely available at minimal cost and unrestricted by copyrights. This has allowed wide dissemination and supports greater innovation and public participation in environmental research. Interestingly, both of these policies find supporters in the business community. Government policy can also benefit environmental efforts by leading in standardization and cooperation on issues of scale, geodetic datum, terminology definition, and measurement consistency; both within country by coordinating local and national data, and as a part of a larger regional and global realm. As data dissemination becomes a global issue, and as the demand for digital map and other data to support environmental problem-solving becomes of critical importance, governments will increasingly have to choose a pathway between these dissemination strategies. This paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, and offers some results and case studies to highlight the problems for those nations that are only now becoming involved with digital maps for decision-making and information management.
