Data Integration: An Application in Rural Property Valuation

With the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) becoming more widespread and the increase in digital data exchange and sharing, data integration issues are becoming more apparent as users aim to utilise a variety of data sets from different sources. In rural areas, land size, soil type, crop production, irrigation and distance to transport services are among some of the key factors that influence property value. In addition, water and wind erosion, dryland salinity, fire, flood, drought and pests, both plants and animals, can pose serious threats to agricultural production and to the future capabilities of the land. In developing a tool to forecast rural property values, numerous data sets are required. This paper explores some of the issues dealing with the integration of numerous data sets, including scale, projection, database design and GIS data format differences, and aims to provide a framework for their use in data integration.