Data Integration in the Development of Smart Cities in China: Towards a Digital Continuity Model

This paper presents a digital continuity model for managing big data in the development of smart cities in China. A mix-methods approach including site visits, document analysis, interviews and case study is adopted in the study, leading to the identification of four challenges with respect to data provenance, data stakeholders, data processing, and data risk management and several big data governance problems including data assurance, data loss, data trustiness, data security and data reusability in the development of smart cities. To effectively tackle such challenges and adequately address these problems, a digital continuity model is proposed as a holistic approach to managing big data resources that can be tracked, traced, linked and exploited for the sustainable development of smart cities in China. The proposed model can be used to guide the development of a national strategy for the integration of big data resources to improve data assurance, data integrity, data trustiness, data security and data reusability in the provision of smart city services.