In this paper, research investigating the current situation with respect to geospatial data (GSD) access and integration at the inter-organizational level in Swedish local and regional emergency management (EM) is presented. The performed analysis resulted in a range of conceptual, organizational, administrative and ontological problems, recognized by the international research community and also identified among the studied Swedish EM organizations. Additionally, close interconnection between particular problems or groups of problems was observed in several cases. The documented findings can be seen as hindering the sharing of GSD. Moreover, development of useful GIS-based analytical and decision-support applications for day-to-day use in EM is becoming difficult without effectively sharing GSD. It is suggested to promote further research in an integrated way to understand the full complexity of the problems. Moreover, involving both the research and EM communities is seen as essential.