Mike ClarkEnvironment Agency for England & Wales

St Petersburg 26th May 2004

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

What is a Spatial Data Infrastructure ?

All the materials, technologies, and people necessary to acquire, process, store and distribute

geographic information to meet a variety of needs.

EUROGI

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

Environments

do not respect political boundaries

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

Difficulties in the Past

• Incompatible and fragmented information• Lack of use of standards• Lack of data• Lack of cross-border co-ordination• Lack of co-operation within governments• Data policy restrictions

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

The Good News

• All the ingredients for success are present• The technology is there• The expertise has been brought together• The political will is building• The opportunity to make it happen for real this

time is NOW ! (cue: hooray)

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

The INSPIRE Objective

The preparation of a framework legislative act aimed at making available relevant, harmonised

and quality geographic information for the purpose of the formulation, implementation,

monitoring and evaluation of Community environmental policy-making

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

INSPIRE Principles (1)

• Data should be collected once and maintained at a level where this can be done most efficiently

• It should be possible to combine spatial information from different sources across Europe in a seamless way, and to share it amongst many users and applications

• It should be possible for information collected at one level to be shared with other levels

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

INSPIRE Principles (2)

• Geographic information needed for good governance at all levels should be readily available

• It should be simple to discover which geographic information is available and under what conditions it can be acquired and used

• Geographic data should be easy to understand and interpret, i.e. user-friendly

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

The Model

NA T IO NA LS D I

D B A

D B B

D B C

E U R O S P EC

T RA N S FO

T O O L

ISO

E U RO S P EC IFIC A T IO NS

EURO

REFERENCE

DATA

EURO

METADATA

E C

E N DU S ER S

V A R S

C IT IZ E N S

A PP L IC -A T IO N S

EU ROPEA N S DI

NATIO NAL LEV EL EURO PEAN LEV EL USERS

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

H arm o nis e dD ata p o licy

C o llab o rat iv eag re e m e nts

ISONat ional and Sub-

national SD I

C o m m e rc ia l & P ro fe s s io nal U s e rs

C it iz e ns

Ut ility & Pub licS e rv ic e s

N G O s and not- fo r-p ro f it o rg s

G ov e rnm e nt & A d m inist rat io ns

R e s e arc hEuropean Data

National and Sub -national SD I

National and Sub -national SD I

Local data

Local data

European Data

D is c ov e ry S e rv ic e

T e c hnic a l Inte g rat io n/harm o nis at io n

Data res ources

INS P IR E s pec ifi c at ions

Us ersINSP IRE Informat ion Flow

req uest fo r info rmat io n se rv ices

d e live ry of info rmat io n se rv ices

SDI – Sp atial Data Infrastructure

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

Policy Issues

• Access to Information • Charging & Licensing Mechanisms• Quality & Standards• Harmonisation• Awareness & Usability• Compliance• Funding

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

Legal Issues

• Intellectual Property Rights

• Data Protection & Privacy

• Freedom of Information

• Human Rights

• Competition

• Liability & Fitness for Purpose

• Ratification of Aarhus

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

Who Pays ?(somebody has to)

• Taxpayers– EC

– National governments

• Users– Marginal cost

– Cost recovery

– Market pricing

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

What Will We Gain ?

• A coherent European Spatial Data Infrastructure

• Consistent Europe-wide reference and thematic data

• Dependable data quality

• Direct and free access to metadata

• Uniform geographic reference data

• Rights of access to thematic data

• Efficient data and information delivery

• Harmonised use across public and private sectors

• Data legitimacy

• An unambiguous policy and legal framework

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

A Stepwise Approach

• Standardisation

• Harmonisation

• Integration

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe

GI-NIUS

99% PERSPIRE

1% INSPIRE

Thank you for listening

INSPIRE

Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe