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European Spatial Data Infrastructure (ESDI)

Objective

Specific Objectives:
1. To provide the technical coordination of the INSPIRE initiative with Commission and Member States, ensuring the technical coherence and exchange of information between the INSPIRE working groups;
2. To act as geographic information technical office, providing the scientific and technical support to the services of the Commission, which includes the liaising both internally (e.g. with COGI, Eurostat-GISCO, GMES - priority 9) and externally (e.g. the European GI community at large, international research community, GI standardisation initiatives) and the training and dissemination;
3. To support the JRC IES internal development of pan-European spatial databases and the development of operational spatial information services in support to Forest, Natura2000, Image2000 and the thematic priorities of ESPON;
4. Training and mobility Anticipated milestones and schedule Description Date Organization of second international workshop on the analysis of multi- temporal remote sensing images (MultiTemp-2003). 07-2003 Organisation of the 9th edition of the EC GI-GIS workshop 06-2003 European geographic information portal (gateway) on line, http://inspire.jrc.it 12-2003 Guidelines for the implementation of the INSPIRE recommendations.12-2003 Design of end-user platform for IES data12- 2003 System definition and implementation to give access to IMAGE2000, via web 06-2003.
Planned Deliverables:
1.1 Technical coordination to the INSPIRE initiative [Service] 1.2 Secretariat to the INSPIRE initiative [Service]. 1.3 Guidelines for the implementation of the INSPIRE recommendations [Report] 1.4 Development of a European geographic information portal (gateway) http://inspire.jrc.it [Web resource];
2.1 Follow up ISO 191xx and OGC standards; test usefulness and conformance of commercial products. Pilot projects testing specific issues (e.g. cross- border harmonization). 2.2 Algorithms and procedures for the and updating of spatial databases [Algorithms, Publications, New derived data] 2.3 Updating of the EC GI-GIS web portal www.ec-gis.org [Service] 2.4 Organization of second international workshop on the analysis of multi- temporal remote sensing images (MultiTemp-2003 [Workshop] 2.5 Technical guidelines for COGI and other EC funded projects with a spatial component[Report to COGI] 2.6 Organisation of the 9th edition of the EC GI-GIS workshop[Workshop];
3.1 Design of end-user platform for IES data with initial focus on forest and protected areas[Report] 3.2 System definition and implementation to give access to IMAGE2000, via web [Report, web resource] 3.3 Support to forest fire system [Web resource] 3.4 Technical specifications for metadata standards and metadata server for EFICN [Report] 3.5 Support to the development of the DG ENV GIS x Natura2000 [Service, Web resource, Training] 3.6 Guidelines and informatics infrastructure for databases produced by ESPON [Report]
4.1 Tutorial on geospatial data fusion October 2003 [young researchers] 4.2 Tutorial on Morphological Image Analysis: Principles and Applications (with case studies on the processing of geospatial data) February 2004 young researchers.
Summary of the Action:
The JRC, through the action "European Spatial Data Infrastructure" (ESDI), has the task to technically coordinate the INSPIRE initiative and to shepherd it the various steps working towards the realization of a European Spatial Data Infrastructure starting with Forest, Natura2000, Image2000 and ESPON. In so doing, the ESDI will focus on the one hand on the institutional capacity building within the Commission, and, on the other hand, on capacity building in the Member States and Candidate Countries. Through this action, as a follow-up of successful activities started in FP5, the JRC will continue to act as the European Commission Geographic Information Technical Office, coordinating with COGI and GISCO, supporting the definition and implementation of standards related to spatial information, monitoring technological developments and disseminating information to the European community both via the Internet (EC GI-GIS web portal) and via the annual editions of EC GI-GIS workshop.

Europe is a patchwork of countries with different traditions in terms of their geographic choices. To build a common infrastructure, issues related to data harmonisation and semantic interoperability for data model must be addressed. As a result, this action includes specific research activities on Geo-Spatial data fusion, generalisation and GIS interoperability as well as specific training and tutorials for Member States capacity building and awareness raising. It will also liaise with the European and International research community, networks and initiatives (National Spatial Data Infrastructures) and it will support the GMES initiative. Candidate Countries are actively participating in the INSPIRE working groups. Accessible Pan European Spatial database are the final goal of this action and CC spatial data have to be harmonised with MS data (development of a common infrastructure, eg to access IMAGE2000 data). In addition this action supports several policies linked to spatial information (in particular Natura 2000 that is a major preoccupation in Candidate Countries). There is a link to GMES initiative (priority 9). The on going project GINIE is specifically addressing capacity building and awareness raising in Candidate Countries. Rationale The European Sustainable Development Strategy advocates a new approach to policy-making through more coherence in the Community policies. In response to this and other high level EU strategies, the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) initiative has been conceived. A European Spatial Data Infrastructure addresses both technical and non technical issues, ranging from technical standards and protocols, organisational issues, data policy issues including data access policy and the creation and maintenance of geographical information layers for a wide range of themes.

INSPIRE is governed by the agreement between the Environment, Research Eurostat Directorates General to make available harmonised geographical information in support of the formulation, implementation and evaluation of Community policies. The INSPIRE initiative intends to trigger the creation of a European spatial information infrastructure that delivers to the users integrated spatial information services. These services should allow the users to identify and access spatial or geographical information from a wide range of sources, from the local level to the global level, in an inter-operable way for a variety of uses. The target users of INSPIRE include policy-makers at European, national and local level and the citizen. Possible services are the visualisation of information layers, overlay of information from different sources, spatial and temporal analysis, etc. Successful implementation of the INSPIRE initiative would contribute to reach the objectives set out in the Commission's White Paper on European Governance'. It would help the Commission to establish more coherence in its policies by better integrating the common territorial dimension. This will also help to improve policy co-ordination, an issue that is identified by the Community Sustainable Development Strategy' as part of a new approach to policy-making. It will allow better participation by presenting information in a clear, understandable way at national and local level. Finally, it will help to make European governance more effective by supporting the evaluation of future impact and past experience for EU policies. A fully operational common infrastructure for spatial information in Europe can only be realised in the long run. Therefore, a step by step approach is being called for.

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Coordinator

Institute for Environment and Sustainability
EU contribution
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Address
Via E. Fermi 1
21020 Ispra
Italy

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