Data Specification on Natural Risk Zones - Technical Guidelines. Harrison, M., Thomas, F., Barredo, J. I., Bojilov, V., Castella, R. C., Cerba, O., Exadaktylos, G., Isidro, M. L., Pfeiffer, M., Tomas, R., Giovando, C., Camia, A., & Thomas, F. .
Data Specification on Natural Risk Zones - Technical Guidelines [pdf]Paper  abstract   bibtex   
[Interoperability of Spatial Data Sets and Services - General Executive Summary] The challenges regarding the lack of availability, quality, organisation, accessibility, and sharing of spatial information are common to a large number of policies and activities and are experienced across the various levels of public authority in Europe. In order to solve these problems it is necessary to take measures of coordination between the users and providers of spatial information. The Directive 2007/2/EC of the Europe an Parliament and of the Council adopted on 14 March 2007 aims at establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) for environmental policies, or policies and activities that have an impact on the environment. INSPIRE is based on the infrastructures for spatial information that are created and maintained by the Member States. To support the establishment of a European infrastructure, Implementing Rules addressing the following components of the infrastructure have been specified: metadata, interoperability of spatial data sets (as described in Annexes I, II, III of the Directive) and spatial data services, network services, data and service sharing, and monitoring and reporting procedures. INSPIRE does not require collection of new data. However, after the period specified in the Directive 2 Member States have to make their data available according to the Implementing Rules. Interoperability in INSPIRE means the possibility to combine spatial data and services from different sources across the European Community in a consistent way without involving specific efforts of humans or machines. It is important to note that ―interoperability‖ is understood as providing access to spatial data sets through network services, typically via Internet. Interoperability may be achieved by either changing (harmonising) and storing existing data sets or transforming them via services for publication in the INSPIRE infrastructure. It is expected that users will spend less time and efforts on understanding and integrating data when they build their applications based on data delivered in accordance with INSPIRE. In order to benefit from the endeavours of international standardisation bodies and organisations established under international law their standards and technical means have been utilised and referenced, whenever possible. To facilitate the implementation of INSPIRE, it is important that all stakeholders have the opportunity to participate in specification and development. For this reason, the Commission has put in place a consensus building process involving data users, and providers together with representatives of industry, research and government. These stakeholders, organised through Spatial Data Interest Communities (SDIC) and Legally Mandated Organisations (LMO) 3, have provided reference materials, participated in the user requirement and technical 4 surveys, proposed experts for the Data Specification Drafting Team 5 , the Thematic Working Groups 6 and other ad-hoc cross-thematic technical groups and participated in the public stakeholder consultations on draft versions of the data specifications. These consultations covered expert reviews as well as feasibility and fitness-for-purpose testing of the data specifications 7 . This open and participatory approach was successfully used during the development of the data specifications on Annex I, II and III data themes as well as during the preparation of the Implementing Rule on Interoperability of Spatial Data Sets and Services 8 for Annex I spatial data themes and of its amendment regarding the themes of Annex II and III . The development framework elaborated by the Data Specification Drafting Team aims at keeping the data specifications of the different themes coherent. It summarises the methodology to be used for the development of the data specifications , providing a coherent set of requirements and recommendations to achieve interoperability. The pillars of the framework are the following technical documents: [1] The Definition of Annex Themes and Scope describes in greater detail the spatial data themes defined in the Dire ctive, and thus provides a sound starting point for the thematic aspects of the data specification development. [2] The Generic Conceptual Model defines the elements necessary for interoperability and data harmonisation including cross - theme issues. It specifies requirements and recommendations with regard to data specification elements of common use, like the spatial and temporal schema, unique identifier management, object referencing , some common code lists, etc. Those requirements of the Generic Conceptual Model that are directly implementable are included in the Implementing Rule on Interoperability of Spatial Data Sets and Services. [3] The Methodology for the Development of Data Specifications defines a repeatable methodology. It describes how to arrive from user requirements to a data specification through a number of steps including use-case development, initial specification development and analysis of analogies and gaps for further specification refinement. [4] The Guidelines for the Encoding of Spatial Data defines how geographic information can be encoded to enable transfer processes between the systems of the data providers in the Member States. Even though it does not specify a mandatory encoding rule it sets GML (ISO 19136) as the default encoding for INSPIRE. [5] The Guidelines for the use of Observations & Measurements and Sensor Web Enablement - related standards in INSPIRE Annex II and III data specification development provides guidelines on how the ―Observations and Measurements standard (ISO 19156) is to be used within INSPIRE. [6] The Common data models are a set of documents that specify data models that are referenced by a number of different data specifications. These documents include generic data model s for networks, coverages and activity complexes. The structure of the data specifications is based on the ―ISO 19131 Geographic information - Data product specifications standard. They include the technical documentation of the application schema, the spatial object types with their properti es, and other specifics of the spatial data themes using natural language as well as a formal conceptual schema language 10 A consolidated model repository, feature concept dictionary, and glossary are being maintained to support the consistent specification development and potential further reuse of specification elements. The consolidated model consists of the harmonised models of the relevant standards from the ISO 19100 series, the INSPIRE Generic Conceptual Model, and the application schemas 11 developed for each spatial data theme. The multilingual INSPIRE Feature Concept Dictionary contains the definition and description of the INSPIRE themes together with the definition of the spatial object types present in the specification. The INSPIRE Glossary defines all the terms (beyond the spatial object types) necessary for understanding the INSPIRE documentation including the terminology of other components (metadata, network services, data sharing, and monitoring). By listing a number of requirements and making the necessary recommendations, the data specifications enable full system interoperability across the Member States, within the scope of the application areas targeted by the Directive. The data specifications (in their version 3.0) are published as technical guidelines and provide the basis for the content of the Implementing Rule on Interoperability of Spatial Data Sets and Services 12 . The content of the Implementing Rule is extracted from the data specifica tions, considering short - and medium - term feasibility as well as cost - benefit considerations. The requirements included in the Implementing Rule are legally binding for the Member States according to the timeline specified in the INSPIRE Directive . In addition to providing a basis for the in teroperability of spatial data in INSPIRE, the data specification development framework and the thematic data specifications can be reused in other environments at local, regional, national and global level contributing to improvements in the coherence and interoperability of data in spatial data infrastructures.

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