MIWP Action : Priority list of ereporting datasets

Transcription

1 INSPIRE Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe MIWP Action : Priority list of ereporting datasets Progress status Type Creator Document for information and discussion EC and EEA INSPIRE Team subgroup of the MIG Date/status/version 27/11/2017 / DRAFT / version 1.0 Addressee Identifier Description Actions: MIG MIG/7/2017/DOC7 This document sets the scene for the activities of the subgroup and presents the progress made, the roadmap 2018, and information on good practices. MIG to: Take note of the document and the progress of work; Discuss and validate the outcomes at the 7 th meeting of the MIG. 1

2 Priority list of ereporting datasets Contents Introduction... 3 The subgroup scope... 4 The subgroup activities... 4 Expected outcomes... 6 Progress in Roadmap Conclusions and next steps... 8 ANNEX Progress Work programme : ongoing and finished actions The list of priority data sets Monitoring progress: Thematic Viewer Tagging priority data sets with metadata keywords from an EU controlled code list Good practices and common methodologies Development of the priority list beyond the environmental domain

3 Introduction Following the evaluation on the implementation of the Directive establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE, Directive 2007/2/EC), it is clear that further efforts at all levels and by all actors will have to be made over the coming years to close the identified gaps in implementation (against targets) and steer future implementation actions towards maximising the benefits from the INSPIRE Directive. As one of the follow up actions to improve and target implementation, the Commission has selected reporting and monitoring under the environmental acquis as one (but not the only) important priority use case for the development of pan-european information products. Based on the Fitness Check evaluation of reporting obligations under the environmental legislation 1, a preliminary list of common datasets related to environmental reporting obligations has been prepared by the DG ENV. This list of environmental datasets should be a rolling list that is further extended in view of tangible information needs. For future development of the list, it could be widened to cover other EU or global spatial data priorities (e.g. core data under UN GGIM) or include other domains (e.g. transport, agriculture, energy ) which are of relevance for environment policy as well. This would improve coherence and re-use of data as well as introduce a more domain-holistic approach to streamlining these information streams which can reduce the reporting burden and will also induce better integrated public egovernment services. Reporting obligations under different directives are to be grouped into usage domains (e.g. Biodiversity & Nature, Point-based pressures ) to optimize the cross-cutting impact of the streamlining exercise. This allows for streamlining across different directives and organisational structures, maximizing the reuse of the resulting spatial information and services. At the same time the INSPIRE maturity and the digital readiness of the involved (reporting) communities need to be assessed and documented in the list as well. This information will allow the EC and EEA to streamline existing reporting processes under the environmental acquis and plan for a feasible transition to INSPIRE ereporting processes, avoiding multiple reporting processes in parallel for long periods in time. The list should provide a starting point on consistent mapping of spatial data with relevance for reporting obligations and other supporting data to INSPIRE spatial objects. This consistent mapping is essential for the development of pan-european data sets. For the moment it is not relevant to start extending INSPIRE models to accommodate all reporting obligations. The concept paper in preparation by ENV and EEA will provide further guidance on the link between INSPIRE and ereporting, the concepts of geospatial data/reporting 1 COM(2017)312 and SWD(2017)230 3

4 data/contextual data and the envisaged INSPIRE interoperability/maturity level for ereporting. The reporting data sets in many cases serve a specific purpose and the real reuse of data sets and services will be most apparent at the level of the underlying data sets. To facilitate future harvesting scenarios for ereporting following the once only principle, these related data sets should be made available under INSPIRE. Once identified these data sets have to be mapped to INSPIRE spatial objects as well. To gain insight in the data flows and processes to produce reporting data sets, the involvement of MS reporting experts is essential. EEA can support this knowledge gathering through their European Topic Centres and Eionet for CDFrelated data sets. The subgroup scope As part of the action , a dedicated MIG temporary sub-group (consisting of experts from countries and EU-level) coordinated and supported jointly by EEA and ENV was set up. The sub-group consists of INSPIRE as well as thematic experts with respective reporting experience (e.g. from Eionet). The sub-group sets up a platform to exchange the experiences that will be gathered once the MS start with the execution of the tasks. It will therefore provide feedback to the conceptual mapping and to the proposal for streamlining of the reporting obligations (ROs) at Commission level. The scope of the subgroup is to further develop the list of datasets related to environmental reporting and support MSs with making these datasets accessible through the European Spatial Data Infrastructure in a step wise manner. In the scope is also a provision of help (e.g. update of the SW tool - Find your scope /HALE) and other possible support to transform the priority datasets according to INSPIRE and streamlined ereporting requirements. This work is linked to action 6 in the Streamlining Reporting action plan 2 and does not address developing proposals amending the reporting obligations (which is covered by action 1). Also it is beyond the scope of the action to make amendments to INSPIRE IRs/TGs. However, as a result of this work, suggestions can be made which could be transmitted to the relevant units in the Commission dealing with these issues, as appropriate. The prioritised list of data sets relevant to environmental reporting does not change the existing legal provisions or deadlines of the INSPIRE Directive. It aims at coordinating MS INSPIRE implementation efforts towards common priorities that serve an existing and priority EC use case and end-use. The subgroup activities The subgroup will work its way through the environmental priority list to provide a more profound information analysis of the different policy domains by Four areas of work have been identified that are considered the core of work under this mandate and will be 2 COM(2017)312 4

5 used to define the future work for the coming years (2021 = final INSPIRE implementation deadline) under this subgroup. Future agendas and activities will be organised around these work areas: 1. Manage and update the priority list of ereporting datasets a. The subgroup will maintain, update and clarify the environmental list b. Extend the list, as appropriate, also possibly looking into other domains. 2. Give guidance on making data available as-is: identify datasets, document metadata, make metadata and data available on the EU Geoportal by providing network services a. The subgroup will monitor and document the status of the availability of datasets as-is, promote the publication of these datasets and provide guidelines to address identified implementation bottlenecks. 3. Discuss common and interoperable European data models per reporting obligation/data flow that are fit for purpose for the envisaged use case (domain specific work). a. The subgroup will monitor and document the progress towards common European reporting data models in the different domains and promote their development and use. b. Upon request of thematic communities, the subgroup will be represented in technical domain workgroups on ereporting. c. Furthermore, once common reporting models have been developed by their thematic community, the subgroup will provide INSPIRE implementation support to the thematic communities for their implementation. 4. Monitor the availability of pan-european datasets a. The subgroup will monitor and document the progress on the availability of pan-european datasets, identify gaps (missing datasets) and opportunities (e.g. Copernicus, CORDA ) and assess MS readiness for publication of prioritised datasets for a specific thematic area. b. The provision of services publishing pan-european datasets based on network services provided by Member States at EU level will be planned with the support of the subgroup. c. JRC will develop a thematic viewer application that facilitates and supports the tasks above by monitoring progress made on the availability of priority datasets in Member States based on their published metadata. The subgroup will discuss and recommend technical solutions that publish the progress on action concerning: - the maturity of the thematic domains (e.g. Which domains have already developed common interoperable reporting/data models?), 5

6 - the readiness of MS to publish the requested datasets as-is (Is metadata available? - Can you find the metadata? Is the data accessible through network services?), - the availability of pan-european datasets (When a common interoperable reporting/data model is available for the domain, is the data published accordingly?, Is it possible to aggregate MS services into a pan-european dataset?) The list will also serve as a catalogue from where you can directly access the datasets for viewing and download. As follow up on the Fitness Check on environmental monitoring and reporting, a project was launched which aims at improving national information systems on the environment and explores approaches for effective harvesting. This includes the possibilities to retrieve reporting information by harvesting Member States spatial data resources (portals, web services). Action is clearly linked to this project and hence the sub-group will be informed on a regular basis and synergies will be created wherever possible. Expected outcomes A rolling list of priority datasets (regularly updated) available on an online collaboration platform. Identified data sets are discoverable (metadata, discovery service) and accessible (view, download) as is through INSPIRE network services Clear communication to MS of ENV information priorities and expectations in support of the environmental reporting use case; Guidance on consistent mapping of reporting obligations and supporting data to INSPIRE spatial objects; Identification of reporting redundancies and exploration of opportunities for streamlining of reporting; Improved timeliness and quality of reported data as part of ereporting processes Identification of core data sets for the ereporting use case; Improved governance for: o incrementally building comparable INSPIRE maturity across MS for all INSPIRE components (metadata, services, interoperability, data sharing) based on a common setting o tangible and usable INSPIRE deliverables for ereporting, o monitoring progress on INSPIRE implementation in general and for the reporting use case in specific Promotion for the reuse of the INSPIRE infrastructure for ereporting purposes. Extension of the Find your scope INSPIRE application Progress in 2017 The action has been launched in September 2017 with the Kick-off meeting of subgroup. The issues were also discussed at the MIG-T and a second Meeting of the 6

7 sub-group took place on 23 November 3. A more detailed overview on the progress and some interesting work that has been carried out is enclosed in the Annex. Roadmap 2018 The roadmap is organised around the 4 core tasks: T1: Manage and update the priority list of ereporting datasets T2: Make data available as-is: identify datasets, document metadata (including adding an unambiguous identifier from the INSPIRE Registry Metadata Priority dataset controlled vocabulary), make metadata and data available on the EU Geoportal by providing network services. T3: Common and interoperable European data models per reporting obligation/data flow that are fit for purpose for the envisaged use case. T4: Monitor the availability of pan-european datasets Q1 2018: - T1: o List version 1.5 including more detailed Nature & Biodiversity data sets o Update INSPIRE Registry code list for environmental priority data sets - T2: o Pilot conclusions o MS make priority reporting data sets available as-is - T3: Analysis for agreed policy domains - T4: Further develop the EU Geoportal thematic viewer application to support monitoring and easy download of data. - 3rd Meeting subgroup Q2 2018: - T3: Analysis for agreed policy domains - T4: Thematic viewer application is public accessible on the condition that the offering of priority data sets is acceptable across Member States. - MIG-T: progress report, discussion of proposals and validation of outcomes - 15 May 2018: INSPIRE monitoring report including the implementation progress of priority reporting data sets. In addition, priority reporting data sets are made available by MS as-is through the EU Geoportal on a voluntary basis in order to gain experience and feed discussions for the subsequent subgroup meeting and the MIG. It will also allow the finalisation of the EU Geoportal Thematic Viewer public. The CT will communicate the minimum list and the minimum tasks to MIG in January. - 4th Meeting subgroup - June 8th MIG: state of implementation of the list by Member States, progress report and validation of outcomes Q3 2018: - T1: o List version 1.6 including more detailed data sets from analysed domains 3 Meeting documents and presentations available at: 7

8 o Update INSPIRE Registry code list for environmental priority data sets - T2: Review of implementation progress - T3: Analysis for agreed policy domains - T4: Further develop thematic viewer application (integration with INSPIRE knowledge base, data visualisation, INSPIRE dashboard, Monitoring & Reporting process ). - 5th Meeting subgroup at INSPIRE Conference Q4 2018: - T3: Analysis for agreed policy domains - T4: New version thematic viewer application - MIG-T: progress report, discussion of proposals and validation of outcomes - 6th Meeting subgroup - December 9th MIG: state of implementation of the list by Member States, progress report and validation of outcomes Conclusions and next steps Identifying priorities and targeting implementation efforts on INSPIRE to important pan- European use cases has been widely welcomed and has created a dynamics for working together in a stepwise and constructive manner. There is clearly a potential of harvesting some "low hanging fruits" with this action. It also offers the opportunity to improve implementation, in particular on metadata and services, where gaps have been identified in the recent EU summary report (and country fiches) based on the 2016 reporting. The action will continue along the lines set out in the above roadmap In addition, it would be useful if Member States could complement this work by actions taken at national level in order to be effective. Hence, the Member States are invited (on a voluntary basis) to take the following actions over the coming months: 1. Identify the spatial datasets on the environmental priority list, where possible (for some data sets, further clarifications as needed which will be provided in writing). 2. Tag the data with the appropriate metadata priority dataset keyword, if the dataset is already in the Geoportal. If not, ensure that the dataset is included in the EU Geoportal with appropriate metadata including the proposed tag/keyword. 3. Work with the JRC that these datasets can be easily found through the new Thematic Viewer. 4. Make progress so that services (in particular download services) are available for these datasets. Ideally, these voluntary steps should be completed together with the next monitoring round, i.e. done by 15 May Following discussion at the MIG, the CT will follow up in writing (at the latest in January) to clarify some of the questions and technical issues raised at the subgroup meeting. On this basis, the CT will then test the indicator (currently in the proposal for future reporting), improve the Thematic Viewer (with the aim to publish it once sufficient data are available) and report back to the MIG on this exercise. The sub-group 8

9 under action will accompany this process, exchange experiences and provide guidance and help to allow progress as quickly as possible. 9

10 ANNEX Progress Work programme : ongoing and finished actions Manage and update the priority list of ereporting datasets Clearly identify the concrete datasets which are to be provided by the MS. MS to start with publishing as-is data in the area of nature and biodiversity. Eionet survey looking into the current availability in national portals and platforms of the priority datasets for Eionet Core Data Flows has been done. Monitoring the availability of pan-european datasets Development of the thematic viewer. The application, which has been first tested in the field of Nature and Biodiversity, will be modified by using the MS identification (i.e. tag/keyword from the INSPIRE Registry MD Priority dataset code list) of the relevant datasets and extended to other thematic areas. Short term tasks on the list Make data available as-is. All priority reporting data sets should be made available by 15 th May Flag issues countries have with the current version of the priority dataset list 1.2. Identify and add information (columns) from the MS EXCEL master file to the next version (1.3) of the list. EEA contract, to be concluded by end November Eionet survey findings have been added to the work document (EXCEL). Collect and document good practice methodologies used by the Member States to identify reporting datasets and spatial objects listed in the priority list. Concrete proposal and example on how to encode a reference to the priority list in the metadata. The proposal will include also proposals for spatial coverage (NUTs Eurostat), wider thematic environment domain (GEMET) EEA) and legal acts (Eur-lex EU Publication Office) Check whether the proposed solution is supported by metadata editors, in particular GeoNetwork. Work with MS volunteers under action to test and improve the approaches. Short term tasks related to priorities Nature and biodiversity as priority area to first make available as-is (Q4 2017) and agree on how data specifications should be implemented (2018 and beyond). Identify (using the MD Priority dataset control vocabulary published in the INSPIRE Registry 4 more in detail the nature and biodiversity datasets to be made available in the EU Geoportal and provide guidelines to address implementation bottlenecks. Develop above steps for water and noise ereporting geospatial datasets as future candidates to be addressed next (DG ENV, EEA 2017/2018)

11 Once validated by the relevant policy units of DG ENV the paper on Nature and Biodiversity will be shared as a first deliverable. On Nature and Biodiversity it was agreed with the policy units to limit actions beyond the application of INSPIRE metadata and data specifications before Further implementation and preparatory work (network services, data harvesting ) as of Q2/Q and in synergy with EEA Reportnet 3.0 implementation. Related to the EU geoportal: For voluntary countries to analyse in more detail what we can find with metadata now in the EU Geoportal (JRC with MS). Volunteers to participate in the exercise. To be combined with or referencing to good practices for identification of priority datasets in MS, tagging of datasets in metadata, Thematic Viewer. The list of priority data sets The current version of the list is v1.2 and is published on the wiki where you can always find the latest version of the list. NL and SE have identified and shared issues with the list that need discussion and resolution in the subgroup in order to improve the quality of the list and facilitate its implementation by the Member States. INPUT from NL For some directives the Netherlands doesn t report, because: o Directive 91/271/EEC concerning urban waste-water treatment (List no ): No spatial data is at the moment reported to the EU for this directive. o Council Directive 1999/31/EC on the landfill of waste (List no. 40): The Netherlands doesn t report data for this directive, only a couple of MS report. o COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION of 22 January 2014 on minimum principles for the exploration and production of hydrocarbons (such as shale gas) using high-volume hydraulic fracturing (2014/70/EU): In the Netherlands there is no exploration/production of hydrocarbons. o Report on invasive alien species (List no. 29): The dataset is at the moment not available. How can we express this to the EU? Through the excel? For some directives the current datasets contains more than 1 datasets, with the same coverage, in the Netherlands, for instance for: o Area which sets out the boundaries of RBD and Competent Authority for the RBD (List no. 9): a) River Basin Districts and b) Sub-Units o Location of water bodies (List no. 10): a) SurfaceWaterBody polygon b) SurfaceWaterBody line c) GroundwaterBody o Maps are asked instead of datasets: Flood Hazard Maps (List no. 15) and Flood Risk Maps (List no. 16) o Marine regions and sub-regions incl. Assessment units (List no. 51): 3 datasets in the Netherlands 11

12 Some datasets that a reported are datasets that are also reported for other obligations, see for instance the Location of protected areas (Art 6 and 7) (List no. 11): protected areas are: BathingWaterLocations, DrinkingWaterAbstraction, Natura2000. These datasets are already in the list. How do we deal with this? Biogeographical regions (23): the Netherlands uses the EEA EU-dataset: Is it possible that European bodies which gather, possess, prepare or maintain European wide datasets should publish these datasets under the INSPIRE regime. INPUT from SE The usage of reporting obligation is somewhat confusing and the necessity of using this structure should be discussed. Depending on how to handle amendments to some directives, the list basically only consists of 24 different reporting directives, but 46 obligations. This has partly been addressed but not fully. Are we interested in following up each reporting obligations or are we interested in knowing which spatial data sets that refers to each single directive? Listing only directives would make it unnecessary to list the same datasets several time for the same directive (as they are sometimes required for several obligations in the same directive). The directives need to be revisited in terms of which directives that contain spatial elements to be reported. For instance, Council directive 1999/31/EC on Landfill of waste there are no spatial data to be reported. The spatial data identified is unknown for our national reporting experts. For the noise directive, also spatial data required as input data to the analysis is listed although these are not the spatial data reported. If input data should be part of this list, it should be stated for all reporting directives (where relevant), not only for the noise directive. We believe it s a good approach to specify relevant INSPIRE themes together with the datasets. An attempt is done in the list but there is still some improvements to be made. See below a possible example on how this could be done for the noise directive and the waste directive (both for input data (where relevant) and output data). Monitoring progress: Thematic Viewer The new Thematic Viewer application is built on top of the EU Geoportal backend (harvesting MS discovery services). The application will be made available to MIG members for testing in November/December once the JRC security assessment has been completed. It will not require EU Login (ECAS) authentication. The application will be made available to the public from the moment that the offering of priority data sets is acceptable across Member States. The application is targeted on satisfying specific (domain, temporal, scale, location...) user requirements rather than providing wide multi-thematic data portal functionalities and addresses the current difficulties in finding (with decent level of reliability) e.g. national datasets related to various types of environmental reporting. 12

13 The INSPIRE Metadata Regulation contains only one reliable metadata element "INSPIRE Data themes" for filtering various environmental domains/reporting. Other potentially suitable metadata elements (e.g. Keywords) are not used at all or not used in a consistent/ harmonised way. This results in the observation that the impressive number of metadata records is no measurement for the number of downloadable data. The main objectives of the application are: To develop a set of Thematic views to facilitate users to discover, view and use/download selected datasets To simplify the way users can interact with the content of EU Geoportal To provide a tool for monitoring provision and facilitating access to e.g. Priority datasets necessary for environmental reporting (MIWP ), Annex I-III data (12/2017), Core datasets for SDGs (UNGGIM).. A new user interface has been developed to facilitate user interaction with filtered EU Geoportal spatial data and services. It is possible to filter the data and services on their coverage (e.g. national & other datasets). The development of a spatial filter based on comparing provided bounding boxes with official (Eurostat) country spatial extents is in the pipeline. Thematic/domain filters such as priority datasets and Inspire themes are already supported. Furthermore, the application takes advantage of advanced text searching utilising the Apache SOLR search engine functionality. Text data mining methods on translated metadata records is under development. For the moment, two Thematic Views are provided: Priority datasets for ereporting (Birds & Habitats Datasets); INSPIRE data themes; and two monitoring/data accessing levels supported: 13

14 EU level National level The application also offers the possibility to generate and download PDF reports for specific thematic views. 14

15 Within the context of the subgroup further and in collaboration with the Member States further efforts will be made to improve the metadata content and the accessibility of data sets, starting with the priority data sets, but also including Annex I data (if there is interest in the MS). Tagging priority data sets with metadata keywords from an EU controlled code list Instead of "guessing" priority data sets based on specific keywords and text mining (e.g. "Natura 2000"), agreed keywords from a controlled vocabulary should be used (preferably using a combination of a URI and a human-readable keyword). A first demo version of the controlled vocabulary is already available in the INSPIRE registry: 15

16 A similar approach could be used to encode the granularity or scale (using references to administrative units managed by ESTAT such as NUTS, LAU and if available sea regions), wider thematic domains (e.g. GEMET could be used or a new code list in the INSPIRE registry) and legal acts (reference to the identifier of the legal act in 16

17 This topic is linked to the review of the implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards monitoring and reporting. The review of the implementing act will consider minimizing the burden of monitoring by calculating relevant indicators based on the metadata of spatial data sets and spatial data services provided by Member States. Additional metadata keywords should be introduced in order to enable the identification of spatial data sets that have been prioritised by the Commission, their link to legal obligations and acts and their administrative granularity (National Regional or Local). The code list mentioned above can be used by Member States to identify and document spatial data sets that have been added to a priority list of spatial data sets made available by the Commission by tagging them with an additional metadata keyword. Good practices and common methodologies Four Member States (NL, IT, SK, SE) already shared their experience and views on the list and the tasks ahead. It was considered worthwhile to look into the different methodologies used in Member States to identify INSPIRE datasets that map to the reporting datasets and spatial objects listed in the priority list. This exercise should allow identifying and documenting good practices for reuse by other Member States. The good practices will be documented and published on the wiki 5 together with all other background documents provided by Member States. Development of the priority list beyond the environmental domain Identifying core spatial priority data sets is also taking place in other bodies. As part of the UN GGIM process and the EU implementation of it, a core list of datasets 6 is now available. This list includes spatial data sets which are covered mainly by Annex I and II of the INSPIRE Directive. This list should also be considered in the further work under action The Commission services are currently exploring the possibility to other EU priority reference data sets of relevance for several Directorate Generals and agencies (building on the environment example). In addition to the environmental priority list of spatial data sets, other thematic priority lists might be developed in collaboration with the responsible DGs (e.g. for agriculture, transport, energy, marine ). Once these discussions have resulted in more concrete outcomes, they will be reported and discussed in the context of action