The INSPIRE EU GeoPortal

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The INSPIRE EU GeoPortal

• Ioannis Kanellopoulos, Lars Bernard
• ESDI action
• European Commission
• Joint Research Centre
• Institute for Environment and Sustainability

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EU GeoportalRequirements

• INSPIRE proposal for a Directive
• In order to assist the integration of the
  national infrastructures into the infrastructure
  for spatial information in the Community, Member
  States should provide access to their
  infrastructures through a Community geo-portal
  operated by the Commission, as well as through
  any access points they themselves decide to
  operate.
• Article 21
• The Commission shall establish and operate a
  Community geo-portal.
• Member States shall provide access to the
  services referred to in Article 18(1) through the
  Community geo-portal. Member States may also
  provide access to those services through their
  own access points.

MoU 2005 - between DG ENV, JRC and Eurostat JRC
is responsible for the co-ordination of pilot
projects and the development of the EU-GeoPortal.
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INSPIRE proposal for a Directive

• Article 18(1) of the Directive proposal
• Member States shall establish and operate a
  network of the following services for the spatial
  data sets and services for which metadata have
  been created in accordance with this Directive
• discovery services - search for spatial data sets
  and spatial data services on the basis of the
  content of corresponding metadata, display the
  metadata content
• view services - as a minimum, display, navigate,
  zoom in/out, pan, or overlay spatial data sets
  and display legend information and any relevant
  content of metadata
• download services, enabling copies of complete
  spatial data sets, or of parts of such sets, to
  be downloaded
• transformation services, enabling spatial data
  sets to be transformed
• invoke spatial data services services, enabling
  data services to be invoked.

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The EU Geo-Portal

• No Implementing rules
• EC developed
• Aim to provide an operational platform to satisfy
  the requirements of the directive and IR
• Access through Community Geoportal
• Links to services?
• Direct access to services?
• Links to the MS geoportals/services and
  Pan-European Institutions/organisations

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The EU Geo-Portal

• First prototype of the portal online since 2003
• Build the community and assess requirements
• Test functionality and standards in use
• Provide a test platform to allow testing and
  evaluation of network services
• Provide advice and guidance

• Primary use
• Search, Discovery, and access to geographic
  resources
• Data

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The EU Geo-Portal 1st version
Centralised catalogue
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The EU Geo-Portal

• Current architecture
• Static Monolithic
• Lack of flexibility
• Cannot address future requirements
• New version foreseen for early 2006
• interoperability - support evolving standards and
  new technologies
• support thematic communities
• improved user interaction

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EU Geo-Portal Distributed GI Services

• View Client
• Catalogue Client
• Management
• Access control

ISO 19115/19119ISO 19139ISO 15836 (DC)OGC
CSW-2 (SRW, 19115/19119, ebRIM )
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The EU Geo-Portal

• Priority is currently given to
• Discovery facilities based on distributed
  catalogue services.
• Requirements
• Large number of involved services
• Quality, compliance, performance
• Other services (e.g. view services) will be
  developed according to the requirements of the
  Directive.

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The EU Geo-Portal

• Process
• feasibility studies according to technical
  developments and maturity of technologies
• Agreements and use cases with
• Member States
• International Initiatives (USGS/FGDC,
  GeoConnections Canada)
• European Organisations/Institutions (ESA)
• Close links with developments in NS, DS, MD

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The EU Geo-PortalLessons Learned

• Need for
• Unambiguous specifications and standards
• Tools for conformance compliance
• Harmonized application profiles
• Freedom to developers
• Service quality (content, performance)
• Unexpected barriers (security, DRM, IT
  bottlenecks)
• L. Bernard, I. Kanellopoulos, A. Annoni, P.
  Smits. The European geoportal one step towards
  the establishment of an ESDI, Computers,
  Environment and Urban Systems, 29 (2005), 15-31.