Thom Pick

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Meta Data Concepts in the European Environment
Information and Observation Network

• Thom Pick
• European Topic Centre on Catalogue of Data
  Sources
• Hannover

Schemas, Bonn, 2000-11-25
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Outline

• EEA and EIONET a networking organisation
• The organisational network
• EIONET Reporting System and Reference Centre
  Concept
• The telematic network e-EIONET
• Streamlining data flows an IT view
• Meta Data Concept
• Current Data Model
• Gelos Schema (Attribute List)
• Multilingual Aspects
• Tools

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The EEA's Mission

• ... is to delivertimely, targeted, relevant
  and reliable information to policy-makers and
  the public for the development and implementation
  of sound environmental policies in the European
  Union and other EEA member countries.
• http//www.eea.eu.int/

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EEA Origin and Development

• In June 1990, the Council of Ministers adopted
  the regulation which forms the legal basis of the
  Agency
• Council Regulation 1210/1990/EEC, amended
  byCouncil Regulation 933/1999/EC of 29 April
  1999.
• In 1994, the Agency set up shop in Copenhagen
  with a skeletal staff of 6 people.
• By 2000, the EEA had a staff of 65 and a budget
  of 18.5 MEUR.
• A core task of the EEA is toestablish and
  coordinate the EIONET in order to collect,
  process and analyse environmental data.

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EIONET - The Network
EIONET is the main vehicle of the European
Environment Agency to collect data, information
and knowledge for the process of reporting on the
state of environment. The core network connects
more than 500 institutions in the 18 EEA member
countries.
Each member state operates a co-ordinating
institute (National Focal Point - NFP) and nine
expertise centres (National Reference Centres -
NRCs).
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Organisational Network Main EIONET nodes

• EEA the central node of the extended network
  EIONET.
• ETCs multi-national consortia, contracted by EEA
  to execute tasks of EEA's work programme. ETCs
  work as an extension of the Agency and are
  responsible for data collection in their topic
  area.
• NFPs are appointed and funded by member
  countries and responsible for the coordination of
  national activities related to the EEA work
  programme.
• NRCs are nationally funded institutions with
  expertise in environmental areas corresponding to
  ETC areas. Collectors and providers of national
  environmental data.

Contact Information is a (the) central
requirement/asset
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The organisational network
Spatial levels
EEA
EIONET ReportingSytem
ETC ETC
European Level
NFP
National Level
NRC NRC NRC NRC
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EIONET Reporting System
Selection Aggregation
Spatial levels
EEA
Monitoring-to-Reporting Chain
ETC ETC
European Level
Monitoring Data Information Assessment
Reporting
NFP
National Level
NRC NRC NRC NRC
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Data Flows in EIONET
EEA Warehouse
European Layer
National Layer
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Directory of Information ResourcesContent

• EIONET address directory
• EEA Publications
• EEA Data Warehouse
• European Environmental Legislation in Force
• National information resources of Member States
  and Phare countries (e.g. State of the
  environment reports)

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A network of networks
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Current situation Overlapping data flows
The Public and Decision-Makers
EC
EEA
OECD
UNEP
Other
Eurostat
DG
DG
ETC
DG
DG
NFP and other National Authorities
NRC
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Target situation Streamlined data flows
The Public and Decision-Makers
Eurostat
EC
EEA
OECD
UNEP
Other
DG
ETC
DG
EIONET Server
NFP and other National Authorities
NRC
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Data Flows in EIONET
EEA Warehouse
European Layer
National Layer
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CIRCLE Library Service
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Customised CIRCLE Library Meta Data
Default library attributes
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EIONET Meta Data Standard

• Global Environmental Locator System Element Set
  (GELOS)
• adopted from G7 working group on environmental
  metadata in late 1996
• based on GILS
• DC compliant
• focus on both, discovery and description
• contains qualifiers for contact information
• however, datamodel and applications consider
  actors as individual resources
• XML as exchange format

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Data model

• distinction between addresses and data sources

• following relations are possible
• one/several persons is/are related to an
  organisation
• data sources are related to one/several
  organisations
• and/or persons
• data sources are related to one/several data
  sources

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Physical Data Model
table Address
table DataCore
organisations
data set, project, map, Dobris data, document,
station, tool, structuring element
table DatRel
table AdDatRel
table AdrRel
persons
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GELOS DTD
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GELOS DTD 1/3
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GELOS DTD 2/3
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GELOS DTD 3/3
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Multilingual Aspects
General Multilingual Environmental
Thesaurus consists of 5200 terms translated
into 15 european languages polyhierarchical incl
udes synonyms sorted by environmental
themes used for indexing and discovery ISO
639-2 for language coding
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Searching and Indexing with GEMET
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Geographical Information

• NUTS Code V7
• ISO 3166
• Lambert - Azimuthal projection for bounding box

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Searching records through maps
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JCDS - Navigate through the CDS DB
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Navigate Database
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Need for environmental domain?
The environmental community cuts across almost
every domain Administration Legislation Geogra
phical Information Science (Geology, Chemistry,
Physics, Biology .....) Harmonisation efforts
are basically hopeless, unless built on existing
initiatives like DC Construct environmental
schema/application profile that builds on
existing namespaces
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More information available at
http//org.eea.eu.int
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Even more information available at
http//www.mu.niedersachsen.de/cds thom.pick_at_mu
.niedersachsen.de
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Contact Information

• Name Name of Institution or Person
• Type Person, Organisation
• Contact Postal Address, electronic address
• Original Identifier Database ID
• Terminology controlled vocabulary,
  uncontrolled voc.
• Description
• Relation to other contact(s), to resources
• Date Date of Creation, last modification

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