Draft inspire monitoring Indicators ( 2)

Introduction

The National System for Geographic Information (SNIG) was set up 20 years ago through Decree-Law No 53/90 of 13 February 1990. It was the first SDI to be developed in Europe and the first to be made available on the Internet in 1995. At the time, it was regarded as a highly innovative project (Masser, 1999). Given the recent advances made in this area, driven mainly by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), and more recently by the INSPIRE Directive, it has been substantially altered in the last few years.

In addition to the technological and content aspects, the organisational philosophy has also been changed due to the transposition of the INSPIRE Directive through Decree-Law No 180/2009 of 7 August 2009, which revised the former Decree-Law on the SNIG.
This process of organisational, technological and content revision, which began in 2002, has enabled the SNIG to retain its innovative and public service nature. The SNIG was recognised at European level when it was given an SDI Best Practice Award 2009 as part of the eSDI-NET+ project.
Decree-Law No 180/2009 was published on 7 August 2009. It altered the SNIG by transposing into Portuguese law Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) and by repealing Decree-Law No 53/90.
Considering that the collaboration and concerted action of national public authorities is an essential component, the IGP, as the Member State contact point for the INSPIRE Directive, has taken advantage of the SNIG Network, which has been used as a starting point for disseminating the Directive, its requirements and new developments. Starting with the authorities present within the SNIG, the IGP created a Metadata Managers Network in 2005 and the INSPIRE Focal Point Network (INSPIRE FPN) in 2007, bringing together the contact points of each public authority in order to implement the Directive.
In order to help the IGP in its role as INSPIRE contact point, a transitional working group was set up in 2008 as an operational structure to support the Directive’s implementation (INSPIRE WG). The aim of the team formed is to ensure that developments associated with implementing the INSPIRE Directive are interlinked with European projects in which the IGP is involved (e.g. HUMBOLDT, GIS4EU), with associated initiatives (e.g. GMES, GEO, SEIS), with other activities carried out within the Directorate for Geographic Information Management and Research (DSIGIG) that are relevant to this process, and obviously with the SNIG’s development activities.
In this context, the IGP has promoted various activities aimed at supporting the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive in Portugal.
Accordingly, the INSPIRE-PT website (http://snig.igeo.pt/Inspire) has been redesigned. This now contains all the information and documentation on the INSPIRE Directive and its implementation in Portugal.
In the area of metadata, the National Metadata Profile has been created and a metadata production and editing tool – MIG Editor – has been made available to all authorities intending to create and publish their metadata.
More than 10 sessions have been held in various locations around the country on themes associated with the Directive, in order to publicise the legal, organisational and technical components of the Directive, encourage discussions on the documents being produced by the European Commission and share knowledge associated with national and international best practice. In particular, links have been established with the results of European projects on spatial data infrastructures in which Portugal is involved. Working meetings on the SNIG and the Directive have also been held with various public authorities. Training actions have been organised for approximately 262 metadata managers, with a training plan having recently been set up on Geo Web Services.
A proposal has also been submitted to the CO-SNIG for the creation of working groups that will bring together, within specific groups, the public authorities responsible for the same themes. The aim of these working groups is to clarify the formal responsibilities of those authorities involved, for each theme, in the production and maintenance of the respective SDS and services. These groups will follow the drafting of implementing rules on the data and service specifications for each theme and will study their application to the SDS and services for which they are responsible, bearing in mind the deadlines defined in the Directive.
It is also intended to set up cross-cutting working groups on Metadata and Geo Web Services, which will support authorities in the production and publication of metadata and in the development of services, in line with the implementing rules and Directive deadlines, by coordinating and bringing together national thematic SDIs and other infrastructures with the SNIG.
The monitoring and reporting process has been carried out thanks to the combined efforts of the IGP, as the INSPIRE MSCP (via the INSPIRE WG) and the INSPIRE FPN. This process has also involved a working group, the GT M&R CO-SNIG, set up within the SNIG coordination structure, namely the CO SNIG.
As a starting point for the monitoring and reporting activity, the importance of the study entitled ‘Analysis of the INSPIRE Directive Annex themes and of the Public Authorities responsible for the Spatial Data Sets of each Theme’ should be mentioned. This study, carried out by the IGP, analysed the authorities responsible for producing SDS on the Annex themes. The study began in 2008 and was also used to raise awareness among authorities about the INSPIRE issue and their potential involvement in the process. Based on a methodology involving the analysis of the legislation on public authorities (framework laws, statutes and other specific texts) and the analysis of the description of the Annex themes, this study has identified the public authorities with formal responsibilities for the SDS associated with these themes.
Using the aforementioned list of authorities by theme, the monitoring and reporting of data was obtained by emailing information requests to the INSPIRE FPN, by holding discussion and clarification meetings with members of the referred network and by making strategic decisions in the context of the GT M&R CO-SNIG.
In the coming year, the plan is to adopt a more automated approach, based on the information contained in the metadata that must be published by December 2010, on the Annexes I and II themes, in accordance with the implementing rules.
This report answers the required questions, based on the available information on the SNIG and on the information collected from the authorities involved in the national SDI, which is mainly included in the tables in the Annexes.

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