Towards a Single Information Space for the Environment

I SPIRE, GMES and GEOSS Activities, Methods
and Tools towards a Single Information Space
in Europe for the Environment

Dr. Karel Charvat • Dr. Maris Alberts • Sarka Horakova
Editors

Tehnoloģiju attīstības forums
Wirelessinfo
Riga 2009

UDK 62:001(082)
In 660
Editors:
Dr. Karel Charvat
Wirelessinfo
Cholinska 19, 784 01 Litovel, Czech Republic
charvat@wirelessinfo.cz

Dr. Maris Alberts
Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Latvia
29 Rainis blvd., Riga LV - 1459, Latvia
alberts@latnet.lv

Sarka Horakova
Wirelessinfo
Cholinska 19, 784 01 Litovel, Czech Republic
horakova@wirelessinfo.cz

Reviewers:
Prof. Juris Miklesons
University of Latvia, Faculty of Computing
19 Rainis blvd., Riga, Latvia
juris.mikelsons@lu.lv

Dr. Zuzana Boukalova
Regional Environmental Center
Senovazna 2, 110 00 Prague, Czech Republic
ZBoukalova@cz.rec.org

Publishers:
Tehnoloģiju attīstības forums Wirelessinfo
Kr.Barona iela 32-7 Cholinska 19
Rīga, LV 1011 Litovel, 784 01
Latvia 2009 Czech Republic 2009
www.tdf.lv www.wirelessinfo.cz

This book has been published within the EarthLookCZ project (OK488) supported by the
Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports within the frame of OK – EUPRO Programme.
All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without
the written permission of the publisher.

ISB 978-9934-8105-1-0

2

Preface

The book “INSPIRE, GMES and GEOSS Activities, Methods and Tools towards
a Single Information Space in Europe for the Environment” was prepared by
EarthLookCZ (project EUPRO OK488) in cooperation with Tehnoloģiju attīstības
forums, Latvia. The contents of the book are based not only on the results of the
EarthLookCZ project, but also on the results of the following ones:

• Plan4all (eContentplus project)
• Humboldt (6.FP project 030962)
• SOSI CZ ( ESA project)
• enviroGRIDS (7.FP project 226740)
• GE ESI-DR (7.FP project 212073)
• WI SOC (6.FP project 033914)

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Content

INTRODUCTION
Karel Charvat, Maris Alberts 6

PLAN4ALL - INTEROPERABILITY OF SPATIAL PLANNING
INFORMATION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE FOR
SPATIAL INFORMATION IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY – INSPIRE
Tomas Mildorf 11

GMES NEEDS DESCRIBED SPATIAL DATA
Otakar Cerba 23

GMES – THE EUROPEAN AMBITION TO BRING EARTH OBSERVATION
CAPACITIES IN DAILY USE
Ondrej Mirovsky 30

SPATIAL OBSERVATION SERVICES AND INFRASTRUCTURE IN THE
CZECH REPUBLIC – SOSI CZ
Lukas Brodsky, Milan ovacek, Jan Kolomaznik, Vaclav Vobora, Lubos Kucera
36

THE BLACK SEA CATCHMENT OBSERVATION SYSTEM BUILT ON A
GRID-ENABLED SPATIAL DATA INFRASTRUCTURE
Anthony Lehmann, Gregory Giuliani, icolas Ray, Karin Allenbach, Karel
Charvat, Dorian Gorgan, Mamuka Gvilava, Tamar Bakuradze, Seval Sozen,
Cigdem Goksel and the enviroGRIDS consortium 42

EMERGING INFRASTRUCTURES FOR MANAGING EARTH SCIENCE
DATA: EXPERIENCE AT ESA
Roberto Cossu and Luigi Fusco 59

A NOVEL APPROACH TO ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING SYSTEM
FOR LANDSLIDES AND FIRE DETECTION
Paolo Capodieci and Fabio Mengoni 84

4

EARTHLOOKCZ - GMES DATA PUBLICATION, COMBINATION AND
SHARING ON THE WEB
Petr Horak, Sarka Horakova, Karel Charvat, Martin Vlk 102

USING GEOHOSTING PRINCIPLES FOR PUBLICATION OF USERS’ GMES
DATA WITHIN THE EARTHLOOKCZ PROJECT
Petr Horak, Sarka Horakova, Karel Charvat, Martin Vlk 110

GEOPORTAL FOR EVERYONE
Premysl Vohnout, Jachym Cepicky, Stepan Kafka 133

SENSORS AND ANALYSIS IN WEB ENVIRONMENT
Karel Charvat, Jan Jezek, Jachym Cepicky 140

MONITORING OF AIR POLLUTION DAMAGE TO FOREST
Vladimir Henzlik, Josef Fryml 148

CONCLUSION
Karel Charvat 167

5

Introduction

Karel Charvat1, Maris Alberts2
1
Wirelessinfo, Cholinska 1048/19, 784 01 Litovel, Czech Republic,
charvat@wirelessinfo.cz
2
Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Latvia; Raina bulvaris
29, Riga, LV-1459, Latvia, alberts@latnet.lv

Abstract: The paper explains the purpose of the publication which is to describe
how INSPIRE, GMES and GEOSS could be integrated into Single European
Information Space. The paper deals with the main task of INSPIRE, GMES and
GEOSS and also with tools which could integrate all the three initiatives. The
document gives an overview of single contributions in the book and how they
explain the roles of single initiatives and their integration into the vision. The paper
also explains the role of Earthlook technologies in the concept of integration of
INSPIRE, GEOSS and GMESS into SISE.

Keywords: GMES, GEOSS, GMES, SEIS, SISE.

1 Single Information Space in Europe for the Environment

In 2005 European Commission launched the i2010 strategy: A European
Information Society for Growth and Employment. The Commission defines three
pillars for i2010 [1]:
• Single European Information Space
• Innovation and Investment
• Inclusive European Information Society
The Objectives of Single European Information Space are to offer high-bandwidth
communications, rich content and digital services with a market-oriented
regulatory framework.
The concept of Single Information Space in Europe for the Environment (SISE)
was also for the first time formulated in 2005. The basic idea is that the
environmental institutions, service providers and citizens can collaborate or use
available information without technical restraints [2]. The following scheme
defines the relation of SISE and other ongoing European initiatives.

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Shared Environmental Information Systems – Peeling the Onion [3]

The final vision of SISE was defined by the workshop of European experts in
February 2008 [4]. The main objectives of SISE are as follows:

SISE Context

• Complexity Management
• Environmental Legislation in Europe

Application/Services

• SISE Services
• Process Chaining & Uncertainties
• Real-time Mapping & Modelling
• Thesauri
• Open Standards & Open Source Software

SISE Open Semantics & Standards

• Standardisation & Framework Projects
• Standardisation & Community Knowledge
• Semantic Web Technologies for the SISE
• Ontologies

7

Data Interoperability &Web Communities

• Web 2.0 Technologies
• Data Provision in the Semantic Web
• SOA/Web Services & Model Driven Communities
• Social SISE

Data Visualisation & Modelling including Risk Assessment

• Visualisation of Environmental Data
• SOA & Semantic Web Services
• Simulation & Modelling
• Complex 3D/4D Models
• Chained Web Services & Legacy Systems

SISE Deployment Models

• From Framework Projects to Market Deployment
• Project’s Knowledge Loss
• Regional Application of European Interoperability Standards
• SISE & Business Models
• Environmental Information Service Economy (EISE)

2 SEIS, I SPIRE, GMES and GEOSS

Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) will be based on a set of
principles [5]:
• Managing all environmental information as closely as possible to its
source
• Collecting environmental information once, and sharing it with others
• Making environmental information available to public authorities
• Making environmental information readily accessible to end-users to
enable them to assess the state of the environment in a timely fashion

8

• Making environmental information accessible to enable comparisons at
the appropriate geographical scale
• Making environmental information fully available to general public

INSPIRE is a Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council
of 14 March 2007 establishing the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the
European Community[6]. INSPIRE addresses mainly such policy and activities
that may have direct or indirect impact on environment; there are also implications
and overlaps with other activities, policies and initiatives with complementary
objectives. The Directive applies to spatial data and services held by or on behalf
of public authorities and used in the performance of their public tasks. The
Directive does not require collecting of new spatial data; it foresees that data
should be collected only once and then stored, made available and maintained at
the most appropriate level; the infrastructure should ensure the possibility of
combining data from different sources in a consistent way and sharing them
among users and applications.
The vision for Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) is to
“realize that the originators of future decisions and activities for the benefit of
humankind are well informed thanks to coordinated, comprehensive and sustained
Earth observations” [7]. GEOSS must provide access and improved
interoperability both for the existing and future observation systems. GEOSS is
based on voluntary contribution of governments and international organizations.
GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) is the European
Initiative for the establishment of European Capacity for Earth Observation. The
main objective of GMES is to monitor and better understand our environment.
GMES provides decision-makers who rely on strategic information with regard to
environmental and security issues with an independent and permanent access to
reliable data [8].

Roles of single contributions

Tomas Mildorf in his contribution PLA 4ALL - Interoperability of Spatial
Planning Information in the Context of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information
in the European Community – I SPIRE demonstrates the implementation of
INSPIRE principles in the area of spatial planning. In the contribution by Ota
Cerba GMES eeds Described Spatial Data the same case is used to demonstrate
how principles of INSPIRE have to be implemented for GMES. Ondrej Mirovsky
(GMES – The European Ambition to Bring Earth Observation Capacities into
Daily Use) explains basic principles of GMES. The objective of Lukas Brodsky et
al. (Spatial Observation Services and Infrastructure in the Czech Republic – SOSI
CZ) demonstrates how GMES activity could be integrated into SEIS. Anthony

9

Lehmann et al. (The Black Sea Catchment Observation System built on a Grid-
Enabled Spatial Data Infrastructure) show the advantage of using GRID
technology in the frame of SDI and GEOSS. Roberto Cossu and Luigi Fusco
(Emerging Infrastructures for Managing Earth Science Data: Experience at ESA)
demonstrate on the base of ESA experience the advantage of GRID technologies
for GMES. New sensor technology and new approach of sensor monitoring are
presented by Paolo Capodieci and Fabio Mengoni (A ovel Approach to
Environmental Monitoring System for Landslides and Fire detection).
The next four chapters are dedicated to the Earthlook project. Petr Horak et al.
(EarthLookCZ - GMES data publication, combination and sharing on the web)
explain basic principles of integration of GMES and INSPIRE principles into the
Earthlook project. In Petr Horak et al. (Using Geohosting Principles for
Publication of Users’ GMES Data within the EarthLookCZ Project) the idea of
Geohosting as the method of public particpation on SDI building is presented.
Premysl Vohnout et al. (Geoportal for Everyone) then describes innovative
solution of GeoPortal, which is a basic component for Earthlook data discovery
and visualisation. The last presentation by Karel Charvat et al. (Sensors and
analysis in Web Environment) describes Earthlook technologies for in situ
monitoring and analysis. The last part of the book by Vladimir Henzlik and Josef
Fryml (Monitoring of Air Pollution Damage to Forest} descibes one of the Czech
information sources for GMES and GEOSS.

References

1. COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL, THE
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS “i2010 – A European
Information Society for growth and employment” {SEC(2005) 717} Brussels,
1.6.2005 COM(2005) 229 final
2. http://ict-ensure.tugraz.at/en/index.php/ensure/Content2/SISE
3. Thomas Pick, Reinhard Schmalz, Fred Kruse, Martin Klenke Information for the
People: PortalU, an environmental information service for the communal level in
Lower Saxony, http://www.epma.cz/Docs/EEEGD08/Pick.pdf
4. John J O’Flaherty WP Session on Objective ICT-2009.6.4: ICT for environmental
services and climate change adaptation, Brussels 27 Nov 2008
5. J. Hřebíček and W. Pillmann Shared Environmental Information System and Single
Information Space in Europe for the Environment: Antipodes or Associates? European
conference of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU TOWARDS
eENVIRONMENT,
6. ECP-2008-GEO-318007, Plan4all, INSPIRE Requirements Analysis
7. Eva Klien, Alessandro Annoni, Pier Giorgio Marchetti The GIGAS project – an
action in support to GEOSS, INSPIRE, and GMES, European conference of the Czech
Presidency of the Council of the EU TOWARDS eENVIRONMENT,
8. http://www.gmes.info/

10

PLA 4ALL - Interoperability of Spatial Planning
Information in the Context of the Infrastructure for Spatial
Information in the European Community – I SPIRE

Tomas Mildorf

University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Department of
mathematics, Section of Geomatics, Univerzitni 22, Pilsen, 306 14, Czech Republic
mildorf@centrum.cz

Abstract. Spatial planning has a crucial role in the context of social, political,
economic and environmental issues. There is a big diversity in data collection,
storing, processing and provision. The legal situation incorporates similar problems.
The heterogeneity in spatial planning limits its use in decision-making in
transboundary context, including impact assessment and evaluation of plans.
Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) can
significantly contribute to support spatial planning processes by increasing
transparency and developing shared methodologies.

Keywords: Spatial planning, Harmonisation, Interoperability, INSPIRE,
Infrastructure for spatial information

1 Introduction

Human activity is a term that is very often declined in conjunction with social,
political, economic and environmental issues. Spatial planning is one of the most
important areas that strongly influence these issues on all levels. Sustainable
planning addresses the environment where people live and work, the location of
social and economic activities, the way in which the resources we possess are
exploited, etc. Spatial planning acts in bottom-up and top-down directions
between all levels of government. National, regional and local authorities face
important challenges in the development of territorial frameworks and concepts
every day.
The situation is complicated by the diversity and overall complexity of spatial
planning. Spatial planning is a holistic activity. All the tasks and processes must
be solved comprehensively with input from many various sources. Several
authorities are in charge of single spatially relevant topics (e.g. water
management, transport, cadastre, geology, etc.). There is a big diversity in data
collection, storing, processing and provision. To combine these sources, to
perform an analysis and to ensure valuable results are big challenges in spatial

11

planning, especially when talking about digital data. We cannot make any high-
quality results without taking all the inputs into account. It is necessary to make
the inputs interoperable and therefore comparable. This will allow the user to
search the data and services, view them, download them and use them with help of
IT technologies.
The definitions of spatial planning and related terms are described in section 2.
Section 3 focuses on the building of the infrastructure for spatial information in
Europe (INSPIRE) [4] and its requirements. Section 4 combines spatial planning
and the INSPIRE initiative with a focus on the similarities between them.
Heterogeneity in spatial planning is addressed in section 5. This chapter is
concluded by challenges for spatial planning in section 6. The main sources of
information are the European eContentplus project Plan4all [3] and the INSPIRE
initiative [4].

2 Spatial Planning

Terms and their definitions play a crucial role in all activities where cooperation
between several sectors is essential. Spatial planning is an example of such
cooperation. Terms like spatial planning, land use planning, regional planning and
urban planning are often used interchangeably depending on the country.
Moreover they do not always have the same meaning between users. Their
definitions might be disjointed even within one country. In Europe the preferred
term covering all the above mentioned terms is increasingly spatial planning or
territorial cohesion. Several concepts are therefore defined in this section.

2.1 Spatial Planning – Territorial Cohesion

Spatial planning refers to the methods used by the public sector to influence the
distribution of people and activities in spaces of various scales.
There are several definitions of spatial planning. One of them is mentioned in the
European Regional/Spatial Planning Charter (1983) that was adopted by the
European Conference of Ministers responsible for Regional Planning (CEMAT).
This definition is wide enough to cover the complexity of spatial planning.
Regional/spatial planning gives geographical expression to the economic, social,
cultural and ecological policies of society. It is at the same time a scientific
discipline, an administrative technique and a policy developed as an
interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach directed towards a balanced
regional development and the physical organisation of space according to an
overall strategy.

12

At the European level, the term territorial cohesion is also becoming more widely
used. It is mentioned in the Lisbon Treaty, in the Green Paper on Territorial
Cohesion [11], where the following sentence describing this term is stated, and
other documents and initiatives.
Territorial cohesion is about ensuring the harmonious development of all diverse
territories and about making sure that their citizens are able to make the most of
inherent features of these territories. As such, it is a means of transforming
diversity into an asset that contributes to sustainable development of the entire
EU. [11]

2.2 Regional Planning

Regional planning is a branch of land use planning dealing with the organisation
of infrastructure, settlement growth and non-built areas at the scale of a region.
Regional planning generally contributes to regional development, but may also
fulfil additional objectives, such as sustainability in the environmental sense.
Regional planning is generally understood as the spatial planning activities at
regional scale. [12]

2.3 Urban, City and Town Planning

Urban, city or town planning is the planning discipline dealing with the physical,
social, economic and environmental development of metropolitan regions,
municipalities and neighbourhoods. The expression of urban planning consists in
elaborating land-use and building plans as well as local building and
environmental regulations.
ote: Historically (nineteenth century) urban planning was influenced by the
newly formalised disciplines of architecture and civil engineering which began to
codify both rational and stylistic approaches to solving city problems through
physical design. During the twentieth century, the domain of urban planning was
expanded to include economic development planning, community social planning
and environmental planning. [12]

2.4. Land Use Planning

Land use planning is a branch of public policy which encompasses various
disciplines seeking to order and regulate the use of land in an efficient way. It
means the scientific, aesthetic and orderly disposition of land, resources, facilities
and services with a view to securing the physical, economic, social and
environmental efficiency, health and well-being of urban and rural communities.
[12]

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2.5 Interoperability and Harmonisation

Interoperability and harmonisation - two terms that are essential for the integration
of spatial planning information.
Interoperability means the possibility for spatial data sets to be combined, and for
services to interact, without repetitive manual intervention, in such a way that the
result is coherent and the added value of the data sets and services is enhanced.
[4]
Data harmonisation - providing access to spatial data through network services
in a representation that allows for combining it with other harmonised data in a
coherent way by using a common set of data product specifications. [9]

In other words, interoperability means that each country maintains their own
infrastructure but adopts a framework that enables existing datasets to be linked up
from one country to another. Interoperability may be achieved by either changing
(harmonising) and storing existing data sets or transforming them via services for
publication in the INSPIRE infrastructure.
Harmonisation means that all countries use a common set of coordinate reference
systems, data models, classification systems, etc. Harmonised data help to get
better consistency and comparability of data across information systems.
Consistency can be achieved through the deletion of redundant or conflicting data.
The harmonization process makes information available for the integration of data
systems and improves meaning and format across different systems. This result
can be obtained by means of a data mapping process that compares the meanings
and formats of involved data elements belonging to a specific area (for example
GIS information). The harmonisation process therefore applies transformation
rules and definitions to the existing heterogeneous data elements in order to have a
common representation of the same elements with an improved quality and
consistency [10].

3 I SPIRE

This section describes what is the INSPIRE and what are its principles and
requirements. The main source of information are INSPIRE documents [13].
Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (hereinafter
referred to as INSPIRE) was established by the Directive 2007/2/EC of the
European Parliament and of the Council of 14th March 2007 (hereinafter referred
to as INSPIRE Directive) [4]. INSPIRE lays down general rules to establish an
infrastructure for spatial information in Europe for the purposes of Community
environmental policies, and policies or activities which may have an impact on the

14

environment. The most significant general rules are summarised in the following
INSPIRE principles:
• The infrastructures for spatial information in the Member States should
be designed to ensure that spatial data are stored, made available and
maintained at the most appropriate level;
• It is possible to combine spatial data from different sources across the
Community in a consistent way and share them between several users
and applications;
• It is possible for spatial data collected at one level of public authority to
be shared between all the different levels of public authorities;
• Spatial data are made available under conditions that do not restrict their
extensive use;
• It is easy to discover available spatial data, to evaluate their fitness for
purpose and to know the conditions applicable to their use.
Infrastructure for spatial information means metadata, spatial data sets and
spatial data services; network services and technologies; agreements on sharing,
access and use; and coordination and monitoring mechanisms, processes and
procedures, established, operated or made available in accordance with the
I SPIRE Directive. [4]
INSPIRE should be based on the infrastructures for spatial information that are
created by the Member States. To ensure that the infrastructures are compatible
and usable in a Community and transboundary context, the INSPIRE Directive
requires that common Implementing Rules are adopted in a number of specific
areas.
INSPIRE addresses mainly policy and activities that may have a direct or indirect
impact on the environment. The INSPIRE Directive applies to spatial data sets and
services held by or on behalf of public authorities and used in the performance of
their public tasks. Data must be in electronic format and must relate to one or
more of the themes listed in Annexes I, II or III of the INSPIRE Directive.
The development and implementation of INSPIRE follows a programme of work
consisting of three phases. These are the Preparatory (2005-2006), the
Transposition (2007-2009) and the Implementation (2009-2019) phases.
The Preparatory Phase (2005-2006) started with the Commission’s proposal for
INSPIRE and was successfully finished with its entry into force. The
Implementing Rules begun to be drafted with involvement of key stakeholders.
During the Transposition Phase (2007-2009) Member States focused on
transposing the INSPIRE Directive's requirements into their own legislative
systems. Member States are therefore engaged in implementing the technologies,
policies and institutional arrangements that will form the basis for their INSPIRE

15

compliant systems. The development of the draft Implementing Rules continued
in this phase.
The Implementation Phase (2009-2019) should cover the implementation of the
Implementing Rules by Member States and monitoring of the implementation
through reporting according to the road map of the INSPIRE.
The Implementing Rules are for the following INSPIRE elements:
• Metadata – INSPIRE metadata profiles for spatial datasets, spatial
datasets series and for services are outlined through set of metadata
elements. It includes the minimum set of metadata elements necessary to
comply with the INSPIRE Directive. It should ensure that all geospatial
information resources and data produced and made available by Member
States and their constituent organisations are catalogued in a standard
way to support a consistent means of discovery, understanding and
access across the Community.
• Data Specifications – Data Specifications pertain to the content of a
basic set of data themes that each Member State is required to maintain
and also the technological standards for communication of those data
themes for use. The set of spatial data themes is listed in Annexes I, II
and III to the INSPIRE Directive. These rules will enable full data use
and interoperability across the INSPIRE network.
• etwork Services – Member States are required to establish and operate
a network of services for the spatial data sets and services. In order to
ensure the compatibility and usability of such services on the Community
level, it is necessary to lay down the technical specifications and
minimum performance criteria for those services with regard to the
themes listed in Annexes I, II and III to the INSPIRE Directive. In order
to ensure that public authorities and the third parties are given the
technical possibility to link their spatial data sets and services to the
Network Services, it is necessary to lay down the appropriate
requirements for those services (including services that enable discovery,
viewing, downloading and data transformation).
• Data and Service Sharing - The INSPIRE Directive requires the
development of implementing rules to regulate the provision of access to
spatial data sets and services from Member States to the institutions and
bodies of the Community.
• Monitoring and Reporting - In order to have a solid basis for decision
making related to the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive and to
the future evolution of INSPIRE, continuous monitoring of the
implementation of the Directive and regular reporting are taking place.
Quantitative indicators for assessing the progress of SDI implementation

16

in the EU Member States and the structure of qualitative reports are
outlined.

4 I SPIRE & Spatial Planning

INSPIRE is fundamental to support the Community policies, including
environmental policy, and to fulfil environmental protection requirements. It is
necessary to establish coordination in order to combine high quality information
and knowledge from different sectors on different levels (administrative, cultural,
etc.) and to underpin policy-making in an integrated way. This is important to help
in understanding the complexity and interactions between human activities and
environmental impacts. Spatial planning as a holistic activity of public
administration, matches the Communities policies that are the core of the
INSPIRE initiative. Spatial planning is not directly addressed by INSPIRE, but
indirectly, in a complex way through its technical documents.
There are many similarities between the character of spatial planning and the
INSPIRE initiative:
• The innovative aspects of INSPIRE include the cooperation of different
actors within the involvement of both public and private sector. The
spatial planning continuously sees the involvement of different
stakeholders (public, private, citizens, associations, etc.).
• The INSPIRE Directive does not require collection of new spatial data.
Spatial planning generally utilises data already produced and is not in
charge of producing new reference data.
• The main objective of INSPIRE is to establish a European Spatial Data
Infrastructure (SDI). Existing Spatial Data Infrastructures are valuable
means to support spatial planning processes, especially in transboundary
contexts, to enhance exchange of strategic data, to improve the use of
impact assessment and evaluation of plans and provisions in spatial
planning, with transparency and shared methodology.
• The devolution applied by each Member State to the sub-national
planning creates different situations in each country. Measures provided
by INSPIRE aim to overcome the differences that may limit the
coherence of Spatial Data Infrastructures.
• Almost all the spatial data themes listed in the INSPIRE Annexes, for
their general character, are valuable for spatial planning.

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5 Heterogeneity in Spatial Planning

The heterogeneity in spatial planning is well known. A planner from one region
has difficulties to combine data from neighbouring region and vice versa. Current
spatial planning laws are disjointed and even experts from one country might have
difficulties to understand the planning regulations of a neighbouring country. For
investors and decision makers it is almost impossible to compare planning
regulations across Europe.
The preliminary results from the Plan4all project show the heterogeneity in
Europe in terms of spatial planning systems, spatial data infrastructures,
terminology, processes in spatial planning, data formats, quality and quantity of
content, standards, data models, data availability, user requirements and other
aspects [5,6,7,8]. An example is shown by the heterogeneity of levels and
instruments of the spatial planning system in the Czech Republic – CR (Fig. 1)
and France (Fig. 2). The figures describe the different functional levels in
comparison with the administrative levels.
The differences in spatial planning between various administrative units and
between different levels of government will remain. Therefore it is not feasible to
eliminate the heterogeneity by the harmonisation on local level over entire Europe.
Harmonisation on the European level is one of the approaches to make spatial
planning interoperable across Europe.

6 Challenges for Spatial Planning

A sustainable resource management (with direct and indirect impact on the
environment) improves coordination of spatial development and urban planning as
well as investments. An integrated strategy of the European Community policy-
making can only be achieved by the establishment of an infrastructure for spatial
information (INSPIRE Directive). By using this instrument, and through land use
management with Spatial Data Information, municipalities, regions and nations
can benefit from the ongoing regional competition to overcome their lack of
attractiveness and gain competitive territories. Therefore, the INSPIRE Directive
and the use of Spatial Data Infrastructure relates directly to spatial planning and
helps for better decisions in policy making.

18

Fig. 1. Structogram of the levels and instruments of the spatial planning system in the CR
19

Fig. 2. Structogram of the levels and instruments of the spatial planning system in France.

20

Planning systems in each country and sometimes federal states in Europe have a
lot of common instruments and levels. The most common instrument in the
European planning systems is the land use local plan (with sometimes different
denominations), followed by the regional plan (focussing on regional development
and regional structure). At least one local plan (land use, zoning plan) is legally
binding, while plans from the upper levels can be legally binding or not. The scale
can differ, especially as in different countries there are one, two or even three
plans on municipal level. Also on regional level, plans are established on different
scales, different administrative levels, and have also often different
representations. For instance, plans in France are highly schematic and in
Germany are very precise. Sometimes they are legally binding, sometimes not.
Content is also different, depending of the country, like sectoral plans. Even in one
state there may exist regions with plans and others without. Also the time of
updating is an important fact which varies. On the national level, plans are
established in different manner, depending on the political administration. [5]
There are many challenges for spatial planning in Europe - from heterogeneity of
data to differences of planning legislations in the European countries.
Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) can
significantly contribute to support spatial planning processes, especially in
transboundary contexts. It should help to enhance exchange of strategic data, to
improve the use of impact assessment and evaluation of plans and provisions in
spatial planning with transparency and shared methodology.

References

1. Cerba, O., Charvat, K., Kafka, S., Mildorf, T. Spatial Planning – Example of European
Integration of Public Data. In 7th Eastern European e-Gov Days: eGovernment &
eBusiness Ecosystem & eJustice, 23-24. 4. 2009, Prague (Czech Republic).
2. Cerba, O., Charvat, K., Kafka, S., Mildorf, T. International Cooperation on Spatial
Planning. In IST-Africa 2009, 6.-8. 5. 2009, Kampala (Uganda).
3. Plan4all – European Network of Best Practices for Interoperability of Spatial Planning
Information, description of the work. [Online].Available: http://www.plan4all.eu/wk/i
mages/e/e6/Plan4all_project_description.pdf
4. 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).
[Online]. Available: http://eurlex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:L:2007:108:SOM:EN:
HTML.
5. Deliverable D2.1 Cluster of Leading Organisations in SDI for Spatial Planning. [Onlin
e].Available: http://www.plan4all.eu/wiki/Deliverables:public
6. Deliverable D2.2 Analysis of Innovative Challenges. [Online].Available: http://www.p
lan4all.eu/wiki/Deliverables:public
7. Deliverable D2.3 INSPIRE Requirements Analysis. [Online].Available: http://www.pl
an4all.eu/wiki/Deliverables:public

21

8. Deliverable D2.4 User Analysis Report. [Online].Available: http://www.plan4all.eu/wi
ki/Deliverables:public
9. D2.5 Generic Conceptual model, INSPIRE Drafting Team “Data Specifications”.
[Online]. Available:
http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reports/ImplementingRules/inspireDataspecD2_5v2.0.pd
f
10. Data State of Play.[Online].Available: http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reports/Implemen
tingRules/network/Data%20_State%20_of_Play_EUR_report.pdf
11. COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL, THE
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS AND THE
EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE, Green Paper on Territorial
Cohesion. Commission of the European Communities. COM (2008) 616 final.
[Online]. Available:
http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/consultation/terco/paper_terco_en.pdf
12. Spatial development glossary. European Conference of Ministers Responsible for
Regional/Spatial planning (CEMAT) 2007 (bilingual version) (Territory and landscape
2),
Council of Europe Publishing. [Online].Available: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureher
itage/Source/Resources/Publications/Land/CEMAT_Glossary_TerritoryandLandscape
No2_BIL.pdf
13. INSPIRE documents. [Online].Available: http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.cfm/pag
eid/6

22

GMES eeds Described Spatial Data

Otakar Cerba

University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Univerzitni 8, 306 14 Pilsen, Czech Republic,
cerba@kma.zcu.cz

Abstract. The title of this chapter emphasizes a need of different types and levels
of description of spatial data sets used for GMES purposes. Why? GMES is very
large and not homogeneous initiative with brave targets (environmental questions,
security etc.). The purpose of GMES is to deliver information which corresponds to
user needs. The processing and dissemination of such information is carried out
within the "GMES service component" (GMES – European Commission, 2009). To
promote and maintain GMES activities we need a large number of tools,
applications, methods and technologies.

Keywords: Spatial data, Spatial data description, GMES, Standardization,
INSPIRE

1 Introduction

“GMES, which stands for Global Monitoring for Environment and Security, is a
European programme for the implementation a European capacity for Earth
observation. The main objective of GMES is to monitor and better understand our
environment (How our planet is changing? Why is it changing? How this might
influence our daily lives?) and to contribute to the security of every citizen. GMES
will provide decision-makers who rely on strategic information with regard to
environmental and security issues with an independent and permanent access to
reliable data. The project aims at providing geo-information data on the regional,
European and global scale and covers a wide range of thematic domains like Land
use / land cover change, Soil sealing, Water quality and availability, Spatial
planning, Forest management, Carbon storage, Global food security.” (GMES,
2009)
The title of this chapter emphasizes a need of description of spatial data sets used
for GMES purposes. Why? GMES is very large and not homogeneous initiative
with brave targets (environmental questions, security etc.). The purpose of GMES
is to deliver information which corresponds to user needs. The processing and
dissemination of this information is carried out within the "GMES service
component" (GMES – European Commission, 2009). To promote and maintain
GMES activities we need a large number of tools, applications, methods and
technologies. But these instruments cannot work without good-quality data. As the

23

information used and produced by GMES are related to specific locations we can
talk about spatial data. Defining the term of spatial data is complicated. The
complication is caused by the fact that except for the adjective “spatial” other
attributes like geo-, geographic or geospatial are used. INSPIRE (Infrastructure for
Spatial Information in the European Community) Glossary (INSPIRE Registry,
2009) defines the term “spatial data” as “data with a direct or indirect reference to
a specific location or geographic area”. The functioning of the GMES is based on
the availability of such data, the possibility of quick update, combination,
exchange, visualization, analysis etc. Users also must have enough information
about the data to be able to find data and decide if they are suitable for a particular
purpose.
This chapter should answer three basic question related to using spatial data in the
GMES framework.

1. Why should spatial data be described?
2. What is necessary to describe?
3. How is it possible to make spatial data description?

2 Importance of spatial data description

The strategic objective of GMES is to achieve harmonization of the fragmented
national standards for global monitoring for environment and security throughout
the European Union (Mirovsky, 2006). It is not a unification of standards on a
single pan-European basis, but the harmonization and interconnection of existing
resources, including spatial data. Such harmonization needs the huge number of
knowledges and information on harmonized elements. Therefore especially semi-
automated or full-automated harmonization must be supported by such
information and knowledges extracted from concrete spatial data sets and from
other external sources describing these spatial data sets.
It should be noted that the activities related to GMES related not only to current
all-European spatial data. Activities relating to environment and security use the
large number of different spatial data sets, which differ from each other.

• Data from various makers (state authorities, commercial companies,
public - collaborative mapping)
• Data from various providers
• Data provided under different licenses and legislative restrictions
• Data using different data models

24

• Data provided in various data formats
• Data acquired in various ways (satellite imagery, photogrammetry, public
/collaborative/ mapping, state administration mapping, GPS measuring
but also information like text documents, photos, statistical documents,
historical and archive materials)
• Data of different ages (from historical documents to actual remote
sensing data)
• Data in different dimensions (2D, 2,5 D, 3D, temporal components)
• Data at different scales
• Data covering different areas (from a global perspective like Earth
browser to a specific interiors of buildings and utility lines)

The set of users of spatial data from GMES is also very complicated in terms of
harmonization. These data sets could be used by public, risk management and
security bodies, forest and water management, industry, state administration etc.
Moreover, it is necessary to emphasize linguistic and cultural differences,
traditions, and national or local standards related to acquisition of spatial data set,
their processing and cartographic visualization. The term user does not refer only
to humans, but also to machines. More precisely, various automated processes like
search or visualization services represent GMES users, too.
We could find many other characteristics of spatial data (e.g. spatial reference
systems or portrayal rules – see Directive 2007/2/EC), which further accentuate
the differences of individual data sets and limit the harmonization process. Any
method of unification of all data sources is impossible for many reasons – the
number of data is very high and still increasing, questions of national legislatives,
using of different hardware platforms, operational systems and software products
with proprietary formats and models etc. Harmonization of GMES and other data
sets must be provided through existing data sets description and following
particular transformation and/or conversions and not through existing data sets
transformation to one platform. Only detailed multilevel spatial data description
enable to find, decode and apply information and knowledges to use, share and
combine different data. The importance and significance of this approach based on
information and knowledges on spatial data sets increase with need of very fast
acquisition of very quality data, for example for purposes of risk management or
security.

25

3 Spatial data components and properties

What is it mean to describe spatial data sets? The description should be based on
interconnected description of spatial data components and attributes. This
description is mostly explicit and external. But for example data coded in a mark-
up language can have some internal description by tags marked the meaning of
elements and attributes.
Spatial data have a large number of different properties which could be divided
into 4 groups. This selection of properties is based on following publications –
(Annoni et al., 2008), (Cada & Mildorf, 2005), (Cerba & al., 2009b), (Directive
2007/2/EC), (ISO 19115:2003):
1. Common properties of data: Support of interoperability and accessibility
(Multilinguality, Cultural adaptability, Metadata, Legislative
conformance, Relationships to other data, Data models), Data origin
(Data character /measure or processed data/, Methods used for data
capture, Data management, Frequency of updating, Types of updated
information), Data distribution (Licenses, Prices, Data providers or
distributors), Data presentation (Visualization model, Multiple
representation), Technical parameters of data storage and distribution
(Medium, Data format)
2. Properties of spatial components of data: Used units, Precision,
Granularity, Consistency, Reliability, Spatial scope, Geometry (spatial
representation), Dimension, Topology, Geodetic datum
3. Properties of temporal (time) components of data: Used units, Precision,
Granularity, Consistency, Reliability, Time scope.
4. Properties of attribute (descriptive) components of data: Used units,
Precision, Granularity, Consistency, Reliability, Theme of attributes,
Terminology, Classification systems, Identifier management, Registries,
Feature catalogues (description of attributes).

4 Standards represent the right way

When does anybody ask how to describe spatial data, there is only one correct
answer – using standards. There are many different standards, methods,
technologies and applications describing various components of spatial data at
different levels of the model. The following table (based on document Niemann,
2005) gives an overview of these forms and relevant standards.

26

Table 1: Spatial data description methods

Standard Level of model

Controlled vocabularies & glossaries Thesauruses

Relation models, mark-up languages

ER model, DB Schema, XML schema languages Taxonomies

Topic Maps Conceptual models

RDF/S

UML

Ontologies Logical theories

Description Logic

First Order Logic

Modal Logic

Axiology

All of the above models and methods may be described in detail by using
metadata standards (e.g. ISO 19115, some other component of the series of ISO
191XX or Dublin Core Metadata Initiative.

5 Conclusion

GMES is among the projects of the very near future. Near future, however, in
terms of information and communication technologies (ICT) is the arise of new
technologies, bringing significant changes for example possibilities of:
• Composition of different services and data sources located on remote
computers
• Individual profiles related to spatial data and their representation, for
example culturally specific or language specific profiles
• Using of contexts of current situation

27

• On demand data – user will get only necessary data to make the all
process more faster
Harmonisation of spatial data could have another benefits to data users (except
possibilities of using of new technologies):
• Any duplicities in data
• Clear origin and assurance of quality of the data
• Data structure standardisation
• Data purity, security and structure uniformity
• Better data manipulation
• Reciprocal data accessing per WMS (Web Map Service), WCS (Web
Coverage Service) and WFS (Web Feature Service) – preservation data
up-dating (possibility of on-line actualisation)
• Fall of cost for data updating and maintenance
• Better software development
• Better source exploitation
• Improvement of chances in communication with authorities
• Better utilization and commercialization of urban planning geospatial
data
• Increasing activities, e.g. education (Cerba et al., 2009a)
All of these processes will require spatial data and the demands on quality of these
data will be constantly rising. Therefore it is necessary the implementation of
different methods and levels of spatial data description. Similarly to the initiative
for the complete validation called Document Schema Definition Language
(DSDL) a structure for describing and exchanging not only spatial data should be
designed. Because the only way of interconnected group of methods of spatial
data description bring the higher spatial data accessibility and interoperability. It is
necessary for such large projects like GMES or INSPIRE. Spatial data description
could be applied in designing and building of an expert system. For example one
of such expert systems could design and technique of cartographic spatial data
visualization based on knowledges and information about spatial data.
There are four main factors to push to the integration in spatial data (according to
Cerba et al., 2009a):
1. Legislative rules and their strict control.
2. Business strategies (requirements of market).
3. Education – explanation of benefits of approach based on spatial data
description.

28

4. Quality of technical support and development of new technologies
supported standards.

References

1. Annoni, A., Friis-Christensen, A., Lucchi, R. & Lutz, M. (2008). Requirements and
Challenges for Building a European Spatial Information Infrastructure: INSPIRE. In
van Oosterom & P., Zlatanova, S. Creating Spatial Information Infrastructures.
Towards the Spatial Semantic Web. CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, London.
ISBN 978-1-4200-7068-2.
2. Cada, V. & Mildorf, T. (2005). Delimitation of reference geodata from land data
model. GIS Ostrava 2005. Ostrava: VŠB - TUO, 2005. s. 1-12. ISSN 1213-239X.
3. Cerba, O., Charvat, K., Kafka, S. & Mildorf, T. (2009a). Spatial Planning – Example
of European Integration of Public Data. Paper presented at 7th Eastern European
e|Gov Days: eGovernment & eBusiness Ecosystem & eJustice, April (22) - 23 - 24,
2009 Prague, Czech Republic.
4. Cerba, O., Charvat, K., Jezek, J., Kafka, S. & Musil, M. (2009b). Spatial data
interoperability makes ICT use more efficient.
5. 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). (2007)
6. GMES – European Commission (2009). Retrieved November 16, 2009 from
http://ec.europa.eu/gmes/index_en.htm.
7. GMES. (2009) Retrieved November 16, 2009 from www.gmes.info.
8. Geographic information — Metadata. Information géographique — Métadonnées .
ISO 19115:2003. (2003), ISO.
9. INSPIRE Registry. Glossary. European Commission, 1995-2009. (2009) Retrieved
September 15, 2009, from http://inspire-
registry.jrc.ec.europa.eu/registers/GLOSSARY.
10. Mirovsky. O. (2006). Co je program GMES?. Czech Space Office. Retrieved
November 16, 2009 from http://www.czechspace.cz/cs/gmes.
11. Niemann, B. (2005). Data Reference Model Implementation Through Iteration and
Testing Version 1.0. Retrieved November 19, 2009 from http://web-
services.gov/DRMITIT10172005.doc.

29

GMES – The European ambition to bring Earth
Observation capacities in daily use

Ondrej Mirovsky

Czech space office, Katerinská 10, Prague 2, 128 00, Czech Republic,
mirovsky@czechspace.cz

Abstract: Following paper describes evolution and recent development of the
GMES programme, which is a European tool how to bring data produced within
earth observation capacities closer to daily use for numerous international, national
and even regional institutions. Global Monitoring for Environment and Security
(GMES) will help to ensure sustainable flow of accurate and timely data to monitor
changes of our environment and will be a helpful tool to manage and coordinate
fast emergency response.

Keywords: GMES, European Union, European commission, European Space
Agency, European Environmental Agency, services, data, environment, security.

1 Introduction

The planet Earth is recently going through ages of rapid change of its surface,
biosphere, atmosphere and climate, which has impact on both nature and people
inhabiting this planet. In order to be able to monitor these changes, Earth
Observation (EO) gives us powerful tool how to get detailed information on global
scale in a short of time.
European Union is in terms of environmental issues global leader and needs
accurate and timely information to fulfil all monitoring and reporting demands as
well as data for quick emergency response. Therefore, GMES (Global Monitoring
for Environment and Security) as the European Initiative for the establishment of a
European capacity for Earth Observation was launched.

2 GMES – first steps

A key driving element having contributed to the establishment of GMES was the
paradox of having so much data produced within current Earth Observation
systems on one hand and lack of good quality and timely data delivered to

30

decisions makers on the other hand. Thus, in 1998 in Baveno (Italy)
representatives of numerous institutions in this field concluded together with
European commission and European Space Agency to establish European capacity
for Earth observation named GMES.
However, it was not only need to ensure data for Europe, but GMES bears also
greater geostrategic importance of having autonomous system not dependent on
non-European systems, where still now EU depends almost from 60% on foreign
EO systems. EU commitment in this field is also a good tool to support European
spaces industry, research and development while are all targeting to help to meet
goals of the EU Lisbon strategy.
During last few years GMES has received wider importance within EU and in
2004 GMES was recognized in the Communication from the Commission to the
European parliament and the Council /COM (2004) 65/(1) followed by the
resolution of the Parliament giving “green” light to further develop GMES.
Further on GMES found substantial basis to its development via finances from
Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) in the domain of SPACE research. In the
period 2007- 2013 some 1.2 billion EUR were made available to develop GMES.

3 Architecture of GMES

The GMES initiative federates a wide range of observational networks and data
providers, exploiting the most recent observation techniques and technologies, for
developing edge-cutting information products to end-users. In principle, the
GMES observational infrastructure composes of two main components – space
and in situ.

Space infrastructure
The space component shall ensure sustainable provision of satellite derived Earth
observation data to all GMES services. The architecture of the component is
derived from service requirements provided by the user communities. ESA and
EUMETSAT are two main European actors in this area who should play the major
role in co-ordination, implementation and operational running of the infrastructure
(2).
Key elements of this component will be sets of 6 satellites systems named
Sentinels, which shall cover all space born data needs for all services. These
satellites will acquire radar and optical data, information on atmospheric
chemistry and many other needs. First satellites on the orbit are expected in 2011.
It is also a key aspect of benefits of GMES programme that Sentinel satellite
systems are synergic logical follow up of some already existing satellite systems
widely used in Europe (e.g. SPOT and ENVISAT).

31

Fig. 1. Sentinel 1 (source ESA)

In-situ infrastructure
The in situ component is based on an observation infrastructure owned and
operated by the large number of stakeholders coordinated, in some cases, in the
frame of European or international networks. In situ observation activities and
associated infrastructure derive from a range of national, EU and international
regulatory requirements and agreements or form part of research processes. None
was created to meet the needs of GMES, and they cover a much wider field than
the GMES services. By this reason European Environmental Agency was
appointed to co-ordinate the consolidation of in-situ networks for GMES purposes
(2).

Users

Third key element of GMES are surely users. Users are here to define their needs
to both space and in-situ elements in order to get from the system such data they
can instantly use for their daily needs. User-driven principle shall be applied in
both elements – for the design of satellite systems as well as on in-situ data
processing to final users. What European users need most are ready-made tailored
data.

32

Fig. 2. GMES architecture (source EC)

4 GMES services

Bringing GMES into reality of daily life involves sets of services, which are now
in pilot phase with the future transition into operational services. Today we have
five basic GMES services under development tackling most needed information
for European users.
Land monitoring service is now being developed under GEOLAND 2 project
and it is dedicated to cover land monitoring needs for Europe including topics as
land cover changes, agri-environmental issues, spatial planning, forest monitoring
etc. For the domain of marine applications project MyOcean is now processed to
cover monitoring of the ocean and seas in order to get better data on maritime
security, natural recourses, oil spill prevention etc (3.) Emergency response
service of GMES is covered by project SAFER which gathers activities towards to
a rapid mapping and provision of online information during emergency situations.
The scope of this service goes even on global level, when this service has the
potential to work worldwide. Atmosphere services of GMES are recently under
MACC project, when core of this task is to deliver data on air quality, climate
change, monitor sand and dust storms, UV radiation risks etc. Lastly, G-MOSAIC

33

project is now running to cover security GMES services. Core of activities is in
the provision of geo-spatial information in support of EU external relation policies
for Security related activities (4).

5 GMES – operational service

After ten years of research activities, GMES has now entered its pre-operational
phase through five major projects (as listed above) financed by the EU, ESA and
Member States budgets aimed at developing future operational services and
infrastructure. The services are being developed to meet the needs of a wide range
of users who rely on accurate environmental and security data and information.
Operational, continuous and sustainable delivery of information has not yet been
achieved. Further investment is therefore necessary, in Space infrastructure in
particular, in order to fill the remaining gaps in GMES services and to guarantee
their long-term sustainability and reliability. In addition, a common approach
between the various partners involved in the development of GMES needs to be
further enhanced, to avoid the possibility of a duplication of efforts. GMES is also
creating opportunities for increased private sector usage of new information
sources. It will trigger partnerships between research and service providers, many
of them small and medium enterprises. Thus, while not likely in the short to
medium term, the development of market opportunities could eventually
determine the proportion of public investment (5).
This year regulation on the European Earth observation programme (GMES) and
its initial operations was adopted to guarantee smooth transition from research
phase into operational phase of GMES before the new financial perspective of the
EU will be in place.

6 Conclusion

Earth Observation encompasses a powerful set of advanced technologies which in
combination with in situ (ground-based, airborne etc.) measurements provides
products and services supporting solutions to international challenges such as
security threats, environmental degradation and climate change. The GMES
initiative reflects the European decision to develop its own, independent
observation capabilities. At this time GMES stands on the edge of transition into
real operational services delivering data where needed and has a unique potential
to be a very successful approach how to maintain our planet safe and healthy. For
its success, future strong commitment of its main key players – European
Commission and European Space Agency is needed together with the voice of
member states of the EU and other international bodies.

34

References

1. COM (2004) 65, COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL, Global Monitoring for
Environment and Security (GMES): Establishing a GMES capacity by 2008 - (Action
Plan (2004-2008))
2. http://ec.europa.eu/gmes/obser_infra.htm
3. http://www.myocean.eu.org/index.php/project/objectives
4. http://www.gmes-gmosaic.eu/
5. Kolar, J., Mirovsky, O. (2009): The Czech EU presidency: a gateway to
6. GMES for users from Central and Eastern Europe, Window on GMES,
March 2009, ISSN 2030-5410,
http://www.boss4gmes.eu/index.php?id=103&no_cache=1

35

Spatial Observation Services and Infrastructure in the
Czech Republic – SOSI CZ

Lukas Brodsky1, Milan Novacek2, Jan Kolomaznik1, Vaclav Vobora1, Lubos
Kucera1
1
GISAT spol. s.r.o., Geoinformation Company, Charkovska 7,
101 00Praha 10, Czech Republic
{Lukas.Brodsky, Jan.Kolomaznik, Vaclav.Vobora, Lubos.Kucera}@gisat.cz
2
ANF DATA spol. s r. o., Pujmanové 1221,
140 00 Praha 4, Czech Republic
milan.novacek@siemens.com

Abstract. The SOSI CZ project is one of the three related SOSI (Spatial
Observation Services and Infrastructure) projects, each implemented in a different
country. The overall multi-country SOSI project was initiated by ESA with the aim
to demonstrate the innovative technology and service concepts within the context of
the European Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS). Profiting from the
ESA developed technology and the availability of ESA Service Support
Environment (SSE), which is a Web-service based system supporting chaining of
distributed services, the entire SOSI project aims at demonstrating the possibility to
create a network of service provision points supporting at the same time needs at
various levels: from local to European, like those of the European Environmental
Agency (EEA). In addition to the above-mentioned SOSI common objectives, SOSI
CZ focuses on implementation of a satellite imagery dissemination service and
implementation of MEEO Software Modules for automated pre-classification of
satellite imagery.

Keywords: Spatial Observation Services, Earth observation, SEIS, SSE, Land
Cover

1 Introduction

SEIS – a European Perspective

According to the European Union’s 6th Environmental Action Programme aiming
at a Sustainable Development Strategy integrated assessments of environmental
information are becoming the trend. This nurtures the vision of a Shared
Environmental Information System (SEIS) with the scope to improve, modernise,

36

streamline, and connect environmental information systems in Europe and world-
wide (see Ref. EEA, 2008). From the European Environment Agency’s (EEA’s)
perspective (Steenmans, 2009) SEIS is about:
• Sharing (organisation): Political commitment (legislation); Partnership
(win-win); Networking (connecting);
• Environmental Information (content): Horizontal integration (data
centres); Vertical integration (local to global); Online access - real time
for policy makers and public;
• System (infrastructure and services): Existing ICT Infrastructure;
INSPIRE, Report net, GMES, etc.; New e-Services (e-Government).
In this list the SOSI project addresses primarily the items “networking”, “online
access” and all items under “System”, i.e. Europe's infrastructure backbone for
environmental services.
SOSI Common Objectives:
• Identifying land monitoring information services common to all
participating countries and relevant at local and European levels
• Implementing in each participating country a Service Provision Point
integrating relevant technology
• Implementing a SOSI Demonstrator overarching through SSE all the
Service Provision Points
• For the identified land monitoring information services, verifying that the
SOSI Demonstrator permits both - their local use with local flavours and
also integrated use in a wider European context (in particular towards the
EEA)
SOSI CZ Objectives:
On top of SOSI common objectives the SOSI CZ will also focus on:
• Implementation of satellite imagery dissemination service (including data
archiving and cataloguing)
• Implementation of MEEO Software Modules for automated pre-
classification (including validation and benchmarking) of satellite
imagery.

2 Project Description

SOSI is a project for developing innovative “Spatial Observation Services and
Infrastructure” within the context of land monitoring initiatives at European and
Member State levels. The project’s objective is to demonstrate, in real operations,
a decentralized information system allowing integration of distributed data and

37

processing services as well as access and distribution at multiple levels, languages
and content granularities.

SOSI is contributing to and maintaining - during a demonstration period - a
network of test implementations intended to be jointly operated by the European
Space Agency (ESA), the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the
participating organizations from the European Member States Austria, Czech
Republic, Hungary and Luxembourg. The programmatic objectives of the
European Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) and related user
requirements are providing orientation to SOSI. In particular the SEIS activity to
implement the Land Cover Data Service (LCDS), a joint initiative of EEA [RD07]
and twelve Member States to establish an information sharing and reporting
environment for land use and land cover change, will be addressed by the SOSI
project. It is expected that the results of the SOSI project will contain valuable
recommendations for the future evolution of these European services.
The primary technology and operational procedures of SOSI are being
implemented by utilizing the Service Support Environment (SSE) of ESA [AD03].
SOSI offers a distributed node-based infrastructure of Web-services following
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles and standards thus establishing
access to a number of content services (Figure 2) and one land cover generation
processing service operated by the participating organizations. The SSE
infrastructure is providing coupling and user access mechanisms (binding,
workflows and portal).
Further programmatic facets come into the SOSI project by the fact that some of
the very first operational products of Kopernikus, Europe’s Global Monitoring for
Environment and Security initiative (former GMES), have been loaded and made
accessible via the SOSI infrastructure. The product’s official name is "High
resolution core land cover data for built-up areas, including degree of soil sealing,
2006" which was generated in the course of the "GMES Fast-Track Service on
Land Monitoring" project spearheaded by EEA with coordinated satellite data
provisioning by ESA.

38

Fig. 1. SOSI Servers in Member States and at European Agencies.

In addition, the SOSI system offers on-line access to the "Corine land cover map
2000" (CLC2000) dataset, the product of an EEA coordinated activity with
Member States. This dataset includes land cover data of lower spatial and thematic
but high temporal resolution, semi-automatically derived from MERIS instrument
data received by the local Envisat receiving station in the Czech Republic. Data
on land cover is necessary for formulating environmental policy as well as for
other purposes such as regional development and agriculture policies. At the same
time it provides one of the basic inputs for the production of more complex
information on other themes (soil erosion, pollutant emissions into the air by the
vegetation, etc.).
The SOSI project foresees to implement an operational service to demonstrate
online access to this high resolution data for built-up areas entirely covering four
pilot states, namely: Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary and Luxembourg
(Figure 1). This land cover data (LC data) will be provided at connected service
provision points physically operated in each of these countries. Potentially more
areal coverage can be accessed via the service provision points operated by the
EEA node called Land Use Data Centre (LUDC), which is also planned to be
interfaced by the SOSI infrastructure.

39

In the course of analysing the contributions from the mentioned Member States a
proposal to tackle also specific national requirements has developed: The
Hungarian participation in the information network will, in addition to the land
cover service setup in Hungary, address multi-lingual aspects of a national portal
for Hungarian users. This is expected to challenge SSE configuration flexibility in
international scenarios. The plans for the SOSI implementation in the Czech
Republic (CZ) foresee that an existing Earth Observation (EO) satellite data
archive maintained nationally for regionally received Envisat MERIS data shall be
connected via SSE drawing benefits from the available tools for publishing
archive data, discovery, viewing, ordering via a powerful graphical user interface,
and secure delivery of data to users.

Fig. 2. SOSI Service Metamodel.

The SSE capabilities of setting up workflows and value chains of distributed
services are a further demonstration objective in SOSI. A custom automated Land
Cover (LC) generation engine provided by the company MEEO shall be installed
as a network service which can be chained into a SOA workflow. The
experimental configuration in SOSI shall demonstrate at least the availability of
manually LC processed data from the Czech archive service and the flow via this
LC generation engine to the Czech LC provider service. It is expected from this
demonstration that the value adding process may be in the future managed in a
widely automated way, incorporating both synchronous and asynchronous (e.g. for
human operator intervention) steps in the processing and provisioning chain, as

40

required. Also the performance and behaviour of the MEEO classification engine
shall be assessed.
All in all, it is hoped that the SOSI activity will be convincing that the envisaged
SOA approach incorporates a set of viable and efficient tools which can
favourably be used for the implementation of “ubiquitous access to distributed,
cooperating data and services”, by demonstrating service examples in the EO land
monitoring application field.

Acknowledgments. The project is conducted under contract of the European
Space Agency ESA (ESRIN Contr. No. 21776/08/IL-G) and CZ national PECS
program (Contract number 98082 – “SOSI CZ Spatial Observation Services and
Infrastructure in the Czech Republic”) with strong steering support by the
European Environment Agency EEA. The authors wish to thank Mr. S. D’Elia,
Mr. A. della Vecchia and Mr. P.G. Marchetti from ESA as well as Mr. J. Bliki,
Mr. S. Jensen, Mrs. A. Sousa, Mr. C. Steenmans, and the LUDC team from EEA
for essentially having formed the project idea and for accompanying its execution.
The preparedness by the company Geoville to host the Luxembourg SOSI
instantiation is very much appreciated. The contributions of the company Spacebel
regarding SOA and SSE knowhow and of the company MEEO regarding
automated LC generation and practical SSE knowhow have been very valuable to
the SOSI project.

References

1. EEA – European Environment Agency, Shared environmental information system,
2008, http://www.eea.europa.eu/about-us/what/shared-environmental-information-
system.
2. ESA – European Space Agency, Service Support Environment, 2008,
http://services.eoportal.org.
3. JRC – Joint Research Centres, INSPIRE Technical Architecture – Overview, V1.2,
2007, http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reports.cfm.
4. JRC – Joint Research Centres, INSPIRE Network Services Architecture, V3.0, 2008,
http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/reports.cfm.
5. Steenmans, C., Towards a Shared Environmental Information System, SEIS – A
European perspective, European Environment Agency Presentation, 2009.

41

The Black Sea Catchment Observation System built on a
grid-enabled Spatial Data Infrastructure

Anthony Lehmann1,2, Gregory Giuliani1,2, Nicolas Ray1,2, Karin Allenbach1,2,
Karel Charvat3, Dorian Gorgan4, Mamuka Gvilava5, Tamar Bakuradze5, Seval
Sozen6, Cigdem Goksel6 and the enviroGRIDS consortium
1
University of Geneva, enviroSPACE, Battelle Bat. D, Route de Drize, CH-1227
Carouge, Switzerland
2
UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Europe, Switzerland
3
Czech Centre for Science and Society, Czech Republic
4
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania
5
GIS & RS Consulting Center "GeoGraphic", Georgia
6
Istanbul Technical University, Turkey

Corresponding author: Anthony.Lehmann@unige.ch

Abstract. The Black Sea catchment represents a very large historically rich area of
more than 2 million km2 with more than 160 million inhabitants occupying a
strategic position between Europe and Asia. It is partially following an
unsustainable development caused by inadequate resource management that leads
to severe environmental, social and economical problems. The EnviroGRIDS @
Black Sea Catchment project is addressing these issues by bringing several new
emerging information technologies that are totally revolutionizing the way we will
be looking at our planet in the future. The Global Monitoring for the Environment
and Security (GMES) and the Global Earth Observation Systems of Systems
(GEOSS) are indeed building a data-driven vision of our planet to explore its past,
present and future. The INSPIRE directive is promoting data sharing through
interoperability standards at European level, while the UN-SDI is following the
same pathway within the United Nations. In order to address the challenges faced
by these initiatives of increasing need for data storage and processing,
enviroGRIDS will build upon the largest Grid computing infrastructure in the world
(EGEE) that will transform elements of software underpinning scenarios and
models onto a gridded system. EnviroGRIDS is aiming at building the capacity of
scientist to assemble such a system, the data providers to share their data, the
capacity of decision makers to use it, and the capacity of the general public to
understand the important environmental, social and economical issues at stake.

Keywords: GEOSS, GMES, INSPIRE, UNSDI, EGEE, Black Sea catchment,
SWAT, remote sensing, sensors, interoperability, grid-enabled Spatial Data
Infrastructure.

42

1 Introduction

The enviroGRIDS project aims at building capacities in the Black Sea region on
new international standard to gather, store, distribute, analyze, visualize and
disseminate crucial information on past, present and future states of this region in
order to assess its sustainability and vulnerability. In order to achieve its
objectives, enviroGRIDS will build an ultra-modern grid-enabled Spatial Data
Infrastructure (GSDI) using web services to connect to the Global Monitoring for
the Environment and Security (GMES) and the Global Earth Observation System
of Systems (GEOSS). It will be also fully compatible with the EU directive on
Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Union (INSPIRE) and the
equivalent UN initiative (UN-SDI).
The scientific aim of the enviroGRIDS project is to promote and federate existing
Observation Systems in order to address several Societal Benefit Areas as defined
by GEOSS within a changing climate framework. This system will incorporate a
shared information system that operates on the boundary of scientific/technical
partners, stakeholders and the public. It will contain an early warning system that
will inform in advance decision makers and the public about risks to human
health, biodiversity and ecosystems integrity, agriculture production or energy
supply provoked by climatic, demographic and land cover changes on a 50 year
time horizon.
The generic technical objectives of the enviroGRIDS project are to:
• Run a gap analysis on existing regional observation systems to prepare
recommendations for improvement of networks of data acquisition in
each region/country
• Improve regional network to coordinate the efforts of partners active in
observation systems
• Develop the access to real time data from sensors and satellites
• Create spatially explicit scenarios of key changes in land cover, climate
and demography
• Distribute large calculations and datasets on large computer clusters
(Grid)
• Streamline the production of indicators on sustainability and vulnerability
of societal benefits
• Provide policy-makers and citizens with early warning and decision
support tools at regional, national and local levels
• Build capacities in the implementation of many new standards and
frameworks (INSPIRE, GEOSS, GMES, UN-SDI)

43

2 Background

The core environmental problem of the Danube River Catchment can be described
as “ecologically unsustainable development and inadequate water resources
management” [1]. The problems are caused by different factors, such as:
inadequate management of wastewater/solid waste, ecological unsustainable
industrial activities, and inadequate land management and improper agricultural
practices. These factors generate several direct consequences: pollution of
surface/groundwater, eutrophication, and accelerated runoff /erosion. These
consequences have in turn the following main effects: decline in quality of life,
human health risks, degradation of biodiversity, economic decline, and reduced
availability of water. The Black Sea itself is also affected by severe environmental
degradation [2]. Some signs of recovery have been observed in the last years, but
eutrophication remains a severe problem.
Several of the environmental topics addressed in enviroGRIDS are clearly related
and interdependent. As climatic change is becoming a worldwide concern that will
affect many areas of human activities, the last report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change [3,4,5] predicts important changes in the coming
decades that will not only modify climate patterns in terms of temperature and
rainfall, but will also drastically change freshwater resources qualitatively and
quantitatively, leading to more floods or droughts in different regions, lower
drinking water quality, increased risk of water-borne diseases, and irrigation
problems. These changes may trigger socio-economic crises across the globe that
need to be addressed well in advance of their occurrences in order to reduce their
associated risks.
Indeed, as documented by several assessments, humans are exerting significant
impacts on the global water system [6] through activities such as the modification
of the hydrological cycle, the accelerated melting of snow and ice in alpine zones,
the removal of trees that lead to increased runoff, reduced transpiration, impacts
on the water table and landscape salinity, the draining of wetlands, irrigation for
agriculture, the alteration of flow through dams, the transfer of water between
catchments, and pollution from industrial, agricultural and domestic sources.
The European Community is addressing the crucial problem of water quality and
quantity by adopting the Water Framework Directive [7] that promotes water
management based on watersheds rather than administrative or political
boundaries. The aim is to build river catchment management plans that define
objectives based on ecological, hydrological and chemical values, as well as
protected areas status. River catchment analysis will integrate the analysis of the
economic value of water use for stakeholders in order to understand the cost
effectiveness of alternative policy and technical measures. However, despite
efforts to date, the vulnerability of different areas of Europe and beyond to climate
change remains poorly addressed. The United Nations has followed a similar

44

pathway and launched the UN Water Program [6] that aimed at bringing a greater
focus on water-related issues at all levels and on the implementation of water-
related programmes in order to achieve the water-related targets in Agenda 21, the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the Johannesburg Plan of
Implementation (JPOI).

3 EnviroGRIDS consortium

The enviroGRIDS partners cover expertise in several fields of environmental
sciences and information technologies. They have a very strong and direct interest
in Observations Systems and have connections in numerous local, national,
regional and international organisations. Together they form a very strong
consortium that will be able to raise significantly the Public awareness in different
Societal Benefits Areas, to build Decision Makers capacity to use Observation
Systems, and Scientists capacity to construct them and feed them with quality
information.
This consortium will be supervised from Geneva that occupies a strategic position
by hosting several international organizations centered on environmental and
related societal issues (GEO, UNEP, UNDP, WHO, WMO, WCO, ICRC, IUCN,
WWF…). Indeed, the Group on Earth Observation (GEO) intergovernmental
project is based in Geneva to establish the Global Earth Observation System of
Systems that is recognized by the European Commission as an official partner for
global projects. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), through its
GRID-Europe office, has a long experience in gathering and making available
global environmental data through, for instance, the Global Environmental
Outlook program, and is presently involved in project on the climatic vulnerability
of the shallow Lake Balaton in Hungary as well as several other European
projects. The Enabling Grids for E-Sciences project (EGEE) that is coordinated by
our CERN partner will provide the necessary computing and storage capacity for
this project. The Climatic Change and Climate Impacts group at the University of
Geneva has an excellent international reputation in terms of its research on climate
change impacts and is striving to reinforce its relationships with international
organizations. Therefore, the combined expertise of GRID, UNIGE, CERN and
GEO will be easy to gather regularly to guarantee the best possible steering of the
enviroGRIDS project.
Many partners in this project are leaders in the field of hydrological modeling and
already know each other because they belong to the active community of users of
Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT, Arnold et al., 1998), and have already
collaborated in other projects. The UNESCO Institute for Water Education (IHE)
is a leading institute in research and teaching hydrology for students coming from
the entire world. The Swiss Aquatic Research Institute (EAWAG) is an
internationally recognized research institute in hydrology and has done some large

45

scale uses of SWAT in recent years for instance across the entire African
continent or in Iran. The University of Barcelona (UAB) is partner within the
European Topic Centre on Land Use and Spatial Information (ETC-LUSI).
Finally, the Centre for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia
(CRS4) is also a leading partner in information and technology and started to
develop web based decision support tools based on SWAT outputs.
This strong hold of Western Europe partners is ideally reinforced in the
enviroGRIDS project with several high level education, research, public and
private partners within the Black Sea Catchment. For example, IBSS (Ukraine) is
one of the leading institutes in terms of the long-term research of the Black Sea
ecosystem. IBSS holds and develops the database on over 150 oceanographic
expeditions dealing with this region. Along with USRIEP (Ukraine), DHMO
(Ukraine), SPSU (Russia), DDNI (Romania) these institutes have monitored the
ecosystems of the Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, the Danube delta, and forecasting
the present ecological state of marine and terrestrial components of the
catchment. INHGA (Romania) has a long-standing experience in water resources,
flood and drought risk management, as well as the assessments of the impact of
human activity and climate change on the hydrological regime of the catchment.
GeoGraphic (Georgia) develops specialized software, flexible data management
technologies, and cartographic production pertained to the environmental issues of
the Black Sea region. Finally, CCSS (Czech Republic) is a leading center in
Spatial Data Infrastructure and sensors deployment.

Table 1. The enviroGRIDS consortium.

Beneficiary name Short Country
name
Université de Genève UNIGE Switzerland
Czech Centre for Science and Society, CCSS Czech
partner of United Nations Spatial Data Infrastructure Republic
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) CERN Switzerland
(Int.)
Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and EAWAG Switzerland
Technology
Geographic GIS&RS Consulting Center Geographic Georgia
UNESCO: Institute for Water Education IHE The
Netherlands
(UN)
University of Barcelona, European Topic Centre Land UAB Spain
Use and Spatial Information supported by the European
Environment Agency (EEA)
Ukrainian Scientific and Research Institute of USRIEP Ukraine
Ecological Problems

46

Soresma n.v. SORESMA Belgium
St. Petersburg State University SPSU Russian
Federation
Istanbul Technical University ITU Turkey
Melitopol State Pedagogical University AZBOS Ukraine
and Azov-Black Sea Ornithological Station
ArxIT consulting ARXIT Switzerland
Black Sea Regional Energy Centre BSREC Bulgaria
Danube Delta’ National Institute for Research and DDNI Romania
Development
Danube Hydrometeorological Observatory DHMO Ukraine
Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas IBSS Ukraine
Institute of Geography of the Romanian Academy IGAR Romania
National Institute of Hydrology and Waters INHGA Romania
Management
Odessa National I.I. Mechnikov University ONU Ukraine
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca UTC Romania
Environmental Protection and Water Management VITUKI Hungary
Research Institute
Permanent Secretariat of the Commission on the BSC PS Turkey
Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution
Advanced Studies, Research and Development in CRS4 Italy
Sardinia
International Commission for the Protection of the ICPDR Austria
Danube River
National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology NIMH Bulgaria
Tavrida National University TNU Ukraine

4 EnviroGRIDS step by step

First, a gap analysis will allow identifying areas where most efforts are needed to
reinforce existing observation systems in the Black Sea catchment. Then, spatially
explicit scenarios of key drivers of changes such as climate, demography and land
cover will be created. These scenarios will feed into hydrological models
calibrated and validated for the entire Black Sea Catchment. EnviroGRIDS will
rely on the largest grid computing infrastructure in the world (EGEE) that will
transform elements of software underpinning scenarios and models onto a gridded
system. The combined impacts of expected climatic, demographic, land cover and
hydrological changes will be measured against GEOSS Societal Benefit Areas
through several pilot studies in different countries within the Black Sea catchment.
A strong effort will be put on convincing regional data holders to serve their
metadata and data through web services in order to complement the global data
made available by several international organizations. Specific outcomes will be
analyzed and made accessible through a state-of-the-art web interface. The
resulting web services will help our main targeted end users, the Black Sea

47

Commission and the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube
River, to improve their web portal for their communication on the state of the
Black Sea catchment (Figure 1).

Fig. 1. EnviroGRIDS data flow and processing based on web services and regionally and
internationally available data to serve principal end users needs, public and decision
makers.

5 Soil and Water Assessment Tool

New advances in computing technology plus data availability from the Internet
have made high resolution modelling of distributed hydrologic processes possible.
Using the program Soil Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) [8]
(http://www.brc.tamus.edu/swat/), enviroGRIDS will apply a high-resolution (sub-
catchment spatial and daily temporal resolution) water balance model to the entire
Black Sea Catchment (BSC). The BSC Catchment (Figure 2) model will be
calibrated and validated using river discharge data, river water quality data, and
crop yield data [9]. As part of the modelling work, uncertainty analysis will also
be performed to gauge the confidence on all model outputs. Subsequent analyses
of land use change, agricultural management change, and/or climate change can
then predict the consequence of various scenarios.

48

An example of the use of SWAT can be found in the “Lake Balaton Integrated
Vulnerability Assessment, Early Warning and Adaptation Strategies” project that
was launched following many years of water quality problems and a negative
water balance induced by water shortage starting in 2000 and lasting for four years
[10]. This raised a serious sustainability concerns in the Lake Balaton area,
Hungary and the region. Due to the Lake Balaton sensitivity to climate change and
its impacts the problem came to the fore both for policy and science.

Fig. 2. Black Sea catchment.

Lake Balaton’s internationally unique vulnerability situation is the combined
result mainly of its very shallow profile and the fact that through heavy reliance on
tourism as a primary source of livelihoods, the socio-economic consequences of
ecological deterioration can be severe and immediate. This is particularly the case
as society has not fully dealt with the legacy of transition from centrally planned
to a market economy. If the frequency of years with negative water balance indeed
increased in the future, as indicated by applicable climate change scenarios, Lake
Balaton and the coupled socio-economic system is expected to emerge as a highly
sensitive and internationally unique indicator of vulnerability to global change. On
a more positive side, it could also serve as a high profile example of adaptation
measures consistent with sustainable development.

49

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