1. The GISCO progress report 2001/2002
By Anette Björnsson

2. The tasks of GISCO 2001/2002 Restructuring of the GISCO team INSPIRE
New architecture
Update of reference database
Quality control
Metadata
Project on Farm Structure Survey
TANDEM project
WFD GIS WG
COGI
Meetings
GIS projects:
ESPON
NATURA2000
Joint publication
Update of transport data
Eurosion
GISCO has had several different tasks during the last year.
As many of the points will be presented later, I will concentrate on the update of the database including the quality control, the Farm Structure Survey project, the TANDEM project, the GIS WG for the WFD and briefly explain about the various GIS projects to which GISCO participates.

3. Update of reference database
Inclusion of the Lovell Johns administrative regions
Update of
inclusion of a 1: NUTS layer
inclusion of Greek and Estonian communes in the commune layer
Some changes in the regional divisions
Biotopes include now all Candidate Countries
New version of designated areas
New version of biogeographical regions
Inclusion of river catchments at scale 1:
Update of structural funds and Leader II
Countries in East Europe and Mediterranean See are included in the gazetteer

4. Quality control
A more extensive quality control has been carried out during the work for the update in July 2002
This has resulted in the development of the working and updating procedures and an improvement of the data
Further development of the quality control and procedures is expected
The GISCO database has now existed for around 10 years and it was believed that now is the time to reflect on the development of the quality control and procedures but also the update procedures. These were looked at throughout the update in July and are being further developed during all the updates

5. Next update Next update will be at the end of November
This will mainly contain improvements of existing data sets as a result of the updated quality procedure
The NUTS coverage will be improved so that it will be fully based on SABE
The commune coverage containing the statistical regions (Candidate countries and EFTA) will be further updated and refined
The quality procedure will be further updated which will probably result in improvements of the database

6. Disaggregation of the Farm Structure Survey (FSS)
Overall objective:
Better support to CAP by adding a spatial dimension to FSS allowing to calculate more reliable indicators of sustainable development
How:
Mapping the FSS classes using the CORINE Land Cover map
Result:
Methodology for disaggregation
Relation between CLC and FSS
A raster map showing spatial distribution of agricultural lands according to the reduced number of FSS classes
The FSS was remapped from administrative regions like NUTS to another spatial dimension e.i. the CLC by redistributing the statistics via a spatial modelling process.
Using the CLC meant that the classes had to be adapted to each other as the CLC contains more heterogeneous and more classes. So the groups were adjusted to the number of FSS classes.
This fact can be seen from the image in the report showing how the adjustment was done (page 94

7. CLC to be remapped

8. FSS classes (final situation)

9. TANDEM Final report received spring 2002
Recommendations presented at last WP
Publication published as a Eurostat Working paper and available at the Eurostat web site:
New project started autumn 2002
kick-off meeting in September 2002
New report to be received summer 2003
Results to be presented at the next WP
The future development in the TANDEM project will be presented later today by the lead-partner of the consortium so I will not say more about the project

10. WG GIS under Water Framework Directive (WFD)
contains a definition of maps to be reported to the European Commission
is a template of GIS layers instead of maps
purpose is reporting and cartography
Resolution is m
In the beginning centralised, later decentralised
The GIS is a tool to fulfil the requirements in the WFD
The WG GIS creates a guidance document for the implementation of GIS under WFD
The requirements of the WFD are that the Member States have to find the water, delineate etc. Secondly they need to set-up water management plans where they explain the measures taken to improve the water quality.
These management plans they have to report on using maps in a digital form. Therefore it is foreseen that the member states provide GIS data for the map production.
To do this it has to be decided which data layers are necessary , set-up a datamodel etc.
The GIS specifications contain the representation, storage and transfer of the data
The validation procedures contain the geodetic reference system, projection, metadata, data exchange and access.

11. The guidance document contains
Definition of layers
Data model
Validation procedures
Proposal for coordinate reference system
Chapter on metadata
Recommendations for data exchange
Suggestions for river coding

12. WFD (2) - the quality evaluation
Based on ISO standards (quality principles) and (evaluation procedures)
Consist of two elements:
data quality overview elements
General non-quantitative information
purpose, usage and information on the history (lineage)
data quality elements
How close is the data set to the criteria of its product specification
five data quality elements and additionally sub-elements
The overall aim of this quality evaluation is to assure that all countries follow the same standards e.g that the borderlines coincide, that the a river stops at the coastline etc.

13. Data quality elements and sub-elements

14. Latest news in WFD
Proposal for evaluation aspects in the data validation
data validation should be performed by either Member States or European Commission
The reporting should be according to ISO metadata standard
The reporting should be part of a metadata (profile suggested)
Transfer should be in XML format
First data to be delivered in 2004, next in 2009

15. Projects
ESPON
NATURA 2000
Joint publication (agri-environmental indicators)
Update of transport data
EUROSION
ESPON
Objective is to create a geographical database which goes beyond the NUTS framework but uses the GISCO database and is compatible with the GISCO data
A Coordination unit was established in January 2002 in Luxembourg and the work program was adopted by the Commission in June A first seminar will take place mid-November
NATURA 2000
Joint publication
Third publication under development. Title “building agri-environmental indicators”. It will be published at the end of 2002.
Will mainly describe the relations between LUCAS towards IACS, NATURA 2000, the updated CORINE LC and the breeding bird survey
Update of transport data
A call for tender has been developed in cooperation between Eurostat and DG TREN with the deadline for offers
The project will last a year and the final update of the transport data can be expected month after the signature of the contract and will then be included in the GISCO database
EUROSION
Project for developing coastal erosion policy recommendations. A geographical database will be developed during this project. The database will be compatible with GISCO and included in the database when finalised