1. Towards a European Shared Environmental Information System in Support of Sustainable Policies
Presented by:
Meropi Paneli
ECOINFORMATICS- 2006
European Commission
Directorate-General Environment
Research, Science and Innovation Unit
Rue de la Loi, 200
1049 Brussels BELGIUM

2. Policies Support To Develop…. To Implement … To Monitor ..
Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development , WSSD Johannesburg 2002
The Treaty on European Union
The EU Sustainable Development Strategy
The EU 6th Environmental Action Programme
Four Priorities
1. Climate Change
2. Nature and Biodiversity
3. Environment and Health
4. Natural resources and waste
Seven Thematic Strategies
1. Clean Air For Europe (CAFE)
2. Soil protection
3. Sustainable use of pesticides
4. Marine environment
5. Waste prevention and recycling
6. Sustainable use of natural resources
7. Urban environment
Hyogo Framework for Action : Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters
European Commission – DG Environment 2

3. Information About …. ?
European Commission – DG Environment 3

4. Measuring Progress… Sustainable Development Indicators
EU level long-term SD indicators to monitor our economic development while protecting the environment and meeting our social goals
Economic development
Poverty and social exclusion
Ageing society
Public Health
Climate change and energy
Production and consumption patterns
Management of natural resources
Transport
Good governance
Global partnership
- Eurostat -
European Commission – DG Environment 4

5. But…..but…..the problems with Env Dta Infra
data is :
not sufficiently available, accessible, inter-operable and shared across juridical and administrative boundaries.
not of sufficient or consistent quality, nor sufficiently up-to-date.
sometimes redundant or outdated because the nature of problems have changed since the legislation was adopted.
Alongside the data itself, there are often considerable delays or redundancy in reporting and assessment.
EU has islands of data of different standards and quality...
European Commission – DG Environment 5

6. Resulting in….. difficulties with:
compliance assessment
assessment of the state of the environment
analysis of cause-effect relationships
design successful and cost-effective policy remedy measures.
assessment of the environmental impact of other sector policies (transport, agriculture, cohesion, research etc.)
 the cost-efficient integration of environmental concerns into those policies.
unnecessary administrative burden on Member States and Commission Services for data management and assessment, reporting and monitoring.
European Commission – DG Environment 6

7. The Challenge
Improve availability and quality of information needed to develop and implement Community environment policy
Reduce administrative burden on Member States
The SEIS is to support policy development, implementation and monitoring at local, regional to global levels
European Commission – DG Environment 7

8. What is the SEIS?
Infrastructure and rules to facilitate use of data by wide range of users
Cost-efficient monitoring to support reporting on indicators, risk and monitoring
Underpinned by legal requirements (well implemented)
European Commission – DG Environment 8

9. Achieving the Vision Actions to establish infrastructures and rules
Actions to streamline monitoring
Actions to make legal requirements coherent
European Commission – DG Environment 9

10. Infrastructure and rules
Adoption of INSPIRE: commitment to sharing as a foundation for further streamlining
Common architecture and tools for reporting: coherence between different reporting sytems, better exploiting technology and economies of scale
European Commission – DG Environment 10

11. INSPIRE will deliver … 2006-2013
A data policy framework and a range of sharing agreements between public bodies ensuring that information is exchanged without barriers.
Structures at EU and Member State level to coordinate the practical implementation of the Infrastructure for Geo-Spatial Information in Europe.
Metadata concerning spatial data sets held by public authorities, for use in searching for and identifying available spatial data sets and the corresponding services.
A data Clearing House and electronic network, connecting distributed databases equipped with services, that allows anybody to query, view, access and use geo-spatial data sets held by public bodies and made available on a voluntary basis by third parties
A range of specifications for geo-spatial data sets and services helping spatial data sets to be used in a wider context .
A framework for monitoring the implementation of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe
European Commission – DG Environment 11

12. INSPIRE will not … Impose the collection of spatial data
Deliver integrated information services for particular applications such as environmental reporting, risk management, environmental impact assessments, indicator development land-use planning etc.
Example:
INSPIRE
Institutional
framework
Technical
standards
Fundamental
data sets
Data
Services
European Commission – DG Environment
EEA Reportnet components 12

13. Actions to streamline monitoring
Key role of Thematic strategies and cross-cutting policies, e.g.
Biodiversity: Streamlining European 2010 Biodiversity Indicators
Water Information System for Europe (WISE): to cover all water related information
Soil: framework for sharing and exchange of information
Marine: improved knowledge based upon effective monitoring and assessment
Environment-Health information system
Streamlining of indicators to make downstream monitoring more efficient
Support of 7th Framework Programme including Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES)
European Commission – DG Environment 13

14. To result in: Actions to make legal requirements coherent
EEA monitoring review
Review of reporting requirements at international
and community level
To result in:
streamlining of monitoring/reporting in upcoming policy proposals
possible proposal(s) to repeal/streamline reporting
make existing policies “SEIS-compliant” (e.g. WISE, CAFE)
European Commission – DG Environment 14

15. Some Major Challenges remain …
Conclusions
The EU is committed to the development of a Shared Environmental Information System serving local to global needs
Some Major Challenges remain …
Major regional and global initiatives face the difficult challenge of co-ordination and coherent development
Sustained funding of operational data collection, RTD and usage capacities
More than technical issues …. Data policies and usage conditions risk to be major obstacles
European Commission – DG Environment 15