1. 1 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE - Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe Examples of research in support of SDI Paul Smits, Alessandro Annoni, Lars Bernard, Anders Friis- Christensen European Commission Joint Research Centre Institute for Environment and Sustainability

2. 2 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra Outline Introduction Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe Example of institutional research ORCHESTRA Experiments

3. 3 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 IspraIntroduction European Commission DG Joint Research Centre Institute for Environment and Sustainability Spatial Data Infrastructure Unit INSPIRE JRC SDI Institutional activities Competitive actions SDI Research

4. 4 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra Outline Introduction Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe Example of institutional research ORCHESTRA Experiments

5. 5 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE INSPIRE is a proposal for a European law on the establishment of an infrastructure for spatial information –European Commission Proposal COM(2004) 516 for a Directive establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in the Community – INSPIRE –INSPIRE is to support environmental policies and policies that affect the environment The European infrastructure shall be based on infrastructures for spatial information established and operated by the Member States INSPIRE requires specific implementing rules

6. 6 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE lays down general rules for the establishment of an infrastructure for spatial information in Europe to support: –environmental policies and –policies that affect the environment This infrastructure shall be based on infrastructures for spatial information established and operated by the Member States. Proposal INSPIRE Directive COM(2004) 516 General Provisions According to the INSPIRE proposal the infrastructure includes: metadata, spatial data sets and services; network services; agreements on sharing, access and use; coordination and monitoring mechanisms, processes and procedures.

7. 7 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE Information Flow Harmonised Data policy Collaborative agreements CEN / ISO / OGC National and Sub- national SDI Commercial & Professional Users Citizens Utility & Public Services NGOs and not-for-profit orgs Government & Administrations Research European Data National and Sub- national SDI Local data European Data Discovery Service Technical Integration/ harmonisation Data resources INSPIRE specifications Users request for information services delivery of information services SDI – Spatial Data Infrastructure

8. 8 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra Overview of requirements metadata* spatial data sets and spatial data services* network services* –EU geo-portal access and rights of use for Community institutions and bodies** monitoring and reporting mechanisms** process and procedures * technical: under JRC responsibility ** legal/procedural: under Eurostat responsibility

9. 9 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE metadata requirements To create metadata that are complete and of high quality for: –spatial data –spatial data services To keep metadata up to date

10. 10 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE metadata requirements Metadata shall include information on the following: a.the conformity of spatial data sets with the implementing rules referred to in Article 11(1); b.rights of use of spatial data sets and services; c.the quality and validity of spatial data; d.the public authorities responsible for the establishment, management, maintenance and distribution of spatial data sets and spatial data services; e.the spatial data sets to which public access is limited in accordance with Article 19 and the reasons for such limitation.

11. EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE Requirements on Discovery  General Assumptions (TBC by the DT) –Network Services are Web Services –User Interface and Backend of the Services are not in the scope of the IR –When metadata is involved in a service, it is exclusively INSPIRE metadata. –A unique way to identify datasets and spatial services is available –Metadata contains a cross reference to the data or spatial service –Spatial Data Services are wide range not only “on-line” (could include services like consultancy services)

12. EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE Requirements on Discovery  Issues on Multilingualism –only mentioned in the context of the interoperability of spatial data sets and services for key attributes and corresponding multilingual thesauri –Granularity: should the list of available languages be a service feature or at the data set or even at the feature attribute level ? –Metadata/Data: should only metadata be multilingual or datasets as well ? –Attributes label versus Attribute value: Should only attributes label be multilingual or should the attribute’ values be as well multilingual?

13. EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE Requirements on Discovery  Discovery –The MS shall establish and operate discovery services to search for spatial data sets and spatial data services on the basis of the content of the corresponding metadata to display the content of the metadata. –As a minimum the following combination of search criteria shall be implemented: a)keywords; b)classification of spatial data and services; c)spatial data quality and accuracy; d)degree of conformity with the harmonised specifications provided for in Article 11; e)geographical location; f)conditions applying to the access to and use of spatial data sets and services; g)the public authorities responsible for the establishment, management, maintenance and distribution of spatial data sets and services.

14. EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE Requirements on Discovery  Discovery – Specific Assumptions –The handling of the catalogues distribution is out of the scope of the Implementing Rules. –Search criteria are available in the metadata (even the ones not explicitly listed for INSPIRE metadata, Keywords, classification of spatial data and services, geographical location)

15. EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE Requirements on Discovery Possible Issues  Link with INSPIRE Metadata Specifications –Discovery and Metadata technical Spec’s really independent ? –Independence from Metadata Catalogue Schema ?  Query Language –Complexity ? –Query Language Spec coupled or decoupled from Discovery Spec ? –Based on which Standards (ISO/IEC 9075S (SQL)) ? –As above: Independence from Metadata Catalogue Schema ?

16. EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE Requirements on Discovery Possible Issues  Link between Data and Service Metadata –Links between metadata of spatial data and spatial services (no-, uni- or bidirectional) ? –Common metadata elements for spatial data and services (e.g. spatial accuracy: spatial data versus spatial data services e.g. coordinate transformation services) ?  Ranking of Results –Should be addressed if decided to be required  Single Access to Data and Services –An unique technical discovery specification for both ? –How to deal with technical Service Metadata (e.g. Capabilities)?

17. EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra INSPIRE Requirements on Discovery Possible Issues  Link to View Services “display of any relevant content of Metadata”: –Kind of Metadata: Of the view (e.g. map) or of the original representation of the data (e.g. electronic version) ? –Availability of Metadata: Assuming discovery & view service are independent and a metadata URL is a response to a view request requires: A unique dataset ID, available to the view service. Discovery service URL known to the view service Discovery service does not request preliminary transaction before accepting a metadata request. Discovery service supports the dataset ID as a query parameter…

18. 18 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra Outline Introduction Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe Example of institutional research ORCHESTRA Experiments

19. 19 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra Example of institutional research Research question: –Is a common ontology desirable and feasible for multi- lingual resource discovery in a European Spatial Data Infrastructure? Approach –Review of relevant literature –Prototype of experimental system for resource discovery Integrating a gazetteer The EuroVoc multi-lingual vocabulary GEMET thesaurus Automatic concept space generator and graph matching On the role of ontologies for resource discovery in a European Spatial Data Infrastructure, P. Smits and A. Friis-Christensen (sub. IEEE Trans. Knowledge and Data Engineering)

20. Terms Ordinary glossaries Data dictionaries Ad-hoc hierarchies Thesauri Structured glossaries XML DTDs XML schema Formal taxonomies Description logics (OWL, DAML+OIL) Data models (UML, STEP) DB schema Principled, informal hierarchy Frames (OKBC) General logic Formal ontologies and inference Metadata, XML schemas, data models Thesauri and taxonomies Glossaries and data dictionaries

21. 21 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra On the role of ontologies for resource discovery in a European Spatial Data Infrastructure, P. Smits and A. Friis-Christensen (sub. IEEE Trans. Knowledge and Data Engineering)

22. 22 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra On the role of ontologies for resource discovery in a European Spatial Data Infrastructure, P. Smits and A. Friis-Christensen (sub. IEEE Trans. Knowledge and Data Engineering) Two-step approach –Creation of multi- lingual concept space –Associative retrieval based on a neural network H. Chen, B. Schatz, T. Ng, J. Martinez, A. Kirchhoff, C. Lin, A parallel computing approach to creating engineering concept spaces for semantic retrieval: the Illinois digital library initiative project. IEEE Trans. Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Vol. 18, No. 8, August 1996, pp. 771-782.

23. 23 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra On the role of ontologies for resource discovery in a European Spatial Data Infrastructure, P. Smits and A. Friis-Christensen (sub. IEEE Trans. Knowledge and Data Engineering)

24. 24 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra

25. 25 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra Conclusions of study –Impractical to rely only on one common ontology for resource discovery –Using human-created ontologies in combination with automatic concept space generation and associative retrieval is a powerful means to the discovery of geospatial resources –In the absence of a consistent use of semantic web technologies, a centralized approach to indexing of metadata is required, which has consequences for architectural and organizational choices. On the role of ontologies for resource discovery in a European Spatial Data Infrastructure, P. Smits and A. Friis-Christensen (sub. IEEE Trans. Knowledge and Data Engineering)

26. 26 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra Outline Introduction Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe Example of institutional research ORCHESTRA Experiments

27. ORCHESTRA

28. Orchestra Goals To design and implement an open service-oriented architecture for risk management. To develop services that are useful for various risk management applications To validate the ORCHESTRA results (i.e. architecture and services) in a multi-risk scenario. To provide software specifications for risk management applications, and to provide additional information about these standards in the form of a book (the ORCHESTRA book). –In particular, the de facto standard of OGC and the de jure standards of ISO and CEN are envisaged to be influenced –To provide input to GMES and INSPIRE

29. Orchestra factsheet For more information: http://www.eu- orchestra.orghttp://www.eu- orchestra.org Project Reference: 511678 Start Date: Sept. 1, 2004 Duration: 36 months Project Cost: 13.748.984,00 Contract Type: Integrated Project End Date: August 31, 2007 Project Funding: 8.199.978,00

30. Cooperation with related 6 FP IPs Agreement on common architectural principles of the info-structure between the IPs Orchestra, WIN & OASIS –Service Oriented Architecture –Distributed services based on (existing) Standards –Generic services as main building blocks for many risk management applications These principles should serve as a basis for a common INSPIRE/GMES Architecture Agreed link to INSPIRE –any architecture development should contribute to the definition of INSPIRE implementation rules. –close cooperation with the INSPIRE drafting team (sharing technical expertise, trying to match pilots with interests of INSPIRE).

31. Pan-European Assessment of natural Hazards PEUNHA 1.Objectives & Scope of the Pilot 2.Scope & addressed ORCHESTRA issues 3.Use case(s) –Draft planning –Some aspects –Schematic Architecture

32. 1. Objectives of the pilot (1) Test the ORCHESTRA architecture for pan-European hazard assessing Focus on risks related to natural hazards (flooding, droughts, forest fires). Support decision makers in the EC to more efficiently integrate European information: 1.to assess the risk of forest fires in the Member States of European Union and to support forest fire prevention. 2.to assess the vulnerability towards floods and droughts within the Member States of European Union according to different considerations and scenarios 3.to assess the vulnerability to various hazards (floods, droughts, forest fires) within the Member States of European Union

33. 2. Objectives of the pilot (2) Pilot should enable stakeholders to access assessments in an interoperable and also “interactive” manner (more than static maps) Experts, Stakeholders and Users –Experts that conduct policy support towards various EC DG’s in the context of forest fires, droughts and flooding (JRC Actions INFOREST and WDNH) –Decision makers within the supported EC DG’s (ENV, REGIO) –later possibly also national decision makers/stakeholders

34. Use case(s) – some aspects PEUNHA-1: Interoperable pan-European forest fire probability map –Integrated access to harmonized (historical) fire data records (data on individual past fire events) coming from different EU Member States with different data formats, semantics etc. for pan-EU analysis –Fire data aggregation with different temporal and spatial resolution (grids, NUTS) –Data aggregation with simple fire frequency calculations (record count), or with other descriptive statistics on the data items (e.g. burned areas by land cover types, fire causes, time of intervention). –Access to other geospatial data (e.g. administrative regions, land cover, Natura2000 sites, and bioclimatic regions) may be jointly processed with fire data to derive key fire risk related indicators –Combine fire trends with meteorologically derived indices –Link burnt area maps e.g. for validation

35. Schematic Architecture PEUNHA-1 – first experiences

36. 36 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra Test bed I - Lessons Learned High degree of re-use: –Easier application development Service oriented (distributed processing) –less inconsistency (no uncontrolled data duplication and algorithm redundancy) –increased quality A more open and visible environment: –Developed services can be published, e.g., via ESA’s service support environment Some types of web services (e.g WFS) are only feasible for limited types of applications: –Performance issues with large amounts of data Current status of interoperability in supposedly standardized software and tools may be sometimes disappointing: –Even following existing standards, interoperability, has proven to be challenging This emphasizes the need for INSPIRE and the focus on interoperability research

37. 37 EcoInformatics meeting, 17/01/06 Ispra Thank you for your attention ! INSPIRE:http://inspire.jrc.it