1. The EAGLE INSPIRE project Land Cover
Lena Hallin-Pihlatie / Finnish Environment Institute
Christian Ansorge / EEA
Gebhard Banko / UBA
NRC EIS workshop, EEA
25-26 November 2015

2. Overview The EAGLE group Focus of the ”EAGLE INSPIRE project”
Project set-up
People
Tools
WPs
Deliverables
Recommendations and conclusions

3. What kind of EAGLE?
Eionet Action Group on Land Monitoring in Europe (EAGLE)
Representatives of National Reference Centres (NRC) for Land Cover in the EEA´s EIONET network (European Environmental Information and Observation Network)
Other Land Monitoring experts from mapping agencies, universities and the private sector
Established in 2009 as a self-initiative without external funding
Open „membership“ based on own commitment
FP7 Harmonised European Land Monitoring ( )
EEA Call for Tender in > EAGLE Consortium
Several small projects from 10/2014-9/2015
Contracts with EEA
Part of the Copernicus Land activities

4. The EAGLE INSPIRE project
Contract with EEA
Time frame: March September 2015
Task: To provide EEA with transformation rules and validated sample datasets for Corine Land Cover (CLC) and Urban Atlas (UA)
According to the INSPIRE Annex II: land cover, vector data model (LCV)
Not part of the contract: Transformation of the whole CLC / UA data sets
People
Lead: Austrian Environment Agency (UBA)
Co-Lead: SYKE
Partners: ALTERRA, IGN Spain, DGT Portugal
Reviewers: Spain (Uni Malaga & Barcelona), ReSAC Bulgaria
EEA: Christian Ansorge, Ana Sousa
Montly TeleCons with EEA

5. Focus on EEA Land Cover products
First step to support the development of a process with which EEA can provide Corine Land Cover (CLC) and Urban Atlas (UA) datasets in an INSPIRE conformant way
Corine Land Cover
Urban Atlas

6. Project set-up: WPs, tools and processes
WP1 Mapping to INSPIRE
Mapping of attributes from source data to target data structure
WP2 Transformation to GML 3.2.1
Setting up and testing tranformation rules
ETL process
WP3 Validation and testing
Setting up validation tests
Validation of GML to ensure provision of valid GMLs

7. WP 1 Mapping to INSPIRE Goal Templates Evaluation
Mapping of attributes from source data to target data structure
Goal
Human-readable transformation rules
To map from Source data model  Target data model
EXCEL-file
Templates
JRC
ESDIN (used in ELF)
CDDA template
Evaluation
Decision to develop the Matching table template & methodology further to better support
Mapping of attributes at a more detailed level
The communication/documentation between WP1, WP2 and WP3

8. Source Data Model: CLC
Geometry
Code ID

9. Target Data model: Application schema
Project
Vector
Raster
„IR Obligation“
„Voluntary“

10. Official INSPIRE Mapping Tables

11. Download Empty Mapping Table
File as *.xml

12. LCV Mapping Table in Excel: .xml  .xls

13. Complex Data Type Example: Extent
Complex data types
cannot be mapped only by one row

14. Our matching table approach
Based on JRC mapping table and on matching tables of the ESDIN, ELF and CDDA projects
Feature types and data types included and complex data types opened in the same sheet
LandCoverVector
LandCoverNomenclature
gmlBase, Feature and baseType2
Exception: AddressRepresentation
Extra columns for communication purposes
Separate Readme, changeLog and explanatory ”code list” sheets

15. Matching table template CLC: main sheet

16. Simplification made Address
It is mandatory to provide the address of the organisation, which is responsible for the code list (ResponsibleParty>RelatedParty>Contact)
Reference to the INSPIRE Annex I theme: address (ad)
Added as xml snippet to the Matching table

17. Example of values filled in Mapping table
Land Cover Dataset
Including void reason values
INSPIRE Void Reason Values:
Final namespace structure has not been decided upon
inspireId

18. Land Cover Nomenclature
The URI to the code list containing the Land Cover classes has to be provided
Code list for CLC:
Information about the organisation in charge has to be given through the RelatedParty attribute

19. LandCoverObservation
The Land Cover Class Value is provided as a persistent URL
For example for CLC class 112:

20. Example GML for LandCoverUnit
Code ID
Geometry

21. WP 2 Transformation to GML
Setting up and testing tranformation rules
ETL process
WP 2 Transformation to GML
Goal
Machine-readable transformation rules
INSPIRE datasets should be delivered in GML 3.2.1
Transformation tool: HALE or FME?
FME was chosen mainly due to preferences of partners
An Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) process was designed in FME Workbench: UA and CLC
Sample datasets:
CLC polygons from 3 countries (10 per CLC class)
UA data set from Paris

22. Association role ’Member’
LandCoverUnit are member elements inside of the LandCoverDataset
The structure cannot be reproduced in FME
Solution approved by EEA
Slight modification of the LandCoverVector.xsd
The definition of the attribute ’member’ was altered 

23. WP 3 Validation of GMLs Step-wise manner
WP3 Validation and testing
Setting up validation tests
Validation of GML to ensure provision of valid GMLs
Step-wise manner
1. Validation against the Target Schema (LandCoverVector.xsd)
2. GML schematron validation
3. Theme-specific schematron validation
Cooperation with eEnvplus project
Validation methodology (Tracasa, 2014)

24. Conformance tests of the validation
Done
Out of project scope

25. Validation example
Check of the content of the lcv:observationDate element
Wrong: „ T:00:00:00+01:00“
Right: „ T00:00:00+01:00“

26. Encoding of Coordinate System
Three possible ways to encode:
EPSG:3035
urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::3035
Valid in GML 3.2.1
Example: <gml:Surface gml:id="EU " srsName="urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::3035">

27. Issues related to Land Cover Nomenclature
Constraint: The embedded description or the external description shall be provided.
External Description attribute
- The name and the URI to an external document has to be provided
Embedded Description attribute
The classification described by land cover meta language LCML, ISO )
External description
The „external description“ attribute was called „online description“ in previous versions of the TG LC
For each LC class a code, a name, a definition and an RGB value has to be provided
Embedded description
There is not an official schema available
Type not specified (Type:any)
Not possible to validate
Typo - correction needed in TG LC and IR

28. Project deliverables
All three steps (WP1, WP2, WP3) are documented as part of a project report
Matching tables
Matching table template, UA Matching table and CLC Matching table
Separate FME Workbench for CLC and UA
Tutorial video to explain the structure of the FME Workbench
Schematron file used for validation

29. Project recommendations
Repository for
Matching tables
Schematron rules
To fix typos and to discuss and resolve, for example
LC related, for example:
onlineDescription ->externalDescription
issue related to embeddedDescription
Associsation role ’Member’
General, for example:
encoding of voidable attributes of multiplicity 0..1 or 0...*
nilReason
Xsi:nil=’true’
Report problems to the software companies
FME issues
GIS clients should adapt to INSPIRE GML
Share project results

30. Conclusions
The TG LC, the IR, the xml schemas contain typos and inconsistencies
The software tools do not always make your life easier…
However,
Exponential learning curve… gives hope 
Collaborative projects - > success
There is a framework for addressing and resolving issues (MIG, Thematic Cluster platform)