The GeoConnectGR project led by the Greater Region highlights the need to strengthen co-operation to enable continuous mapping throughout the EU. GeoConnectGR has enabled the production of a large-scale vector database of hydrography in the Greater Region. Border connectivity has been provided manually and semi-automatically or even automatically in some cases. The data has been transformed and harmonised to meet the requirements of the European INSPIRE Directive. To this end, the Core Reference Data technique has been deployed for the first time in an operational way. A convention allowing a wide non-commercial use of this data, with reference to their origin, could also be concluded within the framework of the project. The data can be downloaded and viewed via the Greater Region Geoportal.
The results of the project were presented at the Ministry of Spatial Planning of Luxembourg on 8 November 2019, during the “Inspire, from theory to practice” seminar. Supported by the European Commission as part of the b-solutions call for projects, the project provided interesting insights into the problem of connectivity of geographical and cartographic data at borders. It is led by the EGTC Summit Secretariat of the Greater Region in close collaboration with the Land Registry and Mapping Working Group of the Summit of the Greater Region and the Greater Region’s Geographical Information System.
The experts put into perspective the current state of the transposition of the INSPIRE Directive, which entered into force on 15 May 2007, and which sets the European framework for the exchange of existing geographical data. While GeoConnectGR has certainly offered an innovative solution that could be replicated in other co-operation areas in Europe, the exchanges have nevertheless highlighted the long way to go to meet the end users’ needs. The results have indeed highlighted that obtaining a continuous cartography across the territory of Europe will require a much higher level of co-ordination and integration than in this pilot project. The project partners called for the creation of a European geoinformation agency and expressed their support for the establishment of new cross-border co-operation instruments such as the ECBM (European Cross-border Mechanism) currently under discussion between the Member States of the European Union.
On the same day, the priorities of the current Saarland Presidency of the Summit of the Greater Region were presented, as well as the work of the Land Registry and Mapping Working Group and the 2020 edition of the Greater Region Calendar: “Architecture and remarkable buildings”.
For more information:
Summit Secretariat of the Greater Region
Phone: +352 247 80 159
secretariat.sommet@granderegion.net
Thierry Hengen
Ministry of Energy and Spatial Planning
Department of Spatial Planning
Phone: +352 247 86945
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Commentaires
It is great to see the production of data lookinga at the territory from the angle of the of the cross-border region and not limited by national boundaries.
This will certainly become a quite powerful tool contributing for planning with a clear cross-border perspective.
Congratulations on the results.
Agnes,
Very impressed by what you achieved with the limited resources provided by this pilot.
Are we to understand that there is no satisfactory geoinformation system at european level at all ? If not, would existing institutions not be able to take this on (with adequate rresources of course) ? European Environmental Agency for instance ?
Interested to hear your views on this.
Nathalie
En réponse à Agnes, par Nathalie VERSCHELDE
Nathalie,
Thank you for your comment! Here is the answer from Jean-Yves Pirlot, Chair of the Registry and Mapping Working Group of the Summit of the Greater Region, Director General of CLGE (www.clge.eu) and President AM/FM-GIS Belux, board member of EUROGI (www.eurogi.org).
Indeed, GeoconnectGR has led to the conclusion that the EU geoinformation infrastructure clearly lacks the required level of coordination of all relevant initiatives in the field of geoinformation. A large amount at interesting EU member states’ geographical information cannot be used by the EU. This happens not only because of the pricing and licencing issues, but also due to the lack of coordination of the data, making them less usable than commercial and so-called “free” of “voluntary”counterparts. As legal, organisational and technical principles still vary between national mapping agencies and result in discontinuity of the data, in lack of interoperability and in limited availability under open licence implying costly acquisition operations, essential efforts should be made to improve the homogeneity of the national source data and their coordination. This implies the adoption of necessary agreements on the international boundaries and connecting features and the definition of selection criteria and the inclusion of a minimum of commonly accepted attributes under the supervision of a EU authority.
Many existing institutions are involved, including the European Environmental Agency, but all efforts clearly didn’t lead to effective solutions. The INSPIRE directive was one step in the good direction. It is primarily aimed at establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in Europe to support Community environmental policies, and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment. INSPIRE entered into force in May 2007 and with our project, 13 years later, it clearly shows its limitations. We are still far from an operational authoritative geoinformation management at the European level.
The lack of coordination and effectiveness is very strange when compared to other worldwide players, only to mention the USA, Russia and China. It wouldn’t surprise us that they have more integrated geographic datasets about Europe than we do.
Other European organisations could champion or have tried to champion this critical matter such as Eurostat or JRC. They have the advantage of being less oriented towards one specific speciality within the realm of many other specialities. However, even if competition can sometimes be healthy, the diverse initiatives never created the conditions for the emergence of a clear and unique GI-Data policy.
Often it was said that mapping and GI was a member states matter but with the emergence of security and defence issues at the EU level, next to all other topics, it should be clear by now, that a coordinated GI approach for the EU is vital.
This directly leads to the realisation of the absolute need for an existing or new dedicated horizontal agency which handles the matter for all EU institutions, in coordination with the Member States Agencies, based on their in situ authoritative date, in the same way as the GSA (future EUSPA – European Space Programme Agency) is in charge of Galileo, EGNOS and Copernicus.
Although the non for profit association Eurogeographics did a good and courageous job, counting on the goodwill coordination between the different National Mapping Agencies has proven to be illusory. The only model that works in a multinational effort is a model based on binding legislation coordinated by an ad hoc agency. A good example of success is given in Switzerland where the Cantons are competent for their GI-management but they have to provide minimal data to the Federal Agency swisstopo. When 23 Cantons can be managed like this, 27 or 28 Member States could be as well. For your convenience, we add the Swiss Federal Act on GI.
When asked, many officials from the mentioned EU and national agencies, as well as from the commission agree on this absolute need. Unfortunately, somehow the topic is never seriously addressed.
May the humble GeoConnectGR-project be an eye opener or do we need another a high magnitude crises or large scale conflict to realize the weakness of our current system.