The INSPIRE initiative is a set of activities that aim to build a European infrastructure for spatial information in order to ensure access to spatial data for each of the members of the European Union. The data will be used at European level for planning and research connected with environmental policy, agriculture, transport, energy.

Drawing 1The classification of the activities related to the INSPIRE initiative

Poland, as a member of the European Union takes actions related to the implementation of the  INSPIRE initiative objectives. These actions can be divided according to the classification as shown in Drawing 1.

The process of the INSPIRE objectives implementation involves the following actions:

• Creation of laws and executive acts, standards and guidelines, setting up organizations aimed at coordinating tasks for the INSPIRE initiative

• Creation of tools ensuring  preparation of data, metadata  and services, as well as tools for publishing spatial data services

• Creation of the infrastructure  ensuring  functioning of the links in the  infrastructure for spatial information (IIP) network between providers of data and services

• Preparation of data and services 

• IIP monitoring and reporting

The above processes are  carried out at two levels -  European and national. The first includes theactions which Poland is taking to comply with the obligations that arise from being a part of the  infrastructure for spatial information community.  The second level – national, covers all the actions carried out in order to build a national infrastructure of spatial information.

Within the processes related to the legal arrangements, the law in of the infrastructure for spatial information (IIP) in Poland has been agreed that constitutes at the same time  a transposition of the INSPIRE directive. This act regulates actions related to the operations of construction and development of the infrastructure for spatial information in the country. As part of  the INSPIRE directive implementation, the European Commission is adopting executive acts, which are also transferred into the Polish law – the acts concern, among other things, metadata sets and spatial data services, interoperability of the sets and spatial data services.

In order to coordinate actions associated with the construction of the infrastructure for spatial information, both European and national, the Council for the INSPIRE implementation was created. The Council is to ensure information coordination and  exchange as well as reconciliation of a common approach for INSPIRE case in different administration sectors which cooperate in constructing  the infrastructure for spatial information (IIP).

Based on the  IIP act, the Council of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information was set up. This is an advisor body which gives opinion and supervise the construction of IIP as an element of community policy and actions related to construction of the national IIP structure .

Geoportal 2 project is one of the national nodes of the infrastructure for spatial information , which is the realization of the policy of building KIIP supervised by the above-mentioned authority.

Another group of actions involved in the INSPIRE initiative is connected with the implementation of the data specification and spatial data services under current regulations at European level. As regards the INSPIRE services and data, Poland has accepted the specifications developed at the European level for topics covered in the INSPIRE directive annexes.

The ground for legal, organizational and technical aspects of the IIP being already under preparation, the development of the national and European parts of spatial data infrastructure began in Poland.

These tasks were performed within the framework of the Geoportal.gov.pl project, and then continued in Geoportal 2 project.

As part of the design work, strategic documents resulted, describing, among other things, the process of the national data harmonization according to the INSPIRE specifications, instructions for the creation of metadata at national level as well as metadata for the harmonized data sets.

Geoportal 2 project is strongly associated with the INSPIRE initiative. Its effects  also include a tool that supports the creation of the infrastructure for spatial information and data and metadata sets, which constitute the INSPIRE directive implementation – they meet the requirements contained in the regulations of executive acts to this document.

Within the framework of  Geoportal 2 project, national data sets have been processed into the form compatible with the INSPIRE specification for  topics described in the annexes to the IIP act.

• Geographical names,
• Administrative units,
• Adresses,
• The plots of land ,
• Transport networks,
• Hydrography.

For the purposes of transformation  process tools has been developed  for the harmonization of national data sets. They will also be used, at a later stage, to update the harmonized data sets at specified intervals of time.

For harmonized data sets metadata were created using applications prepared in  Geoportal 2 project – editor and validator of metadata. These tools are publicly available on the website www.geoportal.gov.pl

In Geoportal 2 project also services of spatial data were made available in accordance with the INSPIRE standards:

• INSPIRE Discovery - spatial data searching service,
• INSPIRE View – spatial data viewing service,
• INSPIRE Download – spatial data download service.

Every INSPIRE data set is available through the service of searching,  inspection and downloading by means of the dedicated portal – INSPIRE services Broker, built as a part of Geoportal 2 project. The published services can also be   reached in the European services broker – INSPIRE GeoPortal.

Building the infrastructure for spatial information is also associated with the inclusion of as many  organizations which have spatial data as possible. Geoportal 2 project came out with an initiative to provide the necessary mechanisms for organizations which are interested in delivering services for the purposes of the infrastructure for spatial information. Some tools made during the project  have been developed for the needs  of spatial data collection and  spatial data services publication as elements of Local SDI Nodes  (nodes of the infrastructure of spatial information). Also the Central SDI Node has been prepared that will be used to synchronize Local SDI Nodes . The Central Node constitutes the main element  responsible for the flow of data within KIIP. The implementation of this task will allow organizations that are parts of IIP to:

• Organize spatial data sets,
• Provide the same services within national IIP

Building connections between Local SDI Nodes  and the Central SDI Node  will guarantee a cohesive flow of the information in IIP structure.

An important element of connection between Geoportal 2 project and INSPIRE initiative is also IIP monitoring and reporting .

Towards  realization of requirements for reporting of activities related to the construction of the European IIP, tools are prepared  to carry out monitoring, among other things, of availability and performance of published spatial data services, availability of spatial data sets and metadata. The project also  prepares mechanisms of  monitored properties reporting, which (reports and analysis) will be sent to European Commission as documents.

All of the above described actions bring Poland a step closer to the National Infrastructure for Spatial Information development. They are performed in accordance with   INSPIRE initiative standards and implemented first as a part of Geoportal.gov.pl project and then within Geoportal 2 project.

To get more information about INSPIRE initiative please visit http://inspire.ec.europa.eu.