Abstract
The paper aims to present a concise overview of the current status of the national spatial data infrastructures (SDI) of the European Union (EU) member states combined with specific peculiarities for Bulgaria. Some major challenges within the progress of the EU SDIs establishing, which is regulated by the European Directive INSPIRE (Infrastructure for spatial information in Europe) toward establishment of a SDI for environmental policies and activities, are marked out. Available comparative analyses of the main indicators for metadata, data-sets, and data services provided by EU member states are briefly discussed as a special attention is given to the Bulgarian progress. Recent achievements on accelerating the process of implementing the recommendations of the INSPIRE Directive in Bulgaria are outlined.
Highlights
Spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is an institutional concept aiming to better respond to the needs of society for geo-spatially referenced information in various problem-solving domains
This study aims to provide an overview of the recent achievements of 28 European Union (EU) member states in establishing National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) based on the national progress reports at every three years and yearly indicators’ reports starting from 2010 (Masser and Crompvoets 2015)
The monitoring of the SDI implementation and usage in the EU member states is governed by two sets of rules on a permanent basis according to the INSPIRE Directive
Summary
Spatial data infrastructure (SDI) is an institutional concept aiming to better respond to the needs of society for geo-spatially referenced information in various problem-solving domains. In 2001 (EC 1995), the European Commission (EC) launched the SDI initiative, thereby beginning the development of SDI in Europe It was followed by a proposal for a directive of “Establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in the Community (INSPIRE)”, which was adopted by the EC, the Parliament and the Council and entered into force on 25 April 2007 (EC 2007). The purpose of the INSPIRE is to enable the formulation, implementation, monitoring activities, and evaluation of Community environmental policies at European, national, and local level, and to provide publicly accessible information. Human and financial resources of each member state have proven to be the main factors for the current status of the directive implementation Another major topic of this paper is a proposal for building a general model of an SDI for Bulgaria, considering the major advantages of already established good practices worldwide. General recommendations concerning the improvement of the coordination between all interested parties in the SDI development and usage on national and sub-national levels are proposed in relation with the elaboration of relevant strategy and appropriate action plan
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