Natural Environment  

 

The INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe) project will be up and running within two years. That is the result of the European Parliament's approval, in plenary on 13 February, 2007, of the agreement reached in a conciliation meeting with the Council of Ministers on 21 November 2006.

 

INSPIRE aims to pool and improve the standard of geographical data generated in the member states in order to enhance the planning and implementation of Community policies in areas such as the environment, transport, energy and agriculture.

 

INSPIRE will oblige local authorities to link all spatial data to a shared infrastructure and increase barrier free sharing between public bodies and the public. 

 

INSPIRE will provide a wide range of spatial data, for example geographical grid systems, transport networks, hydrography, protected sites, land cover and land use, geology,  soil, environmental monitoring facilities, production and  industrial facilities, agricultural and aquaculture facilities, natural risk zones, meteorological conditions, bio- geographical regions, habitats and biotopes, species distribution.   

 

The European Parliament-Council compromise reached relates to data protection and intellectual property rights as well as the absence of charges for the services provided. The member states will now be allowed to limit public access to network consultation services on various grounds: a risk to international relations, public security or national defence; confidentiality of commercial information; intellectual property rights; confidentiality of personal data; protection of persons who supplied the information on a voluntary basis; and environmental protection. In order to ensure the financial viability of certain of their services, the public authorities may, under certain conditions, collect charges and authorise the bodies providing the services to issue operating licences or require payment for services provided to other public authorities or Community bodies. Charges may not be levied on data provided under Community environmental legislation, however.