INSPIRE / Spatial Data Infrastructure Conference held in Rotterdam, 15-19 June 2009

Date: 1/7/2009

Source: www.gsdi.org/, inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/

The “Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) Convergence: Building SDI Bridges to Address Global Challenges” Conference took place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 15-19 June 2009.

The conference consisted of:

• the Third INSPIRE Conference
• the Eleventh International Conference of the Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI) Association
• the National Conference on Dutch Spatial Data Infrastructure: Results and Challenges.

According to the INSPIRE Conference website, inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/:

“The INSPIRE Conference provides a forum for stakeholders from government, academia and industry to hear about and discuss the latest developments of the INSPIRE Directive. This year, by teaming with the GSDI and Dutch National conferences, the INSPIRE conference encompasses a conference programme, technical tutorials and workshops, a programme of demonstrations and an exhibition to provide an ideal opportunity to learn and network with like-minded colleagues from around the world.”

The INSPIRE sessions aimed to give an accurate and up-to-date picture of the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive. The presentations and recordings from the plenary sessions of the INSPIRE conference are available for download from the INSPIRE Conference website (above). The overview of progress in transport networks was on Thursday 18 June.

INSPIRE, which stands for INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in the European community, is an EC Directive concerning the sharing and harmonisation of spatial datasets across Europe. The INSPIRE Directive has considerable implications for the Highways Agency and other UK road administrations, because such organisations will be required to create standardised metadata (descriptions of the spatial data), as well as having to provide access to data that has been collected or created in standard form.

The Directive covers many types of spatial data; of particular relevance to the Highways Agency, spatial data relating to transport networks is covered in Annex I of the Directive. The Directive came into force on 15 May 2007, and will be transposed into UK legislation later in 2009. Once transposed, public sector agencies will have to implement the Directive in various stages between 2009 and 2019. Further information on INSPIRE can be found in the ITS Radar International INSPIRE Factsheet (April 2009) and the March 2009 Newsletter.

HA recommended to view conference proceedings for further information

Keywords: European Commission, Geographic Information, Policy, Standard