Towards a European Shared Environmental Information System in Support of Sustainable Policies

1. Towards a European Shared Environmental Information System in Support of Sustainable Policies Presented by: Meropi Paneli ECOINFORMATICS- 2006 European Commission Directorate-General Environment Research, Science and Innovation Unit Rue de la Loi, 200 1049 Brussels BELGIUM Meropi.Paneli@cec.eu.int

2. Policies SupportTo Develop….To Implement … To Monitor .. • Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development , WSSD Johannesburg 2002 • The Treaty on European Union • The EU Sustainable Development Strategy • The EU 6th Environmental Action Programme • Four Priorities • 1. Climate Change • 2. Nature and Biodiversity • 3. Environment and Health • 4. Natural resources and waste • Seven Thematic Strategies • 1. Clean Air For Europe (CAFE) • 2. Soil protection • 3. Sustainable use of pesticides • 4. Marine environment • 5. Waste prevention and recycling • 6. Sustainable use of natural resources • 7. Urban environment • Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters European Commission – DG Environment 2

3. Information About …. ? European Commission – DG Environment 3

4. Measuring Progress…Sustainable Development Indicators EU level long-term SD indicators to monitorour economic development while protecting the environment and meeting our social goals • Economic development • Poverty and social exclusion • Ageing society • Public Health • Climate change and energy • Production and consumption patterns • Management of natural resources • Transport • Good governance • Global partnership - Eurostat - European Commission – DG Environment 4

5. EU has islands of data of different standards and quality... But…..but…..the problems with Env Dta Infra • data is : • notsufficiently available, accessible, inter-operable and shared across juridical and administrative boundaries. • not of sufficient or consistent quality, nor sufficiently up-to-date. • sometimes redundant or outdated because the nature of problems have changed since the legislation was adopted. • Alongside the data itself, there are often considerable delays or redundancy in reporting and assessment. European Commission – DG Environment 5

6. Resulting in….. • difficulties with: • compliance assessment • assessment of the state of the environment • analysis of cause-effect relationships design successful and cost-effective policy remedy measures. • assessment of the environmental impact of other sector policies (transport, agriculture, cohesion, research etc.)  the cost-efficient integration of environmental concerns into those policies. • unnecessary administrative burden on Member States and Commission Services for data management and assessment, reporting and monitoring. European Commission – DG Environment 6

7. The SEIS is to supportpolicy development, implementation and monitoring at local, regional to global levels The Challenge • Improve availability and quality of information needed to develop and implement Community environment policy • Reduce administrative burden on Member States European Commission – DG Environment 7

8. What is the SEIS? • Infrastructure and rules to facilitate use of data by wide range of users • Cost-efficient monitoring to support reporting on indicators, risk and monitoring • Underpinned by legal requirements (well implemented) European Commission – DG Environment 8

9. Achieving the Vision • Actions to establish infrastructures and rules • Actions to streamline monitoring • Actions to make legal requirements coherent European Commission – DG Environment 9

10. Infrastructure and rules • Adoption of INSPIRE: commitment to sharing as a foundation for further streamlining • Common architecture and tools for reporting: coherence between different reporting sytems, better exploiting technology and economies of scale European Commission – DG Environment 10

11. INSPIRE will deliver … 2006-2013 • A data policy framework and a range of sharing agreements between public bodies ensuring that information is exchanged without barriers. . • Structures at EU and Member State level to coordinate the practical implementation of the Infrastructure for Geo-Spatial Information in Europe. • Metadata concerning spatial data sets held by public authorities, for use in searching for and identifying available spatial data sets and the corresponding services. • A data Clearing House and electronic network, connecting distributed databases equipped with services, that allows anybody to query, view, access and use geo-spatial data sets held by public bodies and made available on a voluntary basis by third parties • A range of specifications for geo-spatial data sets and services helping spatial data sets to be used in a wider context • A framework for monitoring the implementation of the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe European Commission – DG Environment 11

12. INSPIRE will not … • Impose the collection of spatial data • Deliver integrated information services for particular applications such as environmental reporting, risk management, environmental impact assessments, indicator development land-use planning etc. Example: INSPIRE Institutional framework Technical standards Fundamental data sets Data Services European Commission – DG Environment EEA Reportnet components 12

13. Actions to streamline monitoring • Key role of Thematic strategies and cross-cutting policies, e.g. • Biodiversity: Streamlining European 2010 Biodiversity Indicators • Water Information System for Europe (WISE): to cover all water related information • Soil: framework for sharing and exchange of information • Marine: improved knowledge based upon effective monitoring and assessment • Environment-Healthinformation system • Streamlining of indicators to make downstream monitoring more efficient • Support of 7th Framework Programme including Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) European Commission – DG Environment 13

14. Actions to make legal requirements coherent • EEA monitoring review • Review of reporting requirements at international and community level To result in: • streamlining of monitoring/reporting in upcoming policy proposals • possible proposal(s) to repeal/streamline reporting • make existing policies “SEIS-compliant” (e.g. WISE, CAFE) European Commission – DG Environment 14

15. Conclusions • The EU is committed to the development of a Shared Environmental Information System serving local to global needs Some Major Challenges remain … • Major regional and global initiatives face the difficult challenge of co-ordination and coherent development • Sustained funding of operational data collection, RTD and usage capacities • More than technical issues …. Data policies and usage conditions risk to be major obstacles European Commission – DG Environment 15