Development and Implementation of an INSPIRE based SDI Case study: The European Academy of Bozen – Bolzano

Abstract

Currently, the need of having spatial data in a rapid and efficient manner is becoming more important. This can be achieved by implementing standardized spatial data infrastructures (SDI). By having standardized SDIs data exchange between stakeholders will become uniform and simpler. The European Union (EU) has developed a spatial data exchange standard named INSPIRE (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community) where all public administration offices of the EU members must implement. Since 2010 the European Academy of Bozen – Bolzano (EURAC) has been developing and implementing an INSPIRE compliant SDI using open source software. The reason behind this is to be interoperable and ensure rapid spatial data exchange with the local public administration authorities also other European public organizations. Another reason is to standardize and improve the current infrastructure according to INSPIRE and international standards. EURAC's Institute for Applied Remote Sensing holds a satellite receiving station and already manages and stores different kind of satellite data. The analysis of the current situation with its limitations, advantages and improvements obtainable with the implementation of the proposed INSPIRE compliant SDI architecture are explained here. The paper also describes issues encountered in the development of its SDI until now and the solutions applied to remove these problems. Regarding these aspects a particular emphasis is on how EURAC standardizes the metadata of the various types of spatial data it owns according INPSIRE directives.