Open tools and services for INSPIRE related environmental data and metadata: reporting on experiences gained in GS Soil

Abstract

The main issue with environmental geographic data and their associated metadata is that they are often scattered across numerous data providers around the world or just within a country/federation (including the EU), and that there’s a large variability in the used formats and presentation/delivery methods, especially at the web service level. The EU INSPIRE directive aims at standardizing at least the metadata format and its minimum mandatory contents, defining a minimum common degree of information interoperability and interchange in order to maximize the homogeneity and usability of metadata. Within the framework of the GS Soil project, a set of essential Free and Open Source Software tools to be used by participating partners were evaluated and tested, in order to identify and provide a free, standards-compliant set of tools to similar future geospatial environmental projects within the EU.