dear all,

i would like to draw your intention to the INSPIRE, an initiative currently
being prepared by the Commission of the European Union to support the
availability of spatial information for the formulation, implementation and
evaluation of Union policies. It intends to set the legal framework for the
gradual creation of a spatial information infrastructure. INSPIRE will
initially focus on environmental policy needs. 

The INSPIRE initiative intends to trigger the creation of a European spatial
information infrastructure that delivers to the users integrated spatial
information services. These services should allow the users to identify and
access spatial or geographical information from a wide range of sources,
from the local level to the global level, in an inter-operable way for a
variety of uses. The target users of INSPIRE include policy-makers, planners
and managers at European, national and local level and the citizens and
their organisations. Possible services are the visualisation of information
layers, overlay of information from different sources, spatial and temporal
analysis, etc.The spatial information infrastructure addresses both
technical and non-technical issues, ranging from technical standards and
protocols, organisational issues, data policy issues including data access
policy and the creation and maintenance of geographical information for a
wide range of themes, starting with the environmental sector.

Further information may be found at
http://egeols222.egeo.sai.jrc.it/inspire/

thom




_______________________________________________
Thomas Pick
Referent f. E-Government Projekte
Niedersächsisches Umweltministerium
Archivstrasse 2,                             D-30169 Hannover
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