Cooperation between Finnish regional councils to meet the obligations of INSPIRE: project

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1 Cooperation between Finnish regional councils to meet the obligations of INSPIRE: project Faris Alsuhail Project planner Lounaispaikka / Regional Council of Southwest Finland EUROGI Imagine conference 7 & 8 March 2013

2 What is Lounaispaikka? Co-operation network between users of GIS in Southwest Finland Found in 2002 Developing regional spatial data infrastructure in SW Finland Stakeholders include public sector organisations and researchers Stable funding from 2012 onwards Funded by University of Turku Regional Council of Southwest Finland Regional Council of Satakunta Åbo Akademi University Novia University of Applied Sciences City of Turku Operate within the Regional Council of Southwest Finland

3 Louspire how it was born Various organisations possess and manage spatial data INSPIRE tells the organisations to Use spatial data more efficiently Increase cooperation Create new services for the public Among these organisations are also all the regional councils A key role in promoting the region s interests Main functions laid down by law are 1) regional development and 2) regional land use planning

4 Background maps National Land Survey of Finland 2012 Lounaispaikka is here!

5 Louspire how it was born Regional land use plan data sets are listed in the spatial data themes of INSPIRE, meaning The metadata of regional land use plans need to be provided View services for the plan data sets need to be created The data sets need to be made downloadable By May 15th 2013! This constitutes the structure of the Louspire project Note: only applies to land use plans that have entered into force! Lounaispaikka took action a year ago and proposed a joint project to take care of these obligations Ultimately, 17 out of 19 regional councils agreed to the project that started last summer Geographically, this covers a large proportion of Finland!

6 Background maps National Land Survey of Finland 2012

7 Louspire - goals Metadata for regional land use plans is provided Regional land use plans can be viewed online and on desktop GIS software Regional land use plan data sets can be downloaded and used with desktop GIS software

8 Louspire in practise Metadata A simplified metadata form is sent out to each of the councils Includes information on the data producer, contact information, download service URL, etc. The councils fill in the form and send it back The provided metadata is then fed into a web portal called Paikkatietohakemisto (Spatial data index) A place where you can search for spatial data sets and their descriptions Maintained by the National Land Survey of Finland With the same effort, the metadata can be accessed also through the INSPIRE geoportal So far, metadata has been received from 15 regions

9 Background maps National Land Survey of Finland 2012

10 Louspire in practise Land use plan view services Based on a Web Map Service (WMS) solution, Mapserver functions as a publishing platform The most burdensome work phase Land use plan data sets are collected from each of the regional councils participating ESRI shapefile was chosen to be the data set format,.lyr files are also provided if possible to help with symbols Data set delivery is really simple: log on to a special website hosted by Lounaispaikka, upload data, and that s it! After this, the WMS can be created for each of the land use plans in short: it s like visualising spatial data on any GIS software, only it s done by using notepad

11 Louspire in practise Land use plan view services Once a plan has been processed, the URL for the WMS is sent to the National Land Survey of Finland, who in turn will make sure that the plan appears on a site called Paikkatietoikkuna The plans will eventually be published in Lounaispaikka s web portal as well And, of course, WMS can be opened with several desktop GIS software! So far, land use plan data sets from 13 regions have been acquired 10 regions have their WMS ready (not all of them have been published in Paikkatietoikkuna yet)

12 Background maps National Land Survey of Finland 2012

13 Louspire in practise Download services for land use plan data sets The acquired data sets are made downloadable to the public ATOM feed is a simple solution and it is accepted by INSPIRE Similar to an RSS feed Can be viewed in web browsers (though experiences may vary, depending on the browser) or in other software designed for reading feeds The download service feed can be accessed from the land use plan data set metadata The feed includes a download link to the land use plan data sets The download services have been completed for 10 regions

14 Background maps National Land Survey of Finland 2012

15 Louspire confronted issues Metadata GIS terminology How much information is enough? How accurate descriptions are needed? View services (WMS) 17 regional councils = 17 different ways to produce GI data Autocad people vs. GIS people? Sometimes complex symbols difficult to produce Data sets may need some tweaking in order to be processed Lots of manual work Notepad++ is the main software used: the work is VERY text-based Though the same themes appear in all land use plans, they may use slightly different symbols

16 Louspire confronted issues ATOM feeds How to use more efficiently? Not really browser-friendly as such

17 Louspire what have we learned so far? A common language ( GIS language ) makes it easier to plan and work in a cooperative GIS project Even a basic understanding of terminology helps a lot in e.g. writing metadata descriptions! More unified procedures in regional land use plan data set production would promote the joint use of spatial data Would make the WMS work A LOT easier, both construction- and management-wise! (unified symbols as well) It s pretty safe to say that no one in Finland has gone through this amount of regional land use plan data > valuable information for the future!

18 Louspire what to do with the things we learned? Language classes! That is, GIS training for users, because the following aspects of GIS are already generally in order: Hardware (e.g. computers, can be found anywhere) Software (Free alternatives have emerged) Data (e.g. National Land Survey of Finland opened their data sets in 2012) Use the observations made during the WMS work: some of the regional councils have already asked for advice regarding their future data set production! Communicate this to other parties of interest as well! INSPIRE data specification work! The above constitute even more grounds for cooperation!

19 Louspire the future Project deadline: May 15 th 2013 After that, we will continue to maintain the regional land use plan WMS The working methods used and the experience gained through Louspire can be transferred to another important INSPIRE target group: municipalities Potential challenges include: GIS language (once again) Data set availability, format Lack of interest (other matters may be deemed more important) Lack of resources: time & money We are currently planning to initiate a similar project for municipalities inside the operating area of Lounaispaikka

20 Links & contact information Lounaispaikka Paikkatietohakemisto Paikkatietoikkuna Faris Alsuhail