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1 05/0097 A-- «NATURE-GIS GÜÍDELINES 55'-v '-'V >'/-- i EuropeanThei' : : " for Protected Areas, Nature Preservation =""!.". Geographical In!: *j.-- 1ST projea <5DATA ' < ^INFRASTRUCTURES m FOR : PROTECTED AREAS

2 Nature-GIS Guidelines Technical Guidelines for Spatial Data Infrastructures for Protected Areas edited by Ioannis Kanellopoulos European Commission, Joint Research Centre with the contribution of Emanuele Roccatagliata and Giorgio Saio G IS IG and Niko Vanraes Ionic Software S.A. EUROPEAN COMMISSION mcnun<z«ui Joint Research Centre KWIIC 2005 EUR EN

3 138 The Nature-GIS thematic portal Trans-National Use Case: "Winter Olympic Games Torino 2006" Rationale The node is related to the 2006 Torino Olympic Winter Games organisation. The games will be held in the Sestriere area, in the Alps Mountain, close to the French border. Many new winter sport installations (race tracks, sport complexes) and other infrastructures (highways, buildings) are under construction. On the other hand, as in many other mountainous zones, many protected areas are located in the Sestriere region (Natura 2000, National Parks, etc.) both in Italy and in France. The environmental impact of the Torino/Sestriere Olympic games will reach beyond the border and a global environmental impact assessment is required as well as a transparent information to the citizen to be sure the project will be well accepted. Aims to make a cross-border GIS located in two different E U countries (Italy and France) interoperable so that a global view of protected areas and environmental stakes of this trans-national area is possible, together with new installations and infrastructures to be built and other reference geographic information. to allow a better global and qualitative assessment of the environmental impact of the Olympic games organisation, including the possible environmental impact in the French natural area; to inform the public of this possible impact and to provide objective elements so that citizens will be able to make their own idea about the environmental impact. Addressed users the direct actors of the project (decision makers, technical organisers, etc.): mainly high level officers or decision makers w h o require a global (transnational) view of the project and of the environmental stakes. Possibly used by operational technical staff for trans-national geo-data exchanges. environmental local actors (park officers, Natura 2000 local operators, etc.) and local decision makers: to favour negotiation on good basis with the direct actors of the project, and to improve management decisions to face the possible environmental impact of the project. Also to better coordinate these decisions between the different protected areas, including between trans-national protected areas. the local citizen and the others citizen w h o will benefit by the project: to get information about the possible global environmental impact of the project and about the measures the project actors have taken to minimise this impact. The aim is to make the project well accepted.

4 13.7 Applications use cases 139 Geographic Area The Sestriere area, in the Alps mountains, from Torino city (East) up to the Briancgn city (West), in France (with the same extend from North to South). It corresponds to a "sub-regional'" scale. Three main regional data producers are concerned: Regione Piemonte (east part of the zone), C R J G E Paca (southeast), Rhône-Alpes Region and UJF (north-east). Coordinates (maximum extend, WGS84): minlon = E 05 37\ minlat = N 44 12' and, maxlon = E 09 25', maxlat = N 46 30' Projection systems: U T M 3 2 (Italy) and Lambert III (south-west), Lambert II (north-west) or Lambert 93 (France) Data, feature types and web services GI layers are grouped into 6 thematic chapters: Protected areas : eighteen different kinds of French and/or Italian protected areas; Main new installations (race tracks and other sport installations, etc.) or infrastructures to be built for the Olympic games; Natural land cover (vegetation, hydrography, geology (elements), etc.); Man-made land cover (towns, roads and highways, etc.); Reference vector layers (notably administrative entities). Users have possibility to zoom on one of the three main area of interest, i.e. Sestriere area (East), Brianoon area (West) or Maurienne area (North). Some specific data, protected with special copyright, are not displayable at large scale. Architecture The architecture of the use case is illustrated in figure Screen shots Example screen shots are shown infigures 13.13, 13.14, Functions Currently the functionality includes mainly viewing facilities, i.e. layer displaying and zonal zooming. Data interrogating will be developed, as well as download functionalities (in relation with right access management). Spatial analysis to describe spatial relationship between Olympic Games installations and protected areas (proximity calculation, overlaps, etc.) should also be developed. URLs Web applications

5 140 The Nature-GIS thematic portal EU Level EU data-bases National Level National geo-data Producers (National Geographical Institute, Environment Ministry etc.) Regional Level Local Level Q Q Local geo-data sources (parks, natura2000 local operator, etc.) Local geo-data sources (parks, naturamoo local operator, etc.) Figure 13.12: Architecture of the Olympic winter games use case. Problems Two levels of problems were encountered: thefirst one is the organisational level and concerns specifically data availability, the second is the technical level and concerns notably the choice between a centralised and a distributed architecture at the node level. Data availability policies seem to considerably vary between the different E U countries. In some of them (Italy for example), it seems there is a quite open situation while in some others, agreements with data producers are always necessary to collect geographic data. Public data is not always free of charge, and even when it is free, agreements are often necessary to fix responsibilities issues. The situation is easier when the node responsible or one of the node partner is also a major data producer. For the use case, the problem was partly solved by involving an existing SDI, or more precisely an existing organisation in charge of a regional SDI (Crige PACA notably); the node partner Regione Piemonte is also a data producer with close relationship to other data producers. At a technical level, the present choice was to make one unique geo-database centralised on the node server, by exchanging data. This choice is certainly not the better one as the initial geo-database administrator should also be the person able to maintain and update the node geo-database: a distributed architecture, would be certainly more efficient.

6 13.7 Applications use cases 141 Netwi*! Parti» (F)»! Partu (F) O P Natural Parfci (K) 0 P Malura 2k «raet (F) O P (panai Pretet&on Zsnaf UM - F) O r7 teatral Protecton 2onef («*. - h) Q I Natoal atra f~ e>er«af (F] F CleirrHed l~ ClanAad arvar (F) P P ICC aletop arra r? Raalanal pwtoe F Imitl fc»legmal Intarert (Znraff P Zanat of Omjtotoaiul Interait (ztes hirda Figure 13.13: A few different kinds of protected areas in the Sestriere area (the red line is the Italian-French border). The data model translation from a specific data model of a given distributed geo-database to the standard languages like in WFS is a task for the node administrator: this is a huge and costly work which should be half-automated, so that an update made in the distributed geo-database could be taken into account automatically in the node. This architecture will be one of the next steps of the node construction. Recommendations The key aspect of interoperable web services is data availability and it seems important to consider the limiting factors that may come from organisational aspects and not from technical aspects. Tools now available on the market are able to solve most of the technical problems, even if their spatial analysis capabilities are still quite limited when compared to standard GIS software. To make data available and easy to exchange, it is necessary to respect the data producer policies and not to try to change it. Technical tools exist to allow the producer to apply their data policy, by introducing right access management functionalities (user list, password, etc.), maximum display scale for specific data, etc. Data producers should find an interest in publishing their data. It isfinallynecessary to preview means to maintain the node for the longterm. One possibility to limit the cost is to leave the geo-database maintenance on the provider server. However, model translation to standard wio still have to be done by the node administrator. This task should be (half)-automated.

7 142 The Nature-GIS thematic portal.o.a ai a- a s a a W M - m a «a a H "»""-««-»«-ia Figure 13.14: New installations (Blue-race tracks. Red-new roads) and their spatial relationship with surrounding protected areas (Natura 2000-green.) Handle complaints on protected areas Rationale The Directorate General for Environment (DG ENV) of the European Commission receives formal complaints related to any part of the EU territory (about 800 complaints were handled in 1999). These requests may come from citizens (as complains or petitions), or from questions raised in the European Parliament. Once and incoming request is registered it is a statutory requirement to process it: the request is allocated to an appropriate DG ENV desk officer who determines the geographic location to which the complaint refers, and will cross-reference in order to identify whether any Natura 2000 sites and/or LIFE projects correspond to the same location. An element of major importance for handling a complaint is the presence or absence of a Natura 2000 site and/or a LIFE project in the area [35]. In affirmative case, the desk officer needs to retrieve all available information about them, to evaluate the relevance of the complaint. Furthermore, the availability of information about sites and projects that are operational in the surrounding area may be of key importance to correctly handle the complaint in question (see figure 13.16) for an illustration. The ability to display this information, together with the visualisation of nearby locations for which a (similar) complaint has beenfiled,will contribute to a better understanding of the overall situation in the area in question. Often, it is not enough to only know the location. Additional background information

8 13.7 Applications use cases 143 ^i O r PmlnoaJ kbundarkat (1) r O P M*<o dtmt TOOOaMJW ((unis* 1«M FrMta) 9 In Currant lui 1 a» a.a u Figure 13.15: Zoom-in showing the proximity of the new race tracks and the Natura 2000 areas. sometimes is essential to formulate a correct and just answer to the complaint. The following is what a desk officer might need to look up: 1. in which administrative region is the location of interest situated? 2. which (major) roads run through the area of interest? 3. how does the altitude and the slope vary? 4. where are cities or villages located and what is their population? 5. how is the land cover or the land use distribution in the area? 6. where are polluting industrial nucleus' situated? 7. does the location of interest lie in an area eligible for community funding? Aims localise new or existing complaints related to protected areas; check if a new complaint relates already to an existing complaint; check for nearby Natura 2000 areas; assemble report (map, list of related complaints, information on the complaint, list of involved protected areas) as input for the decision makers.