CoastGIS’99: geomatics and coastal environment
GI2000 - Why do we need a European
Geographic Information policy?
Yves Reginster
GERE SA, 35 rue J.F. Kennedy, 7327 Steinsel, Luxembourg - Yves.reginster@gere.lu
Abstract
The paper aims at presenting the role of the European Commission in
the GI market, and to explain why we need a geographic information
policy at European level.
The European Commission has three main roles:
- a stimulation role, through stimulation, research and development
programmes, such as Info2000, 5 th Framework Programme;
- it is a market actor, making use of geographic information to plan
and manage European policies: environment, transport, agriculture,
fisheries, etc.;
- it has a political role, defining rules and regulations. It tries to
organize the market, creating favourable conditions for a sustainable
market growth. The main political initiatives are the Green Paper on
access to public data and GI2000, which proposes to develop the European
Geographic Information Infrastructure (EGII) and to set up a political
leadership with the creation of a High Level Working Party, working with
a strong political mandate from each member State.
GI2000 is needed to support the integration of geographic information
into the information society, making geographic information common
place.
The article presents some examples, illustrating the cost of not having
a European geographic information infrastructure, and presents the
main guidelines to create one.
Introduction
Managing a territory requires an ongoing decision process and monitoring. The information society enables fast evolution, thus increasing
the need for timely and accurate data to be made available, and the need
for methods and technologies to exploit data providing relevant information.
Territorial management involves many fields: agriculture, environment,
transport, fisheries, land use planning, geo-marketing, geology, etc.
The principles of sustainable development, agreed upon at the Rio
de Janeiro and Kyoto meetings, have created an increasing need to
combine data and information from these different disciplines. Most
of this information is related to the Earth.
43
GI2000 - Why do we need a European
Geographic Information policy?
Yves Reginster
GERE SA, 35 rue J.F. Kennedy, 7327 Steinsel, Luxembourg - Yves.reginster@gere.lu
Abstract
The paper aims at presenting the role of the European Commission in
the GI market, and to explain why we need a geographic information
policy at European level.
The European Commission has three main roles:
- a stimulation role, through stimulation, research and development
programmes, such as Info2000, 5 th Framework Programme;
- it is a market actor, making use of geographic information to plan
and manage European policies: environment, transport, agriculture,
fisheries, etc.;
- it has a political role, defining rules and regulations. It tries to
organize the market, creating favourable conditions for a sustainable
market growth. The main political initiatives are the Green Paper on
access to public data and GI2000, which proposes to develop the European
Geographic Information Infrastructure (EGII) and to set up a political
leadership with the creation of a High Level Working Party, working with
a strong political mandate from each member State.
GI2000 is needed to support the integration of geographic information
into the information society, making geographic information common
place.
The article presents some examples, illustrating the cost of not having
a European geographic information infrastructure, and presents the
main guidelines to create one.
Introduction
Managing a territory requires an ongoing decision process and monitoring. The information society enables fast evolution, thus increasing
the need for timely and accurate data to be made available, and the need
for methods and technologies to exploit data providing relevant information.
Territorial management involves many fields: agriculture, environment,
transport, fisheries, land use planning, geo-marketing, geology, etc.
The principles of sustainable development, agreed upon at the Rio
de Janeiro and Kyoto meetings, have created an increasing need to
combine data and information from these different disciplines. Most
of this information is related to the Earth.
43