INSPIRE Thematic cluster on SU, PD, HH / Final report (phase 1 &2) / p. 1 of 11
Common template for Thematic cluster reports / 2016-01-15
/ EUROPEAN COMMISSION
JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE
Institute for Environment and Sustainability
Digital Earth and Reference Data Unit

INSPIRE Thematic cluster on Statistical Units, Population Distribution (Demography), Human Health and Safety (Statistical Cluster)

Phase 1 & 2 - Final report

Author(s) / MirosławMigacz
Reviewed by
Approved by / Robert Tomas
Date of Approval / 27.1.2016
Title / INSPIRE Thematic cluster on Statistical Units, Population Distribution (Demography), Human Health and Safety (Statistical Cluster) Phase 1 &2 – Final report
Creator / Mirosław Migacz
Date of last revision / 15.01.2016
Subject
Type of Deliverable / Report
Status / Draft
Publisher / European Commission JRC
Description / Summary of discussions, activities, best practices on the INSPIRE Thematic Clusters collaboration platform in the Statistical Cluster.
Contributor / Mirosław Migacz
Rights / Public
Language / EN
Distribution List / JRC , ENV, ..
Identifier / INSPIRE Thematic clusters – final report
INSPIRE Thematic cluster on SU, PD, HH / Final report (phase 1 &2) / p. 1 of 11
Common template for Thematic cluster reports / 2016-01-15

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1. Purpose and Scope

1.2. Structure of the report

2. The use of the INSPIRE Thematic Cluster on Statistical Units, Population Distribution (Demography), Human Health and Safety (Statistical Cluster)

2.1. Members

2.2. Overview

2.3. Cluster and sub-group pages

2.4. Cluster and sub-group discussions

2.5. Uploaded files

2.6. Discussion statistics

2.7. Promotion and facilitation of the platform

2.7.1. Promotion

2.7.2. Facilitation

3. INSPIRE thematic clusters – SW environment

4. Current and planned support and pilot activities

5. Recommendations and conclusions

1.Introduction

1.1.Purpose and Scope

This report is deliverable D2.0 “ Report on the use of the on-line platform” as defined (Annex 2: Chapter 7) in the Expert contract number: C392072. The report describes users activities that have taken place in the INSPIRE thematic cluster on Statistical Units, Population Distribution (Demography), Human Health and Safety (Statistical Cluster), facilitator’s recommendations on improvements on the used SW environment as well as the general recommendations on INSPIRE implementation in the community addressed by the cluster.

1.2.Structure of the report

Section 2describes statistically the activity taken place in the thematic cluster platform (e.g. number of members, discussion topics, responses, uploaded good practices etc...). The chapter also describes a method used by the facilitator to promote and facilitate the platform. Section 3presents facilitator’s view and improvement recommendations (if relevant) on the structure as well as functionality of the SW collaboration tool. Section 4 summarises facilitator’s experience with supporting the community in implementing INSPIRE, it highlights interesting discussion topics and / or agreed additions / changes to the INSPIRE technical guidelines. Section 5 presents facilitator’s recommendations and conclusions, if relevant, for improvements related to the follow up activities.

2.The use of the INSPIRE Thematic Cluster on Statistical Units, Population Distribution (Demography), Human Health and Safety (Statistical Cluster)

2.1.Members

Thematic Cluster #9 (Statistical Cluster) comprises 57 members as of January 15th2016. Thestrongest user group are members of National Statistical Institutes (NSIs) – producers ofdata related to themes: Statistical Units, Population Distribution (Demography) and in some cases Human Health and Safety. Aside from NSIs, people from European Commission agencies and related organizations and communities are present as well as independent public sector experts involved in development of the European SDI in the field of statistics.

Sub-group membership count is as follows: Statistical Units group comprises 17 members, Population Distribution (Demography) group comprises 13 members and the Human Health andSafety group comprises 19 members.

The figure below presents the current membership count in the cluster and its subgroups compared to the end of phase 1 of the activity.

2.2.Overview

The content of the cluster and each sub-group is organized in two categories: pages anddiscussions.

Pages are used to describe identified best practices and mature INSPIRE related activities. They have also been used to summarize the proposals for changes in the Technical Guidelines.

Discussions are used for questions, troubleshooting and INSPIRE activities ofalesser scope than those qualified to be posted as a page.

2.3.Cluster and sub-group pages

For the cluster and its sub-groups standout activities and best practices have been identified and posted as pages. Those include:

  • European Forum for Geography and Statistics (EFGS) – an organization comprising experts from National Statistical Institutes who work in the field of geostatistics. EFGS bonds European efforts in presenting spatially referenced statistics and organizes projects for development of harmonized pan-European datasets as well as guidelines for creation and publishing georeferenced statistical data,
  • European statistical 1x1 km grid (ETRS89-LAEA) – defined by INSPIRE and appointed byEFGS as a guideline for publishing pan-European grid statistics,
  • European population grid from the GEOSTAT project – initiated by the EFGS, theGEOSTAT project is a standout example of pan-European cooperation for purposes of creating georeferenced statistics. Various stages of the project produced datasets with population distribution data in a 1km2 grid for a huge part of Europe’s territory – data that is harmonized and uses the above mentioned ETRS89-LAEA grid. The second and final version of the dataset published in 2015 contains the harmonized population grid for 31 countries: 29 EU/EFTA countries plus Kosovo and Albania,
  • DISASTER programme – being in the scope of the Human Health and Safety theme, thepurpose of the DISASTER programme is to enable addressing emergency situations when there is more than one region involved by facilitating information sharing between different regions, countries or services.

Pages and sub-pages have also been used to:

  • gather and summarize proposals for changes in the INSPIRE Technical Guidelines that derived from discussions within the clusters. The change proposals are described in detail in section 4 of this report,
  • gather cluster related presentations from the INSPIRE Conference 2015.

The most popular pages (500+ views) are those related to the statistical grid system and population grid datasets.

2.4.Cluster and sub-group discussions

There are currently21 discussion topics in the cluster.6 at the main group cluster level, 15atthe sub-group level, theme-specific. The latter include: 4 topics for the Statistical Units theme, 5 topics for the Population Distribution (Demography) theme and 6 topics fortheHuman Health and Safety theme.

The discussions are mainly focus on implementation attempts and activities that are inthespirit ofINSPIRE (projects, conference presentations etc.). Examples:

  • An overview of European and global activities related to integration of statistics with geospatial information,
  • An attempt of harmonizing population grids into the Population Distribution data model,
  • Activities related to automation of INSPIRE reporting based on existing datasets using OGC Table Joining Services,
  • Country level datasets, e.g. population classifications in grids for the territory ofSlovakia,
  • An in-depth explanation of the generic Population Distribution data model,
  • Publishing machine readable statistical data as linked open data (with georeference),
  • Meeting INSPIRE requirements for Population Distribution and Human Health andSafety using OGC Table Joining Services,
  • An overview of the INSPIRE framework in the field of Human Health and Safety,
  • Case studies on compliance of existing Human health data with INSPIRE guidelines,
  • Discussions on whether national or European datasets are within the scope of the Human Health and Safety theme,
  • Examples of Human Health and Safety theme related activities in the EU.

2.5.Uploaded files

Most downloadable resources that fall in the scope of the Statistical Cluster have been referred to by direct links (to avoid redundancy). However, since the Cluster is supposed to gather easily accessible resources that can be helpful in the implementation process, some resources have been uploaded to the platform. Those include GML files compliant with INSPIRE Technical Guidelines with detailed descriptions.

Files that are currently available for download:

  • GML with statistical units from the Polish Nomenclature of Territorial units for Statistics (NTS) level one (2014) – Polish representation of NUTS 1 encoded according to the INSPIRE Technical Guidelines for Statistical Units,
  • GML with a sector of the Polish statistical grid – a 60 km x 100 km of the 1 km2 ETRS89-LAEA grid, GML encoded according to the INSPIRE Technical Guidelines for Statistical Units,
  • GML with population distribution data referring to statistical units from the Polish Nomenclature of Territorial units for Statistics (NTS) level one (2014), GML encoded according to the INSPIRE Technical Guidelines for Population Distribution (Demography).

It is worth noting that the first GML example uploaded to the Statistical Units sub-group acquired over 50 views in only 4 days and has immediately encouraged a discussion.

2.6.Discussion statistics

The most popular discussion topics within the Cluster:

  • Main cluster level – Joining tabular and geographic data, Merits and possibilities of the Table Joining Service (591 views)– an ongoing activity to harvest OGC Table Joining Services to transform existing PD and HH datasets “on-the-fly” to provide INSPIRE compliant data,
  • Statistical Units sub-group –Statistical Units implementation examples (383 views) – a topic created to facilitate exchange of information related to existing and planned implementations of SU in different Member States,
  • Population Distribution (Demography) sub-group – Population Distriburion implementation examples (275 views) – a topic created to facilitate exchange of information exchange of information related to existing and planned implementations of PD in different Member States,
  • Human Health and Safety – Human Health and Safety implementation examples (274 views) – a topic created to facilitate exchange of information exchange of information related to existing and planned implementations of HH in different Member States.

Two conclusion emerge from the analysis of discussion topic view statistics:

  • Users of the Thematic Clusters platform are mainly interested in finding and discussing implementation examples. The most visited topics in all three subgroups is the topic created to discuss those examples. Also, as mentioned in section 2.5, uploaded GML files are particularly interesting for users,
  • Discussion topics posted on the main cluster level receive almost twice the publicity as the topics in sub-groups. This shows that sub-group membership/awareness problem still persists. Users who join the cluster often do not join the sub-groups and miss the valuable and usually more detailed content that is posted in the sub-groups.

2.7.Promotion and facilitation of the platform

2.7.1.Promotion

2.7.1.1.1.Pre-launch activities

The planned launch of the platform has been announced to the geostatistical communityattheEuropean Forum for Geography and Statistics (EFGS) conference, which took place in Kraków, Poland in October 2014. Upon the launch of the platform an invitation email to EFGS members and attendees of said conference has been sent. Other means of promotion include direct contact with persons responsible for INSPIRE implementation in National Statistical Institutes orinvolved in INSPIRE related activities / projects that are in scope of the Statistical Cluster.

2.7.1.1.2.Reception

The INSPIRE Thematic Clusters collaboration platform has been warmly received by the geostatistical community. Some members of the community are “INSPIRE aware” since the Technical Guidelines development process, most are involved in more or less advanced implementation works. An increase of activity within the cluster is expected as we are getting closer to the implementation deadline for Annex III themes.

2.7.1.1.3.INSPIRE GWF 2015 Conference

The INSPIRE Geospatial World Forum 2015 Conference which took place in Lisbon, Portugal on May 25th – 29th was a great opportunity to promote the Thematic Clusters platform. Apart from activities related to the whole platform that were initialized and coordinated by the Joint Research Centre (INSPIRE stand, workshops and presentations in the exhibition area), the Statistical Cluster has been additionally promoted on sessions related to geostatistics, e.g. on the “Merging statistics and geospatial information - lessons learned towards INSPIRE” workshop chaired by Eurostat. Also leaflets have been distributed within the geostatistical community, which had a strong representation on the conference.

2.7.1.1.4.EFGS 2015 Conference

Another opportunity to promote the Thematic Clusters emerged in November 2015 at the annual conference of the European Forum for Geography and Statistics (EFGS). The facilitator of the Statistical Cluster has been asked to chair the INSPIRE session and had a presentation on the Thematic Clusters in this session.

Summary of the INSPIRE session at the EFGS Conference:

Mr. Mirosław Migacz (INSPIRE Thematic Cluster facilitator) presented the benefits and challenges of INSPIRE implementation in the field of statistics. In order to assure constant relevance and usability of spatial data published according to INSPIRE obligation, the whole infrastructure needs to be maintained and efficient communication between experts needs to be facilitated. That is why the Joint Research Centre has launched the INSPIRE Thematic Clusters collaboration platform offering not only means to exchange experiences between experts but also contributing to the evolution of INSPIRE. Mr. Pierre Jamagne (Statistics Belgium) talked about Statistics Belgium being responsible for INSPIRE implementation of the statistical units and population distribution (demography) data themes but is also involved in mineral resources and elevation. The presentation described an attempt to prepare INSPIRE compliant data using open source software, such as Humboldt Alignment Editor (HALE) and GeoNetwork. The implementation has been carried out fully for the theme statistical units and is well advanced for the remaining themes. Ms. Dominique Laurent (IGN France) presented the European Location Framework (ELF) project that has been launched to support INSPIRE implementation in Member States for themes being generally under responsibility of mapping agencies. The project takes on the tasks of data transformation and publishing bydeveloping reusable software solutions. Even though ELF is currently focused on mapping agencies, some activities already include other INSPIRE thematic data such as human health. Future plans include possibilities to incorporate also other spatially referenced statistical data.

The discussion following the presentations showed that INSPIRE implementation requires experts with in depth domain knowledge (well knowing the data) who are also familiar with software solutions and understand GML encoding. A guide on UML/GML in the INSPIRE perspective would be very helpful for implementers who are usually domain expert. An efficient exchange of information is also crucial, therefore the INSPIRE Thematic Cluster initiative is very helpful for implementers who are now struggling with production of INSPIRE compliant datasets.

2.7.2.Facilitation

Facilitation activities encompassed seeking out and posting best practices, recommended implementation examples and other resources as well as answering questions related to implementation. Some discussions indicated possible changes in the implementing rules / data specifications. Those are described in detail insection 4 of this report.

INSPIRE Thematic cluster on SU, PD, HH / Final report (phase 1 &2) / p. 1 of 11
Common template for Thematic cluster reports / 2016-01-15

3.INSPIRE thematic clusters – SW environment

The INSPIRE Thematic Clusters activity and the platform itself has positive reception within thestatistical community. During phases1 & 2 of the activity few ideas for actions that might improve the usability of the platform emerged.

The issue of low sub-group participation in relation to the main cluster group persists in the Statistical Cluster since phase 1. This is caused by theme’s Statistical Units (SU) close relation to the two other themes: Population Distribution (Demography) (PD) and Human Health and Safety (HH). Both PD & HH derive their geometry from SU. PD is even closer to SU, as both themes are usually in the scope of works of National Statistical Institutes (with HH this is not always the case). The close relation of this Cluster’s themes results in difficulties in assigning best practices and discussion topics to specific clusters (e.g. population grid datasets are in the scope of PD but they reuse SU’s grid definition).

This issue has been discussed numerous times during Thematic Cluster meetings and teleconferences and while it has been decided that dissolving sub-groups is not a good idea, the problem persists and should be addressed.

Additional widgets introduced during phase 2 (subgroup discussion widget in the cluster and sibling group discussion widget in the sub-groups) are definitely a great way to raise awareness of sub-groups. Further development of widgets (e.g. a subgroup activity widget) could improve this even more.

It is common that new users join the Cluster and not the sub-groups and then receive e-mail notifications of activity only on the main group cluster level. It is worth considering to start bi-weekly or monthly “digest” e-mail summarizing discussions from all sub-groups. Such a digest e-mail would be automatically turned on for all cluster members and an option to unsubscribe could be introduced. This way we can draw cluster members’ attention to an interesting topic inside one of the subgroups. If a member would like to participate in discussion, he/she would have to join the specific sub-group.

4.Current and planned support and pilot activities

All themes within the Statistical Cluster are from Annex III of the INSPIRE Directive, therefore most Member States aim for the October 2020 deadline for existing datasets. Implementation attempts are being made, a lot of datasets have been published. Some general issues have been raised, e.g.:

  • Data producers and users (not only from this cluster) report problems with usability of the GML format. GML files of large size cannot be processed by computers, therefore producing data requires division of datasets to small parts. For example: Population Distribution in statistical regions and census enumeration areas (statistical units lower than LAU2 in Poland) had to be published in over 2500 GML files – one for each municipality (LAU2) – in order to be readable. This issue has been raised also by other Thematic Cluster Facilitators at the March INSPIRE MIG-T meeting in Madrid.

Discussions within the Statistical Cluster resulted in preparation of two change proposals that have been raised at the INSPIRE Thematic Clusters and INSPIRE MIG-T meeting in Rome, December 2015: