Search

Digital cadastral maps with accompanying land-related attributes have become a fundamental dataset for many application fields, e.g., spatial planning and development, protecting state lands, securing of land tenure, facilitating land reforms, agriculture, forestry, land management, taxation, etc. In order to fulfil its main objectives, cadastral data needs to be available and accessible, which is, among the others, emphasized also within the United Nations Framework for Effective Land Administration (FELA). This is not only important on the national level but also beyond, including at the European level where use cases and consequently demand for pan-European data sets have evolved in recent years. In order to satisfy these needs, several initiatives regarding cadastral and other geospatial data have been launched in the last 20 years. It started with the Permanent Committee on Cadastre in the European Union, the European Land Information Service, INSPIRE, UN-GGIM Europe and recent European policies on open data and high-value datasets. Our main question is, did those initiatives result in the possibility of building a cadastral map of Europe or not? Is it possible to create a cadastral map of Europe on the desktop or an open online GIS application? Within the paper, we take the opportunity to reflect on the development and implementation of European spatial data infrastructure (INSPIRE) with the main focus on the availability and accessibility of cadastral data. We also take into consideration other European initiatives related to cadastral data. The overall findings show that there is still work to be carried out. Technological developments and recent policy initiatives will certainly be drivers for future improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrography and hydrogeology data contain spatial references and as such are part of spatial data infrastructure. On the European level, these data are part of European spatial data infrastructure, well known as INSPIRE. The objective of INSPIRE is to make public spatial data available and accessible for a broad range of users in a simple, interoperable, and efficient way. Spatial data play an important role in facilitating data integration, enabling data-driven decision making on where and why things happen and easing communication through intuitive visualizations. Within this paper, we take the opportunity to reflect on the development and implementation of INSPIRE, with the main focus on the availability and accessibility of hydrography and hydrogeology data. By availability, we aim for the existence of metadata describing spatial data, while by accessibility, we aim for the existence of related services for spatial data viewing and downloading. The overall findings, based on the analysis in the INSPIRE Geoportal, shows that the data are still not fully available, although the deadline for INSPIRE implementation has already passed. Data accessibility is also an issue. Data that are even available in the infrastructure are sometimes not accessible. However, technological developments and recent policy initiatives could be drivers for future improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]