6.4.22.9 Protected sites

From Geostandards

The current version of the data specification is version 3.0. The document is available here.

This page currently contains the executive summary from the data specification document:

The Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 March 2007 (INSPIRE) sets generic rules for establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community. As a building block of the infrastructure, provisions on the interoperability of spatial data sets and services are foreseen. The thematic areas affected by the Directive are listed in the Annexes of the Directive.

Theme Protected sites is included in Annex I, which means that it is considered as reference data, i.e. data that constitute the spatial frame for linking and/or pointing at other information that belongs to other thematic fields. There are strong interdependencies between this and some Themes listed in Annex III that are still to be fully developed like Area Management/Restriction/Regulation Zones and Reporting Units; Bio-geographical Regions; Habitats and Biotopes and Species Distribution.

The INSPIRE data specification on Protected sites has been prepared following the participative principle of a consensus building process. The stakeholders, based on their registration as a Spatial Data Interest Community (SDIC) or a Legally Mandated Organisation (LMO) had the opportunity to bring forward user requirements and reference materials, propose experts for the specification development, and to participate in the review of the data specifications. The Thematic Working Group responsible for the specification development was composed of experts coming from Germany, United Kingdom, and the European Environment Agency. The specification process took place according to the methodology elaborated for INSPIRE respecting the requirements and the recommendation of the INSPIRE Generic Conceptual Model, which is one of the elements that ensures a coherent approach and cross theme consistency with other themes in the Directive.

The INSPIRE Directive defines a Protected Site as an “Area designated or managed within a framework of international, Community and Member States' legislation to achieve specific conservation objectives” [Directive 2007/2/EC]. According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) a Protected Site is an area of land and/or sea especially dedicated to the protection and maintenance of biological diversity, and of natural and associated cultural resources, and managed through legal or other effective means.

Within the INSPIRE context, Protected Sites may be located in terrestrial, aquatic and/or marine environments, and may be under either public or private ownership. They may include localities with protection targets defined by different sectors and based on different objectives. Objectives for protection may include: the conservation of nature; the protection and maintenance of biological diversity and of natural resources and the protection of person-made objects including buildings, pre- historic and historic archaeological sites, other cultural objects, or sites with specific geological, hydrogeological or geomorphological value. Protected Sites may receive protection due to more than one type of objective, and may have a double or multifarious designation status.

Protected sites may differ greatly in their reasons for protection, their designation and their management. Examples of legislation under which Protected Sites included in this INSPIRE theme are designated, managed and regulated include:

• the Habitats Directive (1992) (Directive 92/43/EC);
• the Birds Directive (1979) (Directive 79/409/EC);
• the Water Framework Directive (2000) (Directive 2000/60/EEC);
• the World Heritage Convention (1975);
• the Ramsar Convention (1971);
• the Barcelona Convention (1976);
• the Helsinki Convention (1974);
• the OSPAR Convention (1992) and
• the national laws of each European country and EU and international sector policies (for example, relating to nature conservation, forests or fisheries).

Based on the reference materials and the user requirements, the Thematic Working Group considered five use cases:

1. Generate European Protected Sites spatial data report, a Europe-wide application including Natura 2000 sites, for expert users including national and regional government, the European Commission and the European Environment Agency;
2. Naively query and view Protected Sites, applicable at local, regional and Europe-wide level, for non-expert/public users;
3. Expertly query, view, visualise and analyse Protected Sites at local, regional, cross-border levels, to support environmental impact assessment and decision making;
4. Download Protected Sites data, for expert or semi-expert users;
5. Provide Protected Sites data according to EU legal obligations and data-flows (EU Member States).

The data specification has been based, as far as possible, on existing standards. Apart from ISO standards, the TWG has also used the reference material and the user requirements, the majority of which are expressed through existing legislation as already mentioned. The specification is documented using ICT techniques such as the Unified Modelling Language (UML), Geography Markup Language (GML) and Object Constraint Language (OCL).

Natura2000 has been used as an input into the INSPIRE Protected Sites Data Product Specification. Under Natura2000, Member States are required to update information on Natura2000 sites to the European Commission at least every six years. This part of the reporting process has a number of mandatory attributes. In order to fulfil the objective of allowing Member States to use the INSPIRE model to meet their Natura2000 site reporting requirements, keeping a very simple and easy way for Member States to provide their Protected Areas information, three application schemas are included within the Protected sites data specification each for a different purpose:

• Simple: A very limited set of fundamental attributes, including geometry, identifier, name and legal foundation date and document reference. Only current Protected Sites are included.
• Full: The full model including all attributes and historical as well as current Protected Sites, but with most attributes being optional, so values may be omitted.
• Natura2000: The full model with all attributes and historical as well as current Protected Sites and with mandatory attributes required for updating and maintaining of Natura2000 site data by Member States. Member States may use this Application schema to provide Natura2000 site data.

Additional application schemas specific to other purposes may be created by Member States or other European organisations and added to the model. Specific application schemas may be updated as a result of decisions and agreements at European level.

In all cases, Protected Sites have a known location, boundary and area, based on formal, legal or administrative agreements or decisions. Protected Site boundaries are often defined relative to cadastral boundaries, natural boundaries or to some other feature, or sometimes they are approximately defined on the basis of the extent of the presence of a particular species. However, in the INSPIRE context, all Protected Sites have distinct boundaries of their own, rather than being defined relative to some other spatial object type.

As the specification on INSPIRE Protected sites is the result of detailed analysis of user requirements and strong consideration of existing initiatives, it is expected that it will also form a solid part of a multi- purpose European spatial data infrastructure.

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