INSPIRE ETC Position Paper. This is the Final Position Paper of the Environmental Thematic Coordination Group. The paper describes the user needs in the environmental sector and defines possible environmental data components to be defined in the INSPIRE legislation. Together with the Position papers of the other working groups, it eventually contributes to the creation of the INSPIRE legislative framework.
The paper is based on the ETC Orientation Paper. Comments on the 1. Draft Position Paper indicates that the first draft position paper had a too low level of detail on policy and data components descriptions, only focusing on major processes to harmonise data and populate the infrastructure. The new version is more closely linked with the policy needs, document the references, describe essential data components and example data sets, and come up with clear targets for INSPIRE in this field.
Many individuals, WG’s and institutions have been consulted in thedevelopment of the paper. Valuable comments have been given by representatives from the INSPIRE Expert Group (representatives from European countries and international organisations), from the INSPIRE working groups, from the INSPIRE secretariat in DG Environment, from different units in DG Environment, from EIONET and from the GIS team, different topic teams and topic centres under EEA.