Croatian SDI and INSPIRE Days are organized every year in different town. So far towns that hosted SDI days were Varaždin, Opatija, Split and Zagreb. The objective of SDI Days is to contribute to the development of spatially enabled society. Each year, number of participants is increasing which proves that there is a need for exchange of experiences, information on projects and funds, and for networking. This year, SDI Days were placed in Šibenik, historic town in Central Dalmatia, where river Krka flows into the Adriatic Sea. The overall programme was divided in two days. On 26^th September INSPIRE and integrated land & water management scientific workshop took place, and on 27^th 5^th NSDI and INSPIRE day. SDI days contributed to addressing the challenges of organizing Spatial data infrastructure on the national level in Croatia, cooperation in the regional (South-eastern Europe) and other trans-boundary SDI’s, as well as joining the European SDI through INSPIRE. Most of the presenters and participants were surveyors, cartographers and GIS professionals. Even though SDI days are great opportunity for networking of the SDI stakeholders, there is great need for higher level of cooperation among them.
 
On the second day, 27^th September, INSPIRATION project was presented by Christian Ansorge, Ivica Skender and Fritz Kroiss. Christian Ansorge has introduced the audience with the current status and activities of the INSPIRATION project, after which he focused on the concept of SIIF - Structured Implementation and Information Frameworks, a tool for environmental reporting and dissemination of information that will upgrade and complement INSPIRE. A SIIF would aim, together with the range of SEIS (Shared Environmental Information System) initiatives, to help EU member states set up transparent information systems that make environmental information accessible online. For example in case of EU drinking water rules, one would be able to identify on a map abstraction points, source protection zones, treatment plants and distribution networks and have links to related information such as leakage reduction programmes.
 
Besides INSPIRATION the audience had opportunity to hear about another interesting regional project - Assessing Territorial Attractiveness in SEE and about a lot of ongoing Croatian GIS and NSDI projects (e.g. Near Real-time Risk Assessment in Flooding, CRO Habitats, National Metadata Catalog of Physical Plans). Furthermore, one set of presentations at SDI days focused on the status of NSDI’s in the countries of the region (Croatia, Serbia, Albania; Europe) and the other was more scientific and concept orientated (Discovery of Geospatial Information Resources on the Web, Electronic Signature, free and open source software concept).
 
For more information about SDI days 2013 please visit:

http://www.event.nipp.hr/default.aspx?id=45#.UkqnvH89UTA