From 8^th October till 10^th October 2013 the INSPIRATION project organised a study tour for participants from the National Cadastre and Mapping Agencies of the beneficiary countries. The stations of the tour were:

Joint Research Center (JRC), Ispra, Italy

Umweltbundesamt (EAA), Vienna, Austria

Bundesamt für Eich- und Vermessungswesen (BEV), Vienna, Austria

By conducting the study tour the participants were provided with insights and various perspectives on the INSPIRE implementation.

The first station of the study tour was a visit at the Institute for Environment and Sustainability of the Joint Research Center in Ispra, Italy. The JRC is coordinating and supporting the development and implementation of INSPIRE on behalf of DG Environment. The scope of this visit was to get an overview on on-going activities as JRC, the legal framework supporting the INSPIRE directive and more specific aspects of National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). Furthermore this visit was used to bring participants in direct contact with JRC experts to solve issues and answer specific questions related to INSPIRE and NSDI.

The second visit was dedicated to Umweltbundesamt in Vienna, Austria. Umweltbundesamt is the Environment Agency Austria (EAA) and responsible for a wide range of topics which are connected with the INSPIRE Directive. Therefore EAA is a data provider and data user related to INSPIRE and supports the Ministry of Environment and other Austrian and international stakeholders in their implementation. The scope of this 2nd visit of the study tour was on the one hand to go deeper in subject of law related to environmental information resp. access to environmental data. On the other hand the visit should provide insight in the INSPIRE implementation on the example of the Austrian Water Network and to put harmonisation of data in the focus of attention.

The final station of the study tour was the Austrian Mapping and Cadastre Authority, the Bundesamt für Eich und Vermessungswesen with its main office located in Vienna, Austria. As the federal authority responsible for a wide range of important reference data sets BEV reports, as well as the EAA, mainly from the perspective of a data provider. Differently to EAA, BEV provides part of it’s data (e.g. cadastral data) on the base of fees which were of special interest for the participants. therefore the scope of the final stop of the study tour was to give on overview of BEVs products and services but to go deeper in the topic of electronic cadastre and the implementation of eCommerce within INSPIRE.

All sessions were heavily used for questions and direct contacts between experts from the region and the visited institution could be made. The knowledge and examples presented during the sessions will be shared by the visitors among their institutions and stakeholders which will further support the sustainable development of National Spatial Data Infrastructures within the region of the project.

Below you can find the presentations shown during the visit and the Minutes from the meeting in JRC:

• JRC Minutes INSPIRATION Study Visit 08 October 2013.pdf

• Access to the Environmental Information in the context of INSPIRE and SEIS.pdf
• BEV's Topographic Information Products.pdf
• From a Webshop to the INSPIRE Download Service.pdf
• INSPIRE in the context of Umweltbundesamt and Environmental Information.pdf
• INSPIRE Realisation Aspects at BEV in Austria.pdf
• Legal transposition of the INSPIRE Directive in Austria.pdf
• New Austrian Real Estate Registry.pdf