Removing Technical Barriers

Studies to optimize the availability of INSPIRE and open data via the UBA metadata catalog

The German Environment Agency (UBA) maintains and provides several databases for their reporting activities and projects. During the INSPIRE directive implementation, they provided environmental data subjected to reporting requirements via their spatial data infrastructure “UBA.gdi”. The emergence of new technologies (e.g., OGC API for Features) eases the use of geospatial data significantly. Thus, these two projects investigate current technological approaches that can complement the measures implemented in recent years. The goal is to improve the retrieval of UBA’s data stocks and remove technical barriers to (re)using the data itself.

con terra and 52°North cooperate to develop solutions and an implementation strategy based on the existing technologies in UBA.gdi. The first project resulted in exemplary implementations that demonstrate feasibility in terms of the INSPIRE Directive requirements and simple data access from the user’s perspective. Our developers and software architects investigated how to enhance existing OGC-compliant Web Feature Services to support the new OGC API for Features interface and evaluate an enhancement of the UBA’s existing air quality Sensor Observation Service instance with an OGC SensorThings API module. We examined the combined use of OGC API Features and SensorThings API and will use the INSPIRE data theme “Environmental Monitoring Facilities” in a simplified form for an alternative encoding.

In the current follow-up project, 52°North helps advance the prototypes to a stable status. We also investigate the provision of additional data types. Both con terra and 52°North aim to incorporate the project findings into corresponding good practice documentation for the INSPIRE community.

• con terra GmbH, Germany