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Delegations will find annexed a note from the Presidency on the above subject, which will be dealt
with under "other business" at the meeting of the Council (Environment) on 25 June 2009.
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ANNEX
Conference "Towards e-Environment Opportunities of SEIS and SISE:
Integrating Environmental Knowledge in Europe" (Prague, 24 27 March 2009)
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-Information from the Presidency -
The conference "Towards e-Environment Opportunities of SEIS and SISE: Integrating
Environmental Knowledge in Europe" was organised by the Masaryk University in cooperation
with the Ministry of Environment of the Czech Republic, the European Commission, the European
Environment Agency and the European Space Agency and other Czech institutions (CENIA, CSO,
ICS AS, CHMI, CTU).
Approximately 350 delegates from 31 countries as well as representatives of the European
institutions and bodies attended the conference with the aim of exchanging knowledge between
public administrations, EU institutions, environmental agencies, scientists and businesses involved
in developing and using environmental IT for the delivery of modern eEnvironment services in
Europe.
Main topics for the conference included; ICT research towards the development of a Single
Information Space in Europe for the Environment (SISE); best practices of European Member
States in the implementation of the Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS);
cooperation and integration of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES)
initiative and the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community
(INSPIRE) directive.
The Chairman of the Conference, Mr Jií Hebícek, pointed out the interconnectedness of SEIS,
SISE and GMES and explained how all these activities contributed to the implementation of
eEnvironment.
The EEA Executive Director, Ms Jacqueline McGlade, stressed the crucial role of public
participation in good governance and the role of individuals in observing and understanding the
changing world. She proposed to create a Global Citizen's Environmental Observatory - a network
of people who would be able to report on the state of the environment with the aim of encouraging
people to experience the environmental changes for themselves and to link these observations to
policies.
Ms. Rut Bízková, Deputy Minister of the Environment of the Czech Republic, emphasised the
role of the state administration in the process of collecting, processing and using environmental data
and information and highlighted the apparent necessity of streamlining all the related processes.
Along with the main topics, the conference programme was divided into four main sections,
followed by five specialized workshops.
The leading scientists as well as representatives of EU and national institutions were invited to
present their results, opinions and key messages.
During the final plenary section the delegates discussed and adopted a resolution as set out in the
Annex to this information.
The European Commission was informed in a letter sent to Commissioner Stavros Dimas by
Minister of Environment of the Czech Republic, Mr. Martin Bursík, on the outcomes of this
conference, where the participating delegates from 24 EU Member States and 9 other countries
agreed, inter alia, to urge the European Commission to continue to actively develop an
implementation plan to clarify roles and responsibilities to underpin the SEIS initiative, including
development of appropriate legislative proposals, and to recommend to the European Commission
that it should further pursue the integration of SEIS, INSPIRE, GMES activities so that components
are mutually supportive and build on established standards and systems to improve data use.
Annex to the ANNEX
Conference Conclusions
From 24 27 March 2009, delegates from 31 countries as well as representatives of the European
institutions and bodies met in the city of Prague for the conference "Towards eEnvironment
Opportunities of SEIS and SISE: Integrating Environmental Knowledge in Europe". The delegates
took the decision to adopt the following resolution:
The conference:
Conscious that the Sixth Environment Action Programme confirmed that sound information on the state of the environment and on the key trends, pressures and drivers for environmental change is
essential for the development of effective policy, its implementation, and the empowerment of
citizens more generally. As the environment is a public good that belongs to everyone, it is equally
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essential for this information to be widely shared and available.
Concerned that we face increased local to global challenges in implementing environmental
policies which require increasingly sophisticated and open data and information services to
facilitate comparison between cities, regions and countries as well as to assess and deal with cross
border environmental issues.
Recognizing the initial priorities identified for SEIS in consultation with countries through the user
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networks such as NESIS as:
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1.Increasing usability of data sets and information through better documentation, harmonisation and interoperability;
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2.Re-engineering data and information flows (to improve timeliness and ICT use for monitoring and reporting);
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3.Establishment and support of sustained and stable data provision and network services for easier access to information; and
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Towards a Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) http://ec.europa.eu/environment/seis/index.htm 2
http://www.nesis.eu
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4.Automation of indicators and report creation.
Recommends:
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1.and urges the European Commission to continue to actively develop an implementation plan to clarify roles and responsibilities to underpin the SEIS initiative and address identified
priorities in partnership with countries including development of appropriate legislative
proposals.
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2.The European Commission to further pursue the integration of SEIS, INSPIRE, GMES activities so that components are mutually supportive and build on established standards and
systems to improve data use.
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3.The European Commission and the MS to ensure consistency in approach to open data licensing and policies in GMES, INSPIRE and SEIS, taking also into consideration the PSI
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directive , and EEA approach so as to maximize data re-use and sharing.
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4.The European Commission to strengthen and extend the communication of the SEIS concept to MS and also towards other areas of European policy or initiative (agriculture, transport,
fisheries, marine, health, energy, civil protection, etc).
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5.Facilitating the enhancement of SEIS with contributions from currently non harmonized data sources such as non-reported local to national governmental data, research, informal citizen
information sources as well as the private sector and supporting the discovery and use of such
data in particular where these lead to increased dialogue and cooperation in support of
European policies and international agreements.
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6.The MS and other stakeholders to increase attention to providing INSPIRE compliant meta information and standards to describe data quality and fitness for purpose, as well as unique
identifiers to encourage data re-use and citation, in particular to facilitate re-use by different
sectors or communities
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Directive 2003/98/EC http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/psi/index_en.htm
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7.The EC and MS to foster European networks to support sharing of good practice, expertise and cooperation in order to facilitate and encourage more sophisticated use of ICT and
environmental information services, including model outputs in support of decision making.
This should support a more common approach to the use of modelling for policy development
amongst the countries at national, regional and local level.
Calls on all relevant actors to contribute actively to the development of the SEIS implementation
plan.
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Adopted by the conference in plenary on 27 of March 2009.
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