Access to environmental information remains challenging
The new Open Data legislation only comes into play only the question of access is decided. An applicant must prove a right of access (eg via AIE/FOI) first, before making an application for Open Data access
Commission officials have gone through the relevant EU legislation, together with the Member States, and prepared a list of datasets on environmental reporting.
That list also reflects the data gaps identified during the evaluation of the state-of-implementation and the fitness of the Directive for its intended purpose (a so-called REFIT evaluation).
Note: There are no reporting obligations on members states (but suggestions can be made which will be transmitted to the relevant units in the Commission)
The main objectives for this action are to:
- communicate environmental information priorities and expectations to Member States by clearly identifying the spatial data sets relevant for environmental reporting;
- provide guidance on consistent mapping of reporting obligations and supporting data to INSPIRE spatial objects for the development of pan-European data sets;
- identify reporting redundancies and explore opportunities for streamlining;
- improve the timeliness and the quality of reported data.
The list is a ‘living inventory’ of environmental information needs and as such provides an instrument to:
- incrementally build comparable INSPIRE maturity across member states for all INSPIRE components (metadata, services, interoperability, data sharing) based on a common setting;
- plan tangible and usable INSPIRE deliverables for eReporting;
- monitor progress on INSPIRE implementation in general and for the reporting use case in specific;
- promote the reuse of the INSPIRE infrastructure for reporting purposes.
EU plan is to propose these e-reporting datasets be included on the upcoming list of high-value datasets (under Open Data Directive), which will have to be (a) available free of charge, subject to a two year derogation/exemption; (b) machine readable; (c) provided via APIs; and (d) provided as a bulk download, where relevant
Due to the time the above process will take, plus the addition of the 2-year derogation, we are looking to 2025-26 for implementation ?
89 datasets are currently listed
Summary List of Datasets
Information on Ambient Air Quality
List of major roads, railways, airports and agglomerations
Strategic Noise Maps
River Basin Districts and Competent Authorities
Characterisation of River Basin Districts
Monitoring Programmes / Location of monitoring stations (water)
Preliminary Flood Risk Assessment and Areas of Potential Significant Flood Risk
Flood Hazard Maps and Flood Risk Maps
Units of Management and Competent Authorities / Boundaries of management units / Competent Authority
Information on the subdivision of marine regions and subregions / Subdivisions of marine regions or subregions
Monitoring programmes / Location of monitoring stations / Marine monitoring stations
Report on Quality of Water for Human Consumption / Water supply zones and related monitoring information, attainment of limit values / DWD water supply zones
Identification of Bathing Areas / Bathing water areas (beaches falling under the Directive)
Information on monitoring results / Location of wastewater treatment plants, agglomerations, discharge points and sensitive areas (Location of UWWTD plants)
Information on monitoring results / Location of wastewater treatment plants, agglomerations, discharge points and sensitive areas (Location of discharge points linked to WFD water body)
Information on monitoring results / Location of wastewater treatment plants, agglomerations, discharge points and sensitive areas (Sensitive areas, less sensitive areas and catchments)
Monitoring and Implementation report / Monitoring data written text (NiD monitoring stations)
Vulnerable zones notification / Datasets of vulnerable zones
Implementation Report / Habitat types and species distribution and range data
Supporting reporting obligation under Habitats Directive
Habitat types, species distribution (Art. 17: implementation measures) / Habitat types and species distribution and range data (Various habitat maps using INSPIRE geographical grid system)
Location of Natura 2000 sites / Boundaries of NATURA 2000 sites
Birds geographical distribution (Art. 12: implementation measures)
ALIEN SPECIES Reporting on various issues, including on the surveillance system, actions plans, eradication and management measures etc.
Areas designated under national legislation for the purpose of nature protection including sites such as national parks and nature reserves. (This reporting obligation is an Eionet core data flow)
E-PRTR Report covering data reported by industrial facilities covering 65 economic activities within 9 industrial sectors (Article 7) / List of facilities and related emissions data
E-PRTR Report covering data reported by industrial facilities covering 65 economic activities within 9 industrial sectors / List of facilities and related emissions data (Information related to actual pollutant releases)
IED Reporting obligations on IED-installations (including data on competent authorities, permit information (e.g. derogations), and baseline reports) (Article 72) / List of installations, general information, contact information, competent authorities, and permit information (Location of industrial and agricultural installations falling under IED)
IED Transitional plans covering selected pollutants from the (large) combustion plants (Article 32) (Location of combustion plants)
IED (Information related to actual pollutant releases)
Boreholes for hydraulic fracturing (locations)
Seveso III location of establishments
Location of islands and isolated settlements that are exempted from permission of dumping waste
Landfill of waste – Location of landfill of waste sites
Mining Waste / operators of extractive waste facilities / Location of facilities (including exemptions)
Use of sludge in agriculture: the quantities used, the criteria followed and any difficulties encountered / Names and addresses of the recipients of the sludge / Place where the sludge is to be used / Agricultural facilities receiving sludge
Information regarding mercury located in the Member State territories (Location of storage facilities)