INSPIRE Metadata Implementing Rules: Technical Guidelines based on EN ISO 19115 and EN ISO 19119. Version 1.3.

Abstract

According to Article 5(1) of Directive 2007/2/EC, Member States shall ensure that metadata are created for the spatial data sets and services corresponding to the themes listed in Annexes I, II and III, and that those metadata are kept up to date. According to Article 5(4) of Directive 2007/2/EC, Implementing Rules shall be adopted taking account of relevant, existing international standards and user requirements. In the context of metadata for spatial data and spatial data services, the standards EN ISO 19115, EN ISO 19119, and ISO 15836 (Dublin Core) have been identified as important standards. Commission Regulation (EC) No. 1205/2008 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards metadata was adopted on of 3rd December 2008, and published on the Official Journal of the European Union on 4th December (OJ L 326, 4.12.2008, p. 12–30). Any reference in this document to “Implementing Rules for Metadata” refers to the above-mentioned Regulation. The Regulation sets out the requirements for the creation and maintenance of metadata for spatial data sets, spatial data set series and spatial data services corresponding to the themes listed in Annexes I, II and III to Directive 2007/2/EC. It defines a number of metadata elements, their multiplicities and the value domains to be used in the metadata. NOTE 1 The metadata elements defined in the Implementing Rules for Metadata are usually called discovery metadata. In addition to these requirements, Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services (OJ L 323, 08/12/2010, p. 11–102) and its sub-sequent amendments1,2 define six additional metadata elements for interoperability as well as some theme-specific requirements for the discovery metadata elements. Any reference in this document to “Implementing Rules for interoperability of spatial data sets and services” refers to the above-mentioned Regulation. NOTE 2 The metadata elements defined in the Implementing Rules for interoperability of spatial data sets and services are also sometimes referred to as evaluation and use metadata. The aim of this document is to define how the requirements of the Implementing Rules for Metadata can be implemented using EN ISO 19115 and EN ISO 19119. The following subsections describe for each element of the Implementing Rules its relation with the mentioned European standards. Furthermore, Annex B provides an overview of the additional metadata elements and requirements defined in the Implementing Rules for interoperability of spatial data sets and services as well as pointers to the INSPIRE Data Specifications, which provide guidance and recommendations for their implementation. This version 1.3 of the Technical Guidelines clarifies some aspects of the implementation of the discovery metadata elements based on the experience built during the period of implementation 2010-13. It also includes an overview of the Metadata elements for Evaluation and Use defined in the INSPIRE Implementing Rules for the Interoperability of Spatial Datasets and Services