INSPIRE Knowledge Base

Luxembourg - 2021: Country Fiche

Table of Contents
  • Introduction
  • State of Play
    • Coordination
    • Functioning and coordination of the infrastructure
    • Usage of the infrastructure for spatial information
    • Data Sharing Arrangements
    • Costs and Benefits
  • Key Facts and Figures. 
    • Monitoring Indicators
Introduction

The INSPIRE Directive sets the minimum conditions for interoperable sharing and exchange of spatial data across Europe as part of a larger European Interoperability Framework and the e-Government Action Plan that contributes to the Digital Single Market Agenda. Article 21 of INSPIRE Directive defines the basic principles for monitoring and reporting. More detailed implementing rules regarding INSPIRE monitoring and reporting have been adopted as Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2019/1372 on the 19th August 2019.

This country fiche highlights the progress in the various areas of INSPIRE implementation. It includes information on monitoring 2020 acquired in December 2020 and Member States update.

State Of Play

A high-level view on the governance, use and impact of the INSPIRE Directive in Luxembourg. More detailed information is available on the INSPIRE knowledge base.

Luxembourg has had an INSPIRE law since 2010 and has been implemented and maintainted the national INSPIRE node since then.

All Annex I data has been harmonised from the beginning and the harmonisazion of Annex II and III data has been planned in a 4 year road map which is being transposed.
Everything is on course and all INSPIRE relevant data has been made available in a harmonised way until 2020. A new 4 year roadmap has been set up for the operation of the INSPIRE platform and harmonization of new or updated datasets.

Coordination

National Contact Point
Name of Public Authority: 
Administration du cadastre et de la topographie
Postal Address: 

Administration du cadastre et de la topographie
Division du géoportail
54, avenue Gaston Diderich
L-1420 Luxembourg

Contact Email: 
Click to email
Telephone Number: 
+352 247 54 401
Telefax Number: 
/
National INSPIRE Website: 
https://catalog.inspire.geoportail.lu
MIG Contacts: 
Contact Person: 
Jeff Konnen
Email: 
jeff.konnen@act.etat.lu 

Telephone Number: 
+352 247 544 53
Contact Person: 
Reisch Bernard
Email: 
bernard.reisch@act.etat.lu
Telephone Number: 
+352 247 544 00
MIG T Contacts: 
Contact Person: 
Jeff Konnen
Email: 
jeff.konnen@act.etat.lu 

Telephone Number: 
+352 247 544 53
Contact Person: 
Reisch Bernard
Email: 
bernard.reisch@act.etat.lu
Telephone Number: 
+352 247 544 00
Coordination Structure & Progress: 
  • National Contact point

Name of the public authority

Administration du Cadastre et de la Topographie

Contact information:

Mailing address

54, av Gaston Diderich

Telephone number

+352 247 54 400

Email address

 inspire@act.etat.lu

Organisation’s website URL

http://www.act.etat.lu

Contact person

Bernard Reisch
Email address bernard.reisch@act.etat.lu

Contact person - substitute

Jeff Konnen

Email address

jeff.konnen@act.etat.lu
  • Coordination Structure
    • Comité de Coordination de l’Infrastructure Luxembourgeoise de Données Géographiques CC-ILDG, created in 2009, is an organisation that acts as a steering committee of all the activities concerning the creation, updating, management and distribution of geographic data, either in analogue or in digital form. This group is led by the Administration du Cadastre et de la Topographie (ACT), who is responsible for an important part of the geographic data currently available in the Grand-Duchy.
    • Groupe Technique de l'Infrastructure de Données Géographiques GT-ILDG: The members are representatives of their respective public organizations, appointed by their ministers or directors in charge come together 2-4 times a year to discuss projects related to geodata, to discuss challenges and the progress of development of the geoportal tools created by the ILDG / Geoportal team at the cadastre.  In relation to the COVID-19 Crisis, the meetings have been held virtually and they have been recorded. This has allowed a much more important audience for the group. In relation to the COVID-19 Crisis, the meetings have been held virtually and they have been recorded. This has allowed a much more important audience for the group.
    • Thematic Working Groups: if special interest topics arise during general meetings, working groups are constituted and agree a meeting schedule. The actual WGs are: WG for legislation purposes, WG for points of interest, WG for water data, WG for geodata policies, WG for the management of metadata. Currently there are two active working groups, one for the usage of UAVs and one for creating an online platform about underground data (pipes etc)
  • Progress
    • The separation of CC-ILDG and GT-ILDG has been decided recently so that the "CC" can focus on the tasks given by law and the GT can focus on technical aspects.
    • During the last 3 years, most if not all geographic data produced by the public sector in Luxembourg has been released under Creative Commons 0 license to the public domain and is available on https://data.public.lu. This is a huge step and it also helps the public actors to collaborate better.
    • All the data that is being harmonized for INSPIRE is taken from the open data portal, harmonized and put back there under the same license as INSPIRE GML. 
    • The whole harmonizing process has been fully automated, so that GMLs, ATOM Feeds and WMS View Services are created by a process that is fed by mapping rules

Functioning and coordination of the infrastructure

  • In order to be able to deliver a more complete portfolio of Luxembourg’s INSPIRE-related datasets, ACT has proceeded to a detailed assessment of Luxembourg’s situation in the INSPIRE dossier with the help of external experts. This inventory is now being done once a year and we currently focus on streamlining the process in regard to environmental reporting obligations so that datasets that are officially submitted to the EC through EIONET are also being shown as INSPIRE datasets and services
  • All the identified datasets have to been published under an open license (CC0 if possible) on the national data portal. The INSPIRE experts will then contact the data producers to define the mapping rules and they will implement a script that can be automatically executed regularly.
  • Domain experts only have to update their data on the open data portal and the INSPIRE scripts will automatically convert the data to the INSPIRE data models.

The "Groupe Technique" of the ILDG meets 2-4 times a year to discuss different aspects of the ILDG and to coordinate the experts work on INSPIRE.

Usage of the infrastructure for spatial information

  • The backbone of the Luxemburg’s SDI is the Luxembourgish geoportal which opens up an access to the different users. The LSDI offers a lot of OGC compliant webservices (WMS,WFS, CSW), open data and a very powerful viewer (http://map.geoportail.lu). . A lot of efforts are being but into the visualization of 3D data (pointclouds, terrains, meshes, 3D buildings).
  • Independently of the special geoportal dedicated to INSPIRE, the national geoportal of Luxembourg has great success and is widely used by the general public. It counts more than 50'000 visitors per day, through its different viewers, webservices and APIs.

Data sharing arrangements

The LSDI and especially the INSPIRE implementation is based on the principle that all geodata should be released under an open license to the open data portal.

This means that there are no further data sharing arrangments needed anymore as all the data is openly available for all, without any restrictions.

Costs and benefits

  • For the years 2013-2020, the costs of geoportal, INSPIRE and related activities, can be approximatively summarised as follows:
    • 2013 - 1.125.000 EUR
    • 2014 - 1.105.000 EUR
    • 2015 - 1.135.000 EUR
    • 2016 - 1.160.000 EUR
    • 2017 - 1.280.000 EUR
    • 2018 - 1.400.000 EUR
    • 2019 - 1.400.000 EUR
    • 2020 - 1.440.000 EUR
    • 2021 - 1.440.000 EUR
  • The existence of the national geoportal, seen independently from the INSPIRE initiative, has brought great benefits to Luxemburg’s public sector bodies, private firms and the citizen in general. 
  • INSPIRE and the geoportal have been integrated on the list of important factors in the national administrative simplification program.

 

Key facts and figures