INSPIRE Knowledge Base

Netherlands - 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 Netherlands. More detailed information is available on the INSPIRE knowledge base.

Coordination

National Contact Point
Name of Public Authority: 
Ministry of Interrior
Contact Email: 
Click to email
National INSPIRE Website: 
https://www.geonovum.nl/geo-standaarden/inspire-europese-leefomgeving
MIG Contacts: 
Contact Person: 
Christiaan de Jong
Email: 
christiaan.de.jong@minbzk.nl
Contact Person: 
Noud Hooyman
Email: 
Noud.hooyman@minbzk.nl
MIG T Contacts: 
Contact Person: 
Ine de Visser
Email: 
i.devisser@geonovum.nl
Coordination Structure & Progress: 
  • National Contact point

Name of the public authority

Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations

Mailing address

 P.O. Box 20011, 2500 EA The Hague
The Netherlands

Telephone number

+31 77 465 67 67

Organisation’s website URL

 https://www.government.nl/ministries/ministry-of-the-interior-and-kingdom-relations/contact

Contact person (if available)

Mr Noud Hooyman

Telephone number

+ 31 6 11 35 13 33

Email address

Noud.Hooyman@minbzk.nl

Contact person — substitute (if available)

Christiaan de Jong

Telephone number

+ 31 6 52740152

Email address

christiaan.jong@minbzk.nl
  • Coordination Structure
  • Progress
    • The coordination structure for the INSPIRE implementation will be changed in line with the Dutch vision on INSPIRE as of 2021, 2020 will be a transition year. The new coordination structure will provide better support for benefit management and it broadens the scope to other European data initiatives.  
    • The use of the INSPIRE infrastructure for monitoring of environmental directives was promoted. Reporters of environmental directives were advised on the use of INSPIRE. The implementation gap concerning environmental data is closed for the most part.
    • The harmonization of Annex I has been completed (with a few exceptions). The harmonization of Annex II and III has started.
    • The Netherlands have drawn up a vision for INSPIRE after 2020.
    • INSPIRE is connected with important developments within the Dutch Government such as recently the Key Registry of the Subsurface.
    • The Make it Work (MiW) initiative for drafting principles for smart environmental reporting was finished.

Functioning and coordination of the infrastructure

  • The vision paper Geosamen (the Netherlands’ views on the future of the geosector) sees INSPIRE as an important building block of the GEO data infrastructure.
  • INSPIRE is part of the Dutch geo-community and embedded in the Dutch geo-information infrastructure. Thus far the implementation of INSPIRE has followed a pragmatic approach, aiming at satisfying the legal obligations, using base registries and their national services.
  • The Dutch approach to assign to the data themes only custodians for the most suitable data sets has proven to be efficient: it has limited the burden of implementation and the quality is relatively high.
  • The use of the INSPIRE infrastructure for monitoring of environmental directives was promoted. Reporters of environmental directives were advised on the use of INSPIRE. The implementation gap concerning environmental data is closed for the most part.
  • INSPIRE is connected with important developments within the Dutch Government such as recently the Key Registry of the Subsurface.
  • The Make it Work (MiW) initiative for drafting principles for smart environmental reporting was finished.
  • The core of the INSPIRE programme of quality assurance in the Netherlands is formed by:
    • The functioning of a sounding board (INSPIRE dataproviders). In the new coordination structure the responsibilities of this INSPIRE board will be replaced by a board that’s responsible for the entire Dutch SDI.
    • The recording of data sets that must be disclosed for INSPIRE in a register
    • The use of tooling, the control panel and validators, showing the INSPIRE implementation status.
  • INSPIRE has been important for the visibility, quality and availability of geospatial information.

Usage of the infrastructure for spatial information

  • To facilitate the use of services a number of tools have been developed, such as the Dutch QGIS plugin to INSPIRE. Services are also used in many applications without direct intervention of the data provider
  • Open geodata, is automatically from the National Georegister delivered to the open data portal. Half of the open data in the Netherlands is geodata.
  • The Netherlands, along with Belgium, organized the INSPIRE conference 2018 on 18-21 September 2018 in Antwerp. This conference has helped to highlight the challenges still ahead in order to INSPIRE data for different purposes can be used across borders.
  • The usage of the INSPIRE services available in the discovery service has strongly increased the last 3 years.  

 

Data sharing arrangements

  • The open data policy removed for most datasets barriers to re-use. The datasets that fall under the INSPIRE are legally and economically accessible to all parties.
  • In 2014 the Creative Commons license has been approved for use. It was agreed to make use of geo-information for the conditions of use with creative commons, except where this is not possible.
  • INSPIRE datasets are available under Public Domain (52), CC0 (89) and CC-BY(30) licenses. Only one dataset has limitations on public access.

Costs and benefits

  • After almost ten years of implementation, the costs are higher than were assumed in 2009. This is due to the lack of experience of implementation back in 2009, and the continuing complexity. The benefits are still difficult to quantify, but the qualitative and strategic benefits are no doubt significant.
  • INSPIRE has proved its value, but the coming years will focus on the demand side, for instance by linking INSPIRE to the environmental reporting obligations.
  • The Netherlands will focus on active benefitmanagement to gain better insights in the realized benefits for citizens, businesses, and administrations.
Key facts and figures