INSPIRE Knowledge Base

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

Coordination

National Contact Point
Name of Public Authority: 
Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic
Postal Address: 

Tajovského 28

975 90 Banská Bystrica

Slovakia

Contact Email: 
Click to email
Telephone Number: 
+421 048 4374 523
National INSPIRE Website: 
http://inspire.gov.sk
MIG Contacts: 
Contact Person: 
Martin Tuchyňa
Email: 
martin.tuchyna@enviro.gov.sk
MIG T Contacts: 
Contact Person: 
Martin Tuchyňa
Email: 
martin.tuchyna@enviro.gov.sk
Contact Person: 
Martin Koška
Email: 
martin.koska@enviro.gov.sk
Coordination Structure & Progress: 
  • Coordination Structure
    • Coordination of the relevant stakeholders in Slovakia is facilitated on two main levels:
      • Strategy / Main public sector stakeholders’ level represented by Coordination Committee of NSDI (NSDI Council / KR-NIPI)
      • Technical / implementation level represented by Expert Group of NSDI (NSDI Expert Group / ES NIPI). The ES NIPI coordinates the work of ad hoc Technical Working Groups).
    • Main responsibility for the INSPIRE implementation and coordination was assigned to the Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic, supported with the Coordination Council (KR NIPI). KR NIPI is representing the main central public authorities, including the representation of local governance.
    • Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic is also in charge of National Geoportal, Spatial Data Registry as well as National INSPIRE website maintenance, communication with the Slovakian stakeholders, communication with European Commission, and provides the primary contacts in both Maintenance and Implementation Groups: MIG (policy) and MIG-T (technical).
  • Progress
    • In summary INSPIRE implementation in Slovakia is in progress, where still a lot needs to be done, but systematic changes has been triggered, what might with responsible support from stakeholders deliver more visible achievements, soon.
    • Main focus of the activities during the 2020 was on the getting a better overview of the involvement of the stakeholders, compliancy of the metadata with the new Metadata Technical guidelines v. 2.0 and INSPIRE priority datasets.
    • Initial activities took place with the support of the Effective management of spatial data and services national project.
    • Where possible, synergies with eGovernment and Open Data activities also took place.
    • Main challenges remains with the availability of the as is and INSPIRE harmonised datasets (mainly Annex II+III themes) and their accessibility via INSPIRE network services.

Functioning and coordination of the infrastructure

  • In order to collect information about the status of the INSPIRE implementation across the main stakeholders on national level (ministries, central state administration bodies and organizations in their area of responsibility) and identify their interest for INSPIRE implementation support with the national projects prepared by the MoE specific survey has been launched. Main outcomes provided information about the diverse INSPIRE requirements awareness as well as their interpretation and consequently status of their implementation. From the perspective on foreseen readiness to fulfil INSPIRE requirements, more than half of respondents (26 organisations) confirmed they will use own infrastructure and resources. Majority of the respondents expressed an interest for INSPIRE implementation support via national projects of MoE.
  • Main coordination activities took place via existing coordination channels (KR NIPI, ES NIPI) as well as in the specific thematic groups (INSPIRE priority datasets and Hydrography). In addition, set of specific surveys took place addressing following topics:
  • To support the coordination of the infrastructure and to get better understanding of the real contributions to the national spatial data infrastructure initial analysis of the metadata in the Spatial data registry provided an overview about the metadata distribution. This confirmed the presence of the metadata only from the half of the main ministries and central state administration bodies. There are also significant differences within the distribution of the metadata across the stakeholders with registered metadata in the Spatial data registry.

Figure info: Metadata distribution by the main stakeholders in 2020 (Source KR NIPI 1/2020)

  • Dedicated GitLab project has been established, to provide the support with INSPIRE implementation and share experience with stakeholders.
  • In order to increase awareness and provide access to the information also via social networks, new inspire.gov.sk Facebook Page started to share relevant information to stakeholders in 2020.
  • During the 2020 initial activities took place for INSPIRE implementation support via national project Effective management of spatial data and services (ESPUS). First activities were focused on alignment of INSPIRE metadata with the new INSPIRE metadata Technical guidelines v.2.0 requirements and in the domain of INSPIRE priority datasets. The results were addressed the INSPIRE monitoring outcomes demonstrating increased level of SK metadata TG 2.0 compliance as well as progress in the availability of INSPIRE priority datasets.

Figure info: Monitoring of the conformity of metadata (Source MIG-T 64th)

 

Figure info: Availability of INSPIRE priority datasets (Source Action 2016.5: Priority list of datasets for e-Reporting)

  • Aside of the project activities further analysis of the current content of the Slovakian NSDI with aim to improve the quality of the metadata, availability of the network services providing the interoperable spatial datasets with clear data sharing provisions will continue, using the coordination framework and where needed appropriate stimulations and available legal enforcement tools.

Usage of the infrastructure for spatial information

  • The overall use of the infrastructure still remains challenge, mainly because of the range of the available spatial data, accessibility via network services as well as quality and update of the spatial data and services description by metadata.
  • Another reason is linked with low awareness of the potential of NSDI on the user consumption side. In order to support an uptake of georesources, new SK national metadata profile was proposed, together with the new profile for applications.
  • In order to support usage, new pilot apps has been designed under the ESPUS project aiming to support domains of Environmental policy inspection, analytical utilisation of georesources as well as in improvement of the access to the geospatial resources.
  • MoE will continue with the activities supporting increased use of the SDI in order to demonstrate the benefits of spatial data and services availability. 

Data sharing arrangements

  • Based on the analysis of the metadata describing the spatial data and services in Slovakia, huge amount of diverse data sharing arrangements depicts the need to improve the situation.
  • This resulted in the revision of the SK national metadata profile, where options for documenting of the data sharing arrangements were aligned with the INSPIRE metadata TG 2.0 requirements and recommendations.
  • All SK inspire priority datasets were assigned under Open Data Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
  • Also in other metadata records, presence of standardised licences is becoming more visible. 
  • There is still missing national translation of the Creative commons licenses (ver.4) to the Slovak language, in order to strengthen the usability of this standard licensing framework.
  • Significant issue remains also on user side, as there are no simple tools, allowing filtering the spatial data resources under the unrestricted conditions as on national as well as European level. There has been initiated development of the new Spatial data registry, where these aspects are going to be considered.
  • Coordination effort took place in connection to the transposition of the new PSI directive in connection to the High value datasets.
  • Integration of the open spatial data to the National Open Data portal is also still ongoing.

Figure info: Significant amount of various data sharing arrangements in SK geo resources

Costs and benefits

  • The cost and benefits evaluation is based on the information collected in the structured information from the relevant stakeholders. It is important to highlight the information was collected based on the best available information resources collected from the stakeholders provided the information for the year 2020.
  • The total indicative costs related with the INSPIRE implementation:  570 516 € and 3789 person days (Based on information collected by the 31.03.2021).
  • From the Benefits perspective, these were identified mainly in the area of:
    • Provision of data on request
    • Improving the availability of spatial data
    • Clarification of the existence of spatial data and services
    • Faster and more up-to-date access to spatial data via network services
    • Promoting for reuse
    • Increasing the potential for linking to non-spatial data
    • Identification of problem areas requiring external support
    • Increasing pressure on machine delivery of digital data
    • Improving the provision of environmental information not only for the needs of EU monitoring and reporting
    • Increasing pressure on the quality of spatial data and services and their documentation with metadata
    • Support on regional spatial data infrastructure level
    • Analytical use (environment, healthcare and other areas)
    • Ensuring the availability of forest data to a wide range of users without restriction
    • Published metadata and spatial data services
    • Published datasets
    • None yet
  • Detailed information about the costs and benefits can be accessed via This summary table. Details, based on the information provided by the organisations.
Key facts and figures