Hi Johanna,

interesting question, indeed. In the Data specification on Habitats and Biotopes there is no explicit reference to the areas that ‘could be’ suitable habitats for specific species.

Let’s consider the following two statements from the “Definition and description” [Page VI of the Data Specification]:

• The INSPIRE Directive defines Habitats and Biotopes as geographical areas characterised by specific ecological conditions, processes, structure, and (life support) functions that physically support the organisms that live there.
• Common to all spatial data that fall under this category is a characterisation of the distribution of geographical areas being functional areas for living organisms.

The first sentence is quite clear: only areas in which species actually have been observed/ live fall under INSPIRE obligations.

However, reading the second sentence, one could argue that ‘functional areas for living organisms’ could be intended as areas whose characteristics support the life of (are functional for) specific living organisms - no matter if they live there or not.

My personal understanding is that there is no obligation to provide your data under INSPIRE HB, but it could be useful to provide.

Should your data be part of a mandatory legal process for a wind farm e.g. a strategic environmental assessment – they might fall under the AM data theme.

Hope this helps

Stefania

Hi everybody,

the suggestion of Stefania is perfectly right: areas that ‘could be’ suitable habitats for specific species should be provided under the theme Habitats and Biotopes.

At least that is, how I solved a question like that for the community in Germany.

Best regards,

Dirk (Facilitator of the TWG Biodiversity)

Hi Lena,

indeed, currently it is not possible to use the INSPIRE Validator to test against specific requirements of the Data Specification on Species Distribution.

However, it could and should be used - also with SD data - to assess the conformity to those general requirements that apply across data themes (e.g. requirements related to the GML encoding, to the accessibility of referenced information etc …) using relevant conformance classes.

That said, links to examples from the INSPIRE Geoportal can be found (also) for the SD data theme in the INSPIRE Community Forum dedicated page “Examples of INSPIRE Download Services for the data themes in the Biodiversity and Management Areas Cluster”.

One of the linked examples is indeed from Luxembourg:

https://download.data.public.lu/resources/inspire-annex-iii-theme-species-distribution-lu-art17-species-distribution-additional-maps/20180924-180552/sd.lu-art17-species-distribution-additional-maps.gml.zip  

You can as well look for links to SD data sets examples in the Special Page dedicated to the Priority datasets for the e-Reporting in the INSPIRE & Environmental Policy cluster:

https://inspire.ec.europa.eu/forum/special_pages/view/261587/action-20165-priority-list-of-datasets-for-e-reporting.

Hope this helps

Stefania

Hi Stefania,

Thanks for your help and directing me to these useful resources.

Best regards,

Lena

Hello Stefania,

I do not agree with two points of your answer:

1. "the HabitatsAndBiotopesDistribution schema never got past the draft Stage" is wrong! The data specification was completely finalized and that is why there is no further news.

2. "the Habitat and Biotopes Distribution [...] is an ‘additional’ ‘recommended’ application schema in the Technical guidelines and therefore the provision of data encoded accordingly is not required." is wrong! The data specification includes a distribution application schema, because distribution maps are required under the reporting on the Habitats Directive. This directive was a major use case for the data specification. The IR was kept "reduced" for other reasons, NOT to indicate, that the content of the TG is "additional" or only "recommended".

Cheers, Dirk

Hello Dirk,

the terms "approved" and "draft"  referred to the application schemas respectively in the IR (repository https://inspire.ec.europa.eu/schemas/) and only in the TG (repository https://inspire.ec.europa.eu/draft-schemas/), are taken from what officially stated in the INSPIRE Knowledge base data model section , in which the following, among others, is stated "Please note that the extended data models not included in the IRs should be considered as draft and therefore be used with caution.

Regarding the news, I was referring to the moving of the distribution application schema from the “draft” repository to the official repository of approved application schemas. As written also in the linked post, the current HB distribution schema (as well as all the schemas in the draft repository) does not reflect the changes introduced in the amendment of the Implementing Rules (Commission Regulation (EU) No 1253/2013) and the corresponding Data Specification Technical Guidelines that led to the creation of  v4.0 of the “ approved” schemas and presents some minor issues that need to be fixed.

No doubt that “the data specification includes a distribution application schema, because distribution maps are required under the reporting on the Habitats Directive”, but the data model according to which they are currently mandated is not the INSPIRE one! Data provision that is mandatory under INSPIRE is currently only the one according to the HB approved schema. That’s why HB distribution schema is defined as “additional” and “recommended”. The HB Data Specification (Section 5.1.2) state that “In addition to the application schema listed above, the following additional application schema has been defined for the theme Habitats and Biotopes: HabitatsAndBiotopesDistribution application schema.... additional application schemas are not included in the IRs. They typically address requirements from specific (groups of) use cases and/or may be used to provide additional information”

That said, I absolutely agree with you that the HB distribution schema could and should be used to provide Article 17 data under INSPIRE, as it fits much better the use case needs, but that’s different from saying that it is mandatory.

Hope this clarifies

Stefania

For the sake of completeness, it might be worth commenting a little bit on the statement "The IR was kept "reduced" for other reasons, NOT to indicate, that the content of the TG is "additional" or only "recommended":

no doubt that following the Technical Guidelines is essential to ensure interoperability of spatial data sets and services. However, all the INSPIRE Data Specifications include a "How the Technical Guidelines map to the Implementing Rules” section in which it is made clear that “Technical Guidelines define how Member States might implement the requirements included in the INSPIRE Implementing Rules”. The Technical Guidelines provide practical guidance for implementation that satisfies the (legally binding) requirements included in the Implementing Rules (highlighted as “IR Requirement”) and contain as well technical requirements that must be met in order to be conformant with the relevant IR requirement (when using the proposed implementation)  highlighted as “TG Requirement “.

In addition to IR and TG requirements, the Technical Guidelines also include a number of recommendations for facilitating implementation or for further and coherent development of an interoperable infrastructure, whose implementation is not mandatory.

Coming back to the HB distribution schema, the HB Technical Guidelines place it in the Section “5.1.2 Additional recommended application schemas”.

Kind regards,

Stefania

Gridded data - cool! Any chance you'd prefer to provide this as a coverage model? There's a deprecated one I've been itching to revive!

:)

For more details on this topic (use of  coverage model for HB gridded data), have a look at this interesting INSPIRE Community Forum post https://inspire.ec.europa.eu/forum/discussion/view/207594/habitatsandbiotopes-in-wcs?

Stefania

More also at: https://workshops.inspire-helsinki-2019.fi/workshop5

:)

Kathi