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Availability and Accessibility of Hydrography and Hydrogeology Spatial Data in Europe through INSPIRE

Hydrography and hydrogeology data contain spatial references and as such are part of spatial data infrastructure. On the European level, these data are part of European spatial data infrastructure, well known as INSPIRE. The objective of INSPIRE is to make public spatial data available and accessible for a broad range of users in a simple, interoperable, and efficient way. Spatial data play an important role in facilitating data integration, enabling data-driven decision making on where and why things happen and easing communication through intuitive visualizations. Within this paper, we take the opportunity to reflect on the development and implementation of INSPIRE, with the main focus on the availability and accessibility of hydrography and hydrogeology data. By availability, we aim for the existence of metadata describing spatial data, while by accessibility, we aim for the existence of related services for spatial data viewing and downloading. The overall findings, based on the analysis in the INSPIRE Geoportal, shows that the data are still not fully available, although the deadline for INSPIRE implementation has already passed. Data accessibility is also an issue. Data that are even available in the infrastructure are sometimes not accessible. However, technological developments and recent policy initiatives could be drivers for future improvement.

European spatial data infrastructure ; INSPIRE ; availability ; accessibility ; hydrography ; hydrogeology

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