Issues / themes

The curriculum created by the training modules is based on assessment and analysis of the target group needs that were carried out during the first phase of the project, and taking into account the discussions during the workshop addressed to stakeholders organised in the project partner countries. Four modules have then been defined:

Module 1: Environmental web services
It focuses on how to build environmental web services. The aim is to give an overview on relevant standards, specifications and solutions required to provide and utilize harmonized geo-data. Important issues of this module are for instance related to data quality, engineering of GI web services, data harmonisation and the web service stack.

Content

• E-Commerce, including web service stack
• Web publishing
• Open Source solutions of OGC compliant web services
• Harmonisation of geospatial data
• Data quality
  

Module 2: Data harmonisation and Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI)
It focuses on how to build spatial data infrastructures (SDI), the key objective of which is to make more and better local, national and global spatial data available. Apart from technical issues, organizational and legal aspects have to be considered. These topics provide the base to understand architectures and technical aspects of interoperable web applications as described in the other modules.

Content

• Concepts of spatial data infrastructure
• History and current status of SDI
• Standardisation of geographical data
• Organisational issues
• Access to reference data
• Network services
• Metadata and catalogues
  

Module 3: Use of SDI for protected areas
It focuses on the implementation and use of SDI for Protected Areas management. The objective is to give an overview of Protected Area policies and management tools at European and national level, as well as a guide to relevant standards, specifications and existing solutions and tools to use and share harmonized geographic data for nature conservation.
The module at first provides the trainees with basic knowledge about current policies, implemented at international, European and national level, and methodologies for the planning and management of Protected Areas. Afterwards, a series of proposed examples on the use of SDI and GIS for Protected Areas management is devoted to offer a more application-oriented part for technical people working in that field.

Content:

• Driving policies

- International and EU policies on Protected Areas, Biodiversity, Data and Information management (included INSPIRE Directive and Natura 2000);
- Classification of Protected Areas: the IUCN Classification;
- National Framework for Protected Areas and Nature Conservation. The national transposition of Natura 2000 Network.
- Ecological Networks for nature conservation and cross-border initiatives (appendix document)

• Protected Area management

- Protected Areas management and plans;
- The Article 6 of Habitat Directive;

• SDI and GIS for Protected Areas

- Feature list for Protected Areas: the list of elements for Protected Areas characterization (exercise: add new elements to the proposed feature list)
- The Geoportal (overview, the catalogue, the use cases, the visualization)
- Examples of SDI and GIS for Protected Areas management.

• Use case development (tutored/practical application - development of a use case)

- checklist of actions
- analysing the problem (survey of the study area, analysis of the problem, identifying of actors, identifying of objectives, proposing a solution and an approach to the problem)
- data processing (data and information sources, a protected area metadata profile, a protected area data model)
- set up of the client and web services, web-publishing of geo-data

Module 4: Use of SDI for coastal areas
It focuses on the implementation of SDI for coastal areas. The aim is to provide an introduction to the use of geo-information in Integrated Coastal Area Management, to offer a guide on relevant user needs, data specifications and data-models.
In this way the trainee, after a tutorial introduction on the foundations of Integrated Coastal Area Management, is suggested with solutions and examples to provide and coherently utilise harmonised geo-data for coastal analysis, planning and management and the project audience is led to develop a practical exercise for web-publishing of coastal geo-data.

Content:

• Basic Principles of Integrated Coastal Area Management:

- ICAM principles and triggering factors
- Integrated vs. sectoral management
- ICAM tools

• The institutional context

- International policies
- EU policies
- National Policies

• Geo-information for coastal management

- GIS and ICAM
- Examples of coastal GIS and SDI
- The role of INSPIRE in coastal areas
- The Geo-portal (overview, the catalogue, the use cases, the visualisation, examples of coastal web GIS)

• Creating a use case:

- Objectives of the use case
- Identifying the issues (check list, the study area, the area structure and problems, the actors, analysis of the context)
- Data processing (a coastal data model, data and information sources, a coastal metadata profile)
- Web publishing of geo-data

The application modules 3 and 4 are made up of lectures, official documents (i.e. international conventions, directions, etc.), reference documents (i.e. handbooks, selected articles etc.), self test (i.e. multiple choice, fill the blanks) and guided project exercises developed on tools for geo-data publishing.