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INSPIRE* principles implemented on Top of Europe – in the Barents Euro Arctic Region


GIT Barents is an EU Interreg funded project which started already in 1997 and was finalised in April 2008.

In the GIT Barents Project, Russia, Finland, Sweden and Norway have since many years cooperated to establish a joint geographic infrastructure in the Barents Region. From Lofoten Islands in the west to Ural Mountains in the east – across national, linguistic and cultural borders, across the former iron curtain and within three different economic entities – a harmonised geographic database has been built. INSPIRE principles have been adopted and implemented in a new boundless and Internet-based service for the region.

Based on the global trends to establish Spatial Data Infrastructures and the evolving plans for implementation of a pan-European Spatial Data Infrastructure, i.e. the INSPIRE initiative, the project has chosen to adopt new standards, technologies and solutions for presenting its geographic and thematic information – and for the design of its regional infrastructure. These decisions have resulted in a final solution with many obvious advantages:

  • It is adapted to the forthcoming EU INSPIRE Directive and thus sustainable.
  • It allows for data owners to keep and maintain their own thematic and geographic data, thus preserving data quality and cost efficiency in its maintenance and up-dating.
  • It is a solution for the future, which will benefit from the on-going development and thus successively be supplied with new thematic information following the implementation of the INSPIRE Directive.

The project results include:

  • A homogenous geographic database covering the entire Barents Region – an area larger than the combined areas of Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Germany – at the scales of 1:1, 1:3 and 1:12 millions, built from existing national databases.
  • An Internet-based infrastructure which allows for easy access and use of the information and – at the same time – allows for efficient up-dating and maintenance of the database close to its “data source”, i.e. from within each of the co-operating countries.
  • Access to a variety of thematic information from data providers in different parts of the world, among others the Netherlands, USA, Sweden and Norway. The chosen technology allows the user to view a combination of geographic and thematic data, for instance satellite imagery from the USA with added geographic features such as roads, railways, settlements, hydrography etc.
  • Printed maps at the scales of 1:1 and 1:3 million by the use of what is called “print-on-demand technology”.

The Web Map Service of GIT Barents can be accessed at www.gitbarents.com .

More information about the project can also be obtained from Project Manager, PhD Owe Palmér on e-mail: owe.palmer @ lm.se

* INSPIRE is the acronym for the pan European geospatial data infrastructure, INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe.