The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Vol. XXXVII. Part B4. Beijing 2008
what means that e-Croatia and NSDI should streamline
activities by harmonizing interoperability approaches and
fulfilment of mutual needs.
2. NSDI DEVELOPMENT PREPARATION PHASE
The new Law on State Survey in Real Estate Cadastre that
came into force in February 2007 (further: Law) confirmed the
co-financing model, defining that counties, cities,
municipalities and other interested legal and natural persons can
participate in the provision of funds for carrying out the state
survey and real estate cadastre works.
2.1 NSDI forerunners
One of the main initiators for SDI establishment activities was
the State Geodetic Administration (SGA), the national mapping
and cadastre authority in Croatia. It took the first actions on
fulfilment of prerequisite for SDI establishing.
In 1996 SGA started a project, which led to establishing of
topographic information system. Trough CROTIS project
(CROatian Topographic Information System) standardization of
topographic spatial data is comprised, that gives main and
detailed solutions of topographic spatial system in domain of
data model, their collecting, processing, accuracy, way of
presentation, topologic relations and their interchange. The
basic purpose of CROTIS is its application in all spheres of
spatial data management.
In 2001 Croatian Government adopted the Programme for State
Survey and Real Estate Cadastre for the period 2001-2005. At
that time the term SDI was not so well-known but the similar
principles and ideas can been seen in the mentioned document
and some of them are listed in the following text. According to
the Programme SGA was obliged to establish so called
Multipurpose Spatial Information System (MSIS), fostering
national needs for efficient and rationale use of spatial data
produced by governmental bodies and private sector.
Establishment of MSIS anticipates development of national
databases for the products under responsibility of the SGA and
their connection into a unique information system that will
allow the users to use the data effectively and expand them by
their attribute data.
The holder of the Program implementation was the SGA,
responsible also for implementation of the Programme. It was
defined that for each subprogram a co-ordination commission,
consisting of representatives from different state bodies, should
be appointed. The co-ordination committee co-ordinates
interdepartmental activities, directs the implementation of
subprograms and investments of funds. The participant at the
implementation of the Program are, apart form the holders SGA,
ministries and state authorities included into the co-ordination
committees, were also counties, units of local self-government
at the territory of which the jobs from the Program are carried
out as well as public enterprises. The participants at the
implementation of the Program were also international
institutions and competent agencies from other countries that
deliver professional, technical and financial support to it on the
basis of loan and technical collaboration agreements.
The funds for the implementation of this Program were
provided from several sources, like state budget, county and
units of local self-government budgets, then from public
enterprises, loan granted by the World Bank, donations and
commercial loans. At the same time Croatian Geodetic Institute
(CGI) was founded. One of the main tasks of CGI has been
quality control of SGA data. The whole production has been
outsourced, performed by private sector. The described process
was a prototype of SDI (Figure 1).
Co-financing
Public systems
fully or partially
owned by the State
Co-financing
Ministries
and other state
administration
bodies
( SGA )
Regional and
local self-
government
bodies
CGI
Regulations
Contracting
Data owner
Distribution of data
Private
sector
Quality Control
Production
Figure 1. Co-operation model as a SDI forerunner
2.2 External experience use
Three very important studies dealing with geographic
information (GI) and SDI tasks were produced for SGA. The
first study was produced in 2001 by Bloomlnfo (Arponen et all,
2001) and gave review of EU requirements for GI in Croatia,
whereas another two studies are more oriented into SDI topics.
The second study produced by Connterra in 2005 (Remke et all,
2005) is a first one dealing with SDI. It is an operative
document, the aim of which is to guide the development of the
rule book as well as the decision making process regarding the
institutional framework settings. One of the results was so-
called NSDI Roadmap (Wytzisk et all, 2005) which gave the
organisational levels that was later implemented into the Law.
The study identifies and describes the procedures for
establishing SDI in Croatia, compliant with EU information
communication technology standards. With this study
preparation phase was finished and preconditions for
transposition phase were established.
The third study was accomplished by Geolink Consulting Ltd
from Great Britain. It brings together Inspire and NSDI in
Croatia and gives some recommendations for further activities
on SDI establishment (Geolink Consulting Ltd, 2006).
In frame of collaboration with Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency several courses for an aimed
group of participants involved in NSDI establishment in Croatia,
were organized where experiences in field of NSDI
management, standards and data delivery were shared and same
proposal and instructions suggested.
3. CROATIAN SDI LEGAL FRAMEWORK IN
COMPARISON WITH INSPIRE
As a non EU country, Croatia is not obliged to apply Inspire
directive at the moment. Since Croatia is on the way to become