ri B4. Beijing 2008 
The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences. Vol. XXXVII. Part B4. Beijing 2008 
state Cadastre that 
-aw) confirmed the 
counties, cities, 
natural persons can 
rying out the state 
Co-financing 
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forerunner 
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:ed for SGA. The 
fo (Arponen et all, 
for GI in Croatia, 
l into SDI topics. 
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procedures for 
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, 2006). 
sh International 
irses for an aimed 
shment in Croatia, 
field of NSDI 
: shared and same 
WORK IN 
RE 
to apply Inspire 
e way to become 
a part of EU, it was decided to use advantage that Inspire 
directive is already published and to use it in order to prepare 
information society to be ready to implement Inspire directive 
at the moment we will join EU and be obliged to implement 
Inspire. 
Very long time Croatia did not have any legislation regulating 
GI filed. The first legislation concerning SDI in Croatia came 
into force in February 2007. A separate chapter defining SDI 
was included in the new Law on State Survey and Real Estate 
Cadastre. At the time the Law was preparing, the proposal of 
Inspire directive was published, so all articles defining NSDI 
are fully in line with Inspire. The Law gives definition of NSDI 
and metadata, content of metadata information, services, NSDI 
data and subjects that are obliged to participate in its 
establishment and maintenance, and what is very important 
gives institutional framework and defines NSDI bodies and 
their responsibilities. NSDI subjects are responsible for the 
regular maintenance of the data regarding their spatial data sets 
and services and are obliged to make available the spatial data 
information under their jurisdiction or authority for the national 
geoportal. 
The content represents only a part of the topic comprised by 
the Inspire directive because it was assessed that the entire 
directive would not be feasible in Croatia at this moment, or 
rather it would set up very high criteria that might be rejected 
by the stakeholders. There was an idea to prepare a separate law 
concerning NSDI, but at the moment this idea was impossible 
to realize and would take very long time, therefore, decision 
was made that basic legal framework should be established in 
frame of the Law on State Survey and Real Estate Cadastre. 
Table 1. gives some comparison facts between Inspire and the 
Law. It is important to stress the current Croatian SDI 
legislation is only the first step of transposition Inspire into 
national regulations. The SDI part of the Law is harmonized 
with Inspire, the main Inspire idea is accepted, but only basic 
Inspire principles are defined. The next will be transposition of 
the whole Inspire and Implementing rules as soon as they are 
available into national regulations. 
institutions. One of main Inspire principles is to avoid 
duplication of data producing, what shows that some activities 
will be necessary in this filed. Themes from Annex III are 
mostly under responsibility of other institutions. 
Inspire 
Law on State Survey 
and Real Estate 
Cadastre 
Annex 
No. of 
spatial data 
themes 
No. of spatial data 
themes under SGA’s 
responsibility 
I 
9 
fully 
5 
optionally 
3 
II 
4 
2 
Table 2. Inspire spatial data themes under SGA’s responsibility 
4. CROATIAN SDI IN COMPARISON WITH 
EUROPEAN SDI INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORKS 
Therefore, the Law also define SDI institutional framework for 
SDI establishment. The supreme SDI governing body is the SDI 
Council appointed by the Croatian Government. The Council is 
appointed by the Government and comprised of 15 members 
coming from different ministries responsible for environment 
protection and spatial planning, defence, land registry, transport 
and communications, agriculture, forestry and water 
management, science and education, culture, state 
administration body responsible for e-govemment, state survey 
and real property cadastre (NMCA), statistics, then Croatian 
Hydrographic Institute, Croatian Geodetic Institute, geodetic 
and geoinformatics economic community, IT economic 
community as well as Croatian Chamber of Architects and Civil 
Engineers. On the managerial level, there is the SDI Committee 
appointed by the Council and consisting of three representatives 
from the Council, two from SGA and heads of working groups. 
On the operational level there are working groups. The SGA 
acts as the Secretariat of the SDI Council, coordinates all SDI 
bodies and provides technical support. 
Term 
Inspire 
Law on State 
Survey and Real 
Estate Cadastre 
Applicable 
community 
EU 
Croatia 
Date of entering 
into force 
May 2007 
February 2007 
No. of articles 
26 
11 
No. of covered 
spatial data 
themes 
Annex I 
9 
Fully complaint 
with Inspire 
Annexes I and II 
Annex II 
4 
Annex III 
21 
Mostly 
complaint with 
Inspire Annex III 
Figure 2. NSDI Institutional framework 
Table 1. EU and Croatian SDI regulations 
Spatial data themes defined in Inspire Annexes I and II are in 
Croatia mostly under responsibility of the SGA (Table 2). 
Definition of data themes in the Law are no so detailed 
described and listed like in Inspire annexes, sometimes a term 
from the Law, defined as NSDI data, covers several Inspire data 
themes. Some of them, for example transport networks and 
hydrography are available in SGA as well as other responsible 
Mainly SDI initiatives in European Union are led by national 
data producers such mapping agencies. On the other site there 
are countries where SDIs are led by a council of ministries, a GI 
association or a partnership of data users (Masser 2007). Where 
will be Croatian SDI? According to the Law it should be led by 
the Council with formal mandate on four-year period, but 
coordination body is the SGA, national mapping and cadastre 
agency. 
3