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