Implementation of INSPIRE directive in CEA - Croatian Environment Agency INSPIRE directive has grown on the need for management of georeferenced environmental information; it aims to benefit European public authorities (and others) by making available relevant, harmonised and quality geographic information that support policies and activities impacting the environment. The EU directive INSPIRE requires EU Member States to share 34 different spatial data themes through a set of network (web) services. INSPIRE also requires that implementation is done according to ‘Implementing Rules’ which set out how the system will operate. The Croatian Environment Agency (CEA) has the responsibility of collecting or integrating environmental data, their interpretation and analysis and creation of added value information needed for creating, implementing and monitoring the environmental policies. This responsibility is by law towards the Government and governmental bodies, as well as to the Parliament. In addition to that Coactively takes part in environmental protection developments and follow-up of the environmental action plans and projects. CEA is involved in producing and/or maintenance of databases on various aspects of environment, of which many, if not all, have a geospatial component as an important aspect taken into consideration. Some of the datasets with geographic reference that CEA is responsible for are:

• Corine Land Cover,
• Landfill Inventory,
• Environmental Pollution Registry (EPR).

Besides, there are other GIS projects that CEA is involved in, like building Environment GEO PORTAL, Air Quality Database, Map of noise exposure, Maps of exploitation and exploration of mineral resources field, Sea bathing water quality on beaches in the Republic of Croatia and others. Taking into consideration the INSPIRE Directive that is about to come to full power in Croatia, along with the deadlines that any other member state has already, CEA is studying the specifications of data themes, both from Annex I that is already in power and Annexes II and III that are still in draft specifications. Out of 34 INSPIRE data themes CEA recognizes its responsibility for: Corine Land Cover and Waste. CEA employees are also active in NSDI bodies in Croatia – WG for for linking the NSDI program with e-Government. CEA has taken part in review process of the draft new Law on NSDI. Spatial data infrastructure already exists in Croatia through existing projects and services. CEA acts as a consumer of basic services such as Digital Orthophoto (DOP) WMS from SGA and has developed a prototype application for Landfill Inventory and Corine Land Cover with DOP WMS as the backdrop layer. On the other hand, CEA is going to participate in SDI by publishing services, first of all WMS, with the data from its domain of responsibility, such as Corine Land Cover WMS. Another way of CEA contribution to NSDI Croatia development is translation of European Environmental Thesaurus GEMET, which is used as a domain field for keywords in spatial metadata records according to INSPIRE. CEA vision for the future is that spatial data are used as any other infrastructure; the services are expected to be available, ready to use, standardized, and participation in the data exchange regulated flexibly among NSDI stakeholders, along with the business model for its economic sustainability. CEA’s contribution to NSDI will come out of national legislation, as well as EU-wide projects, initiatives and programs. For that purpose CEA plans to work on capacity building to meet the needs of such involvement.