A Jigsaw Puzzle Layer Cake of Spatial Data

The Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe ( INSPIRE; http:// inspire .jrc .ec . europa .eu) is a European Union (EU) directive that aims to provide a legal framework to share environmental spatial data among public sector organizations across Europe and to facilitate public access to data. To meet these goals, INSPIRE’s organization is analogous to a layer cake in which each layer is composed of interlocking pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The metaphor, although mixed, is apt (see additional supporting information in the online version of this article), and as researchers outside the program, we offer our perspective on how INSPIRE may address challenges raised by the variety of data themes and the wide coverage of collaborators. INSPIRE covers 34 data themes in Earth and environmental science and is implemented by 28 European states. The work is well organized through specifi ed implementation rules. Further, a pilot project, OneGeologyEurope, has provided positive feedback on the use of common data models and vocabularies. Nevertheless, emerging challenges hinder INSPIRE’s full implementation, caused by different interpretations of the guidelines; evolving data themes; differing geospatial information standards; and obstacles within organizational, cultural, and legal frameworks. Other obstacles in data interoperability and data citation, such as the lack of data provenance, data/ service identifi ers that should but do not match across information sets, and poor accessibility for nonspecialists should also be considered to make INSPIRE friendlier to users.