14 INSPIRE Themes for Global Sustainable Development Goals

The scope of geospatial data extends far beyond environmental, social and economic analysis, a study by UN-GIMM: Europe has found. Research by the regional committee of experts shows that information about location also plays a key role in implementing policy to help address a wide range of concerns at regional, national and global level.

The report, which is the first deliverable of the Working Group on core data, has identified 14 INSPIRE themes which can support the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs) and meet user needs for authoritative, harmonised and homogeneous framework core data.

UN-GGIM: Europe will now contribute its findings to help establish an agreed set of global fundamental geospatial data themes to meet the need for harmonised transboundary and transnational information. 

Thematic Data

It is known that many of the SDGs require dependable geographic information to measure, monitor and manage sustainable development, said the chair of the UN-GGIM: Europe Executive Committee, Bengt Kjellson from Sweden.

Core data may be used as a framework on which other richer, more detailed, thematic geospatial and statistical data rely. UN-GGIM: Europe believes that it should be produced once for national and regional uses with maximum resolution, and then provided to international users if necessary through generalising and aggregating processes, Kjelsson continued.

The research of UN-GGIM: Europe has focused on determining which themes within INSPIRE are useful for this process using case studies from Member States. They have also found substantial agreement in the definitions of fundamental data used by a number of projects from across the world.

INSPIRE Themes

By cross-referencing these findings, they conclude that there are 14 reference data and thematic INSPIRE themes that can help to unleash the power of where to help make the world a better place.

The INSPIRE themes identified as ‘core’ for the SDGs are:

• ​Administrative themes that provide a hook for integration with other data; namely administrative units, statistical units, geographical names, addresses, cadastral parcels, area management/restriction/regulation and reporting units, and governmental services.
• Themes that provide a topographic description of a territory: elevation, land cover, land use, orthoimagery, buildings, transport networks and hydrography. 

The report is available at www.un-ggim-europe.org.