In this issue

FEED Introduction

FEED News

GEOPOLIS AND FEED

FEED in the Czech Republic

Greek Pilot Launch

Forthcoming Events

Dear reader,

Welcome to the 2nd  newsletter of the FEED project! We wish to thank you for your interest in our work.  Below, you will find information on the activities of our project, its news and achievements.

The main objective of our project is to apply a new, advanced concept in eParticipation. The FEED platform combines visual geospatial information (Google maps) with easy access to relevant laws and regulations, facilitating thus the eParticipation process. It complies with semantic web standards and actually introduces maps as an effective support mechanism in public debate, linking accurately spatial information to legal information.

The FEED pilot applications aim at affecting the whole cycle of policy formulation at municipal level, including legal drafting, political assessment of the policy impact and social adjustment to new goals. In particular, the objectives of the pilot trial applications comprise a test of the legal semantic approach in real life conditions and an investigation of the different perspectives between citizens and public authorities.

We would appreciate very much any feedback from your side. The FEED  newsletter  at hand will inform you on the activities of our project. We hope you enjoy it!

Thank you,
The FEED Consortium

Geopolis, in Flevoland, is an umbrella term for collaboration projects aiming to bind people together and use geographical information in the policy chain and decision making process. Flevoland is the youngest Province of the Netherlands, literally being ‘made’ out of the North Sea as recent as 1945. Where once was only water with some small islands, is now the most desired region of space in the crowded small country of the Dutch. The design and planning of this region is vital to the survival of the countries growth. The province of Flevoland has developed an advanced method with respect to the use of geo-related information to support its young population with more influence on what their new land is designed for. Geo-information is made accessible and unambiguous for other public authorities and the citizen. This working method has become pivotal under the name ‘Geopolis’ in Flevoland. An important part of the new Law of Spatial Development (nWRO) is the fact that it is now obligatory to have all zoning plans available in digital format. For that reason Flevoland involved all actors directly, employing all them to work in close harmony to create faster decision making. Actually, Flevoland went beyond the demands or the legal obligations of the nWRO: people there, realized that, in order to develop integrated policies for the planning of the future of the Province, they would have to include all policy sectors and provide the actors with al relevant information. The most important change to earlier ways of work has been the use of maps as tools for decision making and deliberation, rather than a representation of the decisions, after they had been taken! Different sectors of policies can be compared regarding their effect on the region.

All players have a more comprehensive overview of the legal consequences for their interests. Geo-information is now an integrated part of policy generation and policy expression.One of the main results in Geopolis is the ‘Omgevingsplan’, the legally binding Dutch regional development plan for the area. The Omgevingsplan has been created together with all partners in the policy chain. The objects on the map to be governed and the texts expressing the policy intentions are made in digitally exchangeable format and bind to each other. This plan is accessible at www.omgevingsplan.flevoland.nl

FEED and the INSPIRE directive

As described in the directive's web page: "In Europe a major recent development has been the entering in force of the INSPIRE Directive in May 2007, establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in Europe to support Community environmental policies, and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment. INSPIRE is based on the infrastructures for spatial information established and operated by the 27 Member States of the European Union. "

For many reasons citizens, businesses and civil servants need access to regulations. This is particularly the case in policy-and decision-making processes in the legal domain. The traditional tools used to search and retrieve information are not designed for supporting decision- and policy-making cycles in the spatial domain. Normal questions like ‘where will I be able to do this kind of activity’ or ‘will this activity be allowed here’ are hard to answer in traditional web-based services environments. This discussion about Legal maps has become more relevant in the light of the INSPIRE directive. The claim is that INSPIRE based static map layers may be counter productive to conflict resolution because of the tendency to be too general or too specific with no dynamic adjustment possibilities based on flexible regulative parameters. By linking maps to their legal base and providing easy access to the application areas of the regulations the relevant actors may see more of each others negotiation space. In our project, FEED, we have endeavoured to take care of this: the FEED platform is designed to support INSPIRE environmental policy implementation, where qualified map layers and dynamic legal comparison using Simcity-like maneuverability can help to avoid conflict polarization.

Visusalisation in 3D

Flevoland realised that technology can support deliberation in more ways than one: if the data is stored in the right way, one can represent new ideas and plans in 3D format far more easily .It can also help to simulate future developments. This potential is now being exploited for an important part of the region and one of the most ambitious projects combining recreation, the European Natura 2000 directive and economy: the Oostvaarderwold.

An issue: semantic interoperability The same word can have different meaning in different policy sectors and some concepts may have more meanings the other way around. Beside the meaning of a word, the status in the deliberation process can differ as well; a plan text can have different legal status, like enforcement framework or just a vision scenario on the future or purely informative updates. To avoid confusion during deliberations due to comparison between texts and words and policies with a different legal status level, all maps received a status-tag of T (enforcement), I (informative) or V (vision). Speaking the same language is important in planning development!

The International Water Management and Ecological Fair WATENVI took place on May 26-28, 2009 in the Brno Exhibition Centre (BVV). The Czech Pilot of FEED project was presented at the International workshop to a broad public including delegates of the Czech and Slovak Ministry of the Environment, representatives of the Regional Office of the South Moravia, journalists and city Mayors. The workshop was held on May 28, 2009, and FEED was presented in two parts: the first one comprised a short description of the main project goal (including basic technologies incorporated in the FEED platform) while, in the second, a practical illustration of the FEED platform took place. The presentation was considered as one of the most important events of WATENVI and the Press Center of BVV published it on its web news

At present a number of environmental information systems is operated in Europe. However, the goal of the Commission is to establish a Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS), which would serve as a uniform entry portal for information on the state and development of the environment and on activities aimed at its protection. In order to promote this plan, the Czech Presidency of the EU Council organized an international conference titled Towards eEnvironment, (http://www.e-envi2009.org) which was held on March 25 - 27, 2009, in Prague, Czech Republic. The conference was organized by Masaryk University, Brno, in cooperation with the Ministry of the Environment, the European Commission, the European Environment Agency and the European Space Agency and was chaired by Prof. Jiří Hřebíček. Main sessions of the conference included: ICT research towards the development of a Single Information Space in Europe for the Environment, best practices of European Member States in the implementation of SEIS, cooperation and integration of GMES and INSPIRE activities.

A presentation of FEED took place at the ICT-ENSURE workshop, by Rob Peters (Zenc, Netherlands). On Thursday, March 26, awards were ceremonially handed out in the Bethlehem Chapel for the best papers presented in the conference (see photo, below) with respect to the use of information technologies in the area of the environment. In international competition, the FEED approach, received the second prize in the section Practical results.