Standards

Standards and agreements provide an essential bedrock for the coherence, compatibility and interoperability required for enabling the data, services and resources of an IDE to be used, combined and shared.

Rules and standards need to be distinguished and the importance of regulations and technical guidelines noted.

Standards:

these are defined by the ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) in the international arena , CEN (European Committee for Standardisation) on the European level and AENOR (Spanish Standardisation and Certification Association) in Spain.

The most important standardisation bodies in the field of geographical information are the OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium) and the Technical Committee 211 of the ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation).

Standards

To provide geographical information access and exchanges on the web, interoperability specifications need to be established and followed. The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is the body that ensures these specifications conform to international standards. Here are a few examples of OGC specifications that this spatial data infrastructure is based on:

Rules and technical guides

The Higher Geographical Council is the body in charge of drafting and approving these in Spain. In the European sphere, it is Eurostat which is tasked with establishing recommendations for statistics organisations in EU member states.On the autonomous-community level, it is the Catalan Map and Geology Institute. (Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya) They are especially important when it comes to creating and maintaining an SDI service.

Access to rules and technical guides on Spatial Data Infrastructure of Spain (IDEE) services

Related legislation

European scope:

Directive 2003/4/EC, of 28 January 2003, on public access to environmental information.
Directive 2007/2/EC, of 14 March 2007, establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in the European Union (INSPIRE).

National scope:

Spanish Act 7/1986, of 24 January, on cartographic arrangements.
Spanish Royal Decree 2612/1996, of 20 December, amending the territorial population and demarcation of regulation of local entities, as approved by Spanish Royal Decree 1690/1986, of 11 July, which defines municipal competence to update cartography according to postal addresses (Article 75).
Spanish Royal Decree 1545/2007, of 23 November, regulating Spain's National Cartographic System.
Ministry of Public Works Order FOM/956/2008, 31 March, approving the policy for publicly disseminating geographic information generated by the Directorate General of the IGN (National Geographic Institute of Spain).

Regional scope:

Act 16/2005, of 27 December, on geographical information and the ICC (Cartographic Institute of Catalonia).
Decree 398/2006, of 24 October, approving the implementing Regulation of Act 16/2005, of 27 December, on geographical information and the ICC (Cartographic Institute of Catalonia).