1. European Environment Agency
ENPI-SEIS Project ‘Towards a Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS) in the European Neighbourhood’ UNECE Joint Task Force on Indicators Meeting, July 2011
European Environment Agency
Gordon McInnes, Deputy Director, Head of Programme Governance and Networks

2. Overall objective:
Promote the protection of the environment in the countries of the European Neighbourhood Policy area

3. Project objectives of the ENPI-SEIS project
Specific objectives:
Promote the setting up of national and regional environmental information systems in line with SEIS principles
Improve capacities in the field of monitoring, collection, storage, assessment, and reporting of environmental data
Identify / further develop environmental indicators
Track progress of the regional environmental initiatives (European Neighbourhood Policy, Eastern Partnership, Horizon 2020 , etc)

4. Main activity areas Agreed priority themes and other EU projects in the East region
Water: fresh water
Waste: household / municipal
Air (emissions + climate change)
Other EU projects in the region:
Co-investment funding in the field of water and sanitation
Environmental collaboration for the Black Sea
Multi-country cooperation instruments (East): CBC, NIF, TWINNING TAIEX, SIGMA
Support to Kyoto Protocol Implementation, SKPI
Air Governance project
Waste Governance project
Transboundary river management for the Kura river - Phase II
Water Governance in Western EECCA

5. Development of the SEIS with different country groupings
EEA
Core
budget
W.Balkans
IPA
Eastern neighbours
&
ENPI
Russia
COOPERATION
DATAFLOWS
Southern neighbours
INDICATORS
The Partner Countries participating in the Barcelona Process are now part of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) developed in 2004, following the enlargement of the EU, in order to avoid the emergence of new dividing lines in Europe. The ENP complements and reinforces the Barcelona Process on a bilateral basis, through Action Plans agreed with the Partner Countries that take into account their specific needs and characteristics.
ASSESSMENT
DCI
Central Asia
INFRASTRUCTURE 5

6. Institutional cooperation
SEIS Conceptual Framework
Data and information
Air
Land use
Integerated prod.
Climate Change
Biodiversity
Soil
Forests
Waste
Water
Natural resources
...
Content
Infrastructure
Data and information services
Reportnet, ICT, EEA SDI, Inspire, GMES,...
Institutional cooperation
Networking, Eionet, Group of 4, EPAs, ENP, agreements 6

7. Environment & Statistics, UNECE etc. Bilateral cooperation
Applying SEIS Conceptual Framework to ENP East region
Household/
Municipal waste,
Freshwater,
Air emissions,
climate change etc. …
Data flows +
Indicator development
(Joint Task Force)
Content
Data and information
Services, SDI
SEIS (tools and systems)
Infrastructure
Institutional
cooperation
Environment & Statistics, UNECE etc.
Bilateral cooperation 7

8. Spring-cleaning & use of EEA indicators 2011 and beyond:
EEA indicator spring cleaning (technical review)
Mapping of EEA indicators to policy needs
Continuation of indicator-based SoE reporting, including review of technical infrastructure, follow-up of Astana Conference and development of ENPI-SEIS project
Annual indicator-based cross-cutting assessment

9. The starting point for the indicator mapping exercise:
Tier 1: EEA core indicators
CSI (core set of indicators)
Energy indicators (29 / 5 CSI)
Climate change indcators
(42+4 / 5 CSI)
Transport indicators (38 / 3 CSI)
Biodiversity indicators
(25+2 / 3 CSI)
Waste indicators (2 / 2 CSI)
Tier 2: EEA indicator themes
Agriculture (CSI)
Air pollution (APE+CSI)
Biodiversity (SEBI + CSI)
Climate (CLIM + CSI)
Energy (ENER + CSI)
Transport (TERM + CSI)
Waste (CSI)
Water (WEC, WEU, WHS + CSI)
Fisheries (CSI)
Land & Soil (CSI)
Tourism (YIR)
Env. Scenarios (Outlook, FLIS)
EEA core indicators
(37 CSI)
Air pollution indicators
(6+5 / 5 CSI)
Water indicators (7+7 / 7 CSI)
Agriculture indicators
(2 / 2 CSI)
Fisheries indicators (3 / 3 CSI)
Land & Soil indicators (2/ 2 CSI)
Environmental scenarios indicators
(45 / 0 CSI)
Tourism indicators (7 / 0 CSI)

10. Overall objectives of the Astana Assessment of Assessments (AoA) report
To reform the pan-European environmental assessment knowledge system by:
Contributing to the development of a Regular Assessment Process (RAP) on Europe’s environment
Facilitating the establishment of a Shared Environmental Information System (SEIS)
To meet the objectives in time for Astana it was agreed to focus the report on water resources and green economy/resource efficiency

11. Main outcomes of the Assessment of Assessments
Report for Environment for Europe ministerial conference, Astana, September 2011 (Astana Report)
A knowledge base of European environmental assessments
Proposals to develop a regular process to keep the pan-European environment under continuous review as part of a Shared Environmental Information System

12. EEA regular assessment reports
Pan European
Dobris
Aarhus
Kiev
Belgrade
Astana
Dobris +25
1998
2003
2007
2011
2016
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
2015
SOER
SOER 2015

13. Key EEA product: The European Environment State and Outlook 2010
SOER 2010
- Synthesis -
Thematic assessments
Country assessments
Understanding climate change
Country profiles
Mitigating climate change
National and regional stories
Adapting to climate change
Biodiversity
Common environmental themes
Land use
Land use
Land use
Climate change mitigation
Soil
Soil
Soil
Land use
Marine and coastal environment
Marine and coastal environment
Assessment of global megatrends
Nature protection and biodiversity
Consumption and environment
Waste
Material resources and waste
Social megatrends
Freshwater
Water resources: quantity & flows
Technological megatrends
Air pollution
Freshwater quality
Economic megatrends
Each EEA member country (32) and EEA cooperating country (6) assessed all six environmental themes above.
Air pollution
Environmental megatrends
Urban environment
Political megatrends

14. SEIS principles Information should be
managed as close as possible to its source;
collected once, and shared with others for many purposes;
readily available and easy accessible
accessible to enable users to make comparisons at the appropriate geographical scale
fully available to the general public at national level in the relevant national language(s)
supported through common, free open software standards 14

15. What is SEIS? Why SEIS is needed?
A wealth of information is collected but:
Fragmented reporting systems
Shortcomings in relation to timeliness, availability, reliability, relevance of information
Shortcomings in ability to turn data into policy-relevant information
Underexploited opportunities offered by modern technologies
Many initiatives and processes in the right direction, but inadequate co-ordination
Now that the INSPIRE entered recently into force, Member States, their regions and the Commission are faced with important challenges related to its implementation.
Implementing INSPIRE will require commitment and efforts from many public authorities and organisations which are dealing with data related to the environment.
Faced with these challenges it may be worthwhile to look again at why we actually need an INSPIRE directive and how it fits in with recent environmental policy developments at Community level

16. Online information services
Example of application of SEIS principles
Information should be
Managed as close as possible to its source
Online information services
Current data reporting
Countries
Organisations A C B D E
> The process of decentralisation of data has started.
> The technical developments will make that change possible

17. National data, information and statistics
Example of application of SEIS principles Collected once, and shared with others for many purposes
National assessments
Regional assessments
National data, information and statistics
Global assessments 17

18. Why is SEIS needed? Example Water
International river basin districts covers more than 60 % of the EU territory.
International coordination is needed.

19. Water Information System for Europe (WISE)
Key WISE working agreements
Agreed and implemented in cooperation with DG Environment, JRC, Eurostat and EEA and its member countries
First implementation plan until 2010 – now second step until 2015
Developing a distributed system by 2015 linking to the member states
Bringing together SoE and compliance reporting
Using electronic reporting (Reportnet) as tool for all this reporting
Merging water related directives and the needed data work (WFD, UWWT, Bathing, Nitrates, water statistics ...)
Provide data and information to the public

20. WISE – partnership and integration

21. Overview on: activities planned/proposed for 2011
Country visits currently in progress, first visits take place in April – Armenia, Azerbaijan (+ Algeria, Jordan, Egypt)
Review of existing international and regional core sets of indicators (via Joint Task Force)
Overview of available information sources to be prepared by national representatives – Country reports – comprehensive for all priorities or selected pilots?
Overview of relevant regional projects and identification of synergy activities
Steering committee meeting and regional workshops
Preparation of SEIS ‘Cookbook’
Preparation of ENPI-SEIS newsletters
Development and update of ENPI-SEIS website

22. Scope of SEIS Country Visit
To get a common understanding on what exactly SEIS is about
To bring together existing country networks which manage environmental information
To learn about the existing information systems and to analyse the current readiness for SEIS implementation
To obtain feedback on country specific needs
To exchange information about the latest developments on content, infrastructure and institutional cooperation
To collect recommendations for the further development of SEIS

23. SEIS and ENP Expected outcomes
Long term:
Improved assessment of the quality of the environment at regional level by using common tools and methodologies
Stronger institutional partnership at national level
Trained experts in all SEIS components (from data to assessments and communication)
Improved regional cooperation and partnership with regional and international bodies
Short term:
Clear baseline of existing situation as basis for improved national and regional reporting 23

24. What benefits will SEIS bring?
Increased flexibility and greater use of data
More efficient trans-boundary analyses
Simplification and efficiency
Streamlining of data flows
Reduction in administrative burden and costs
Better regulation, better policy
More consistent and integrated input
Empowering citizens
Widespread availability of information
Boosting innovation and intelligent e-Services
eGovernment, eEnvironment

25. Conclusion: SEIS is about...
1. Shared (institutional cooperation)
Political commitment (legislative/non-legislative)
Partnership (win-win)
Networking (connecting)
2. Environmental Information (content)
Horizontal integration (thematic)
Vertical integration (local to global)
Policy-relevant indicators
Indicator-based assessments
For policy makers and public (multi-purpose)
3. System (infrastructure)
Existing ICT Infrastructure
New e-Services (e-Government)
Online access (near real time)
We see three pillars of both Eionet and SEIS which are necessary for any networking activity:
Organisation – cooperation
Common content
Infrastructure and tools 25

26. Thank you for your attention!
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