The importance of open environment data on the European Data Portal
Publication Date/Time
2018-11-07T09:00:00+00:00
Country
Europe
Use cases exemplify the value of reusing open environment data
INSIGHTS INTO ONE OF THE HIGH VALUE DATA DOMAINS 

Not all Open Data has the same potential for reuse. The European Data
Portal provides thirteen data categories of which certain data
categories are more frequently reused than others. On a European
level, the European Commission has identified five thematic data
domains that are expected to represent those with the highest demand
from reusers across the EU: geospatial data, earth observation data
and environment, transport data, statistics and company data.

This article will delve into the second thematic data domain:
environment data.

CONSEQUENCES OF GLOBAL WARMING

The European Data Portal offers 90,883 datasets on open environment
data. The data range from a survey concerning the water quality of
rivers in Wales
[/data/de/dataset/water-quality-survey-of-streams-across-wales-runoff-from-forested-and-felled-catchments-drainin],
to measuring data from the air quality in Switzerland
[/data/dataset/https-opendata-swiss-dataset-5d3791a0-fb3b-4bc0-b106-268fbe64b7c5]
or the quality monitoring groundwater and surface water in Portugal
[/data/dataset/0950066d-8c1e-478c-a9b8-a96db959184e].

Most datasets in this domain focus on pollution and the improvement of
environmental conditions. For example, the data about mountain
ecosystems in a changing environment in Austria
[/data/en/dataset/mountain-ecosystems-in-a-changing-environment01]
provides information about biodiversity, climatic change and CO2. This
kind of data is significant because alpine ecosystems are facing
tremendous environmental changes due to climatic warming
[http://www.parcs.at/npa/pdf_public/2018/35952_20180315_084439_NP_Hohe_Tauern_Conference_5_0409-0412.pdf].
More specifically, global warming in the Alps is causing a massive
decline in glaciers and an increase in snow-free seasons of below
2000m. Consequently, heavy rainfall and thunderstorms occur more
frequently in the Alps, leading to an increase in mudflows and
mudslides. Therefore, data that helps to understand and possibly
improve the environmental conditions are of increasing importance for
reuse.

TANGIBLE OPEN DATA USE CASES

The availability of numerous Open Data use cases makes this domain
very 'tangible' and shows the rising demand. The European Data Portal
use case section contains 29 examples relating to environmental data.
One use case is the Kanarek application
[/sites/default/files/use-cases/poland_-_kanarek.pdf] from Poland
providing transparency on current air quality and smog. Another use
case is the platform skyglyph
[/sites/default/files/use-cases/use_case_bulgaria_skyglyph.pdf] from
Bulgaria, which simplifies the management of flight control, asset
mapping, site monitoring, data transfer and the scouting process. The
advantages of this designed solution are based on closing the gap
between drone technologies and user requirements.

To get more information and browse the datasets, take a look at
environment data on the European Data Portal.
[/data/en/group/environment]
