Taking the leap : from disparate data to a fully interactive SEIS for the Maltese Islands

Abstract

Taking environmental and spatial planning data to the masses has proven an arduous, expensive and barrier-strewn reality. Data costs, inaccessibility and lack of interactive sites have impeded the implementation of online analysis and knowledge building. The implementation of the Aarhus Convention, the transposition of the INSPIRE Directive and the launching of the SEIS initiative have enabled the Maltese Islands to take the next step into the dissemination of spatial and environmental data to the academic, scientific and public communities. This was made possible through the implementation of a project entitled “Developing national environmental infrastructure and capacity” co-financed under the 2007-2013 European Regional Development Funds (Structural Funds) Programme for Malta, which project was aimed to take national environmental monitoring capacity from a semi-analogue state to a fully interactive online system. The project aims at procuring hardware and software, taking innovative scans of the terrestrial and bathymetric domains, launching SEIS-based information management systems and disseminating the all the data for free.