Computing aspects of a large geographic information system for the European Community

Abstract

The CORINE programme (Co-ordinaled' Information on the European Environment) has been underway since 1985. Its purpose is to provide information on the environment of the entire European Community in a form suitable for assisting policy making. Such data must be accurate, integrated and readily available to the personnel for whom the system is designed. The system must be capable of dealing with large amounts of spatially-linked data from many different sources, in text, vector or raster form. The use of a geographic information system (GIS) is therefore essential. This paper describes the use of an interim system as a ‘bed’ for beginning the process of acquiring and integrating data. The data sets available are soils, climate, topography and ‘biotopes) (important areas for nature conservation). A data transfer format has been devised to provide for ease of transfer between various sites in the European Community with different mainframe computers. The interim system ensures that the needs of users can be defined and provides valuable user experience before a permanent system is installed. Other issues examined include the use of national and international networks and problems of integrating data when incorporating existing digital data from disparate sources into a large GIS.