The GIGAS Forum – Bringing together GEOSS, INSPIRE, GMES, and SEIS

The workshop will take place during the conference “Towards eEnvironment” (Workshop W6 (PS30)):

26th March 2009
Hotel Corintia Towers, Hall E
Prague, Czech Republic

For further details on the conference see http://www.e-envi2009.org.

Workshop chairpersons: Eva Klien, Alessandro Annoni, Pier Giorgio Marchetti

The fact that there are various environmental initiatives that share commonalities but that are being developed independently makes up a complex landscape in terms of adoption of standards introducing interoperability barriers.

The GIGAS Forum is an authoritative platform aiming to monitor and advice upon architectural progresses in relevant Environmental Monitoring and Environmental Information Management initiatives of European interest (including GMES, GEOSS, INSPIRE, and SEIS). Through direct linkage with other relevant forums, the GIGAS Forum provides a central point to access information. It is the place to meet, discuss and agree about geospatial standards and best practices and to find solutions for interoperability problems in cross-initiative scenarios.

The Workshop provides an introduction into the GIGAS project, which is a support action for setting up and activating the GIGAS Forum. In the project, methodologies are generated and tested for monitoring and comparing existing initiatives (like GEOSS, INSPIRE, GMES, and SEIS) and for facilitating a consensus building process on how to influence their evolution.