GMES and INSPIRE: Harmonising cross-thematic environmental data for integrated intelligence

GMES and INSPIRE are mutually beneficial and require close collaboration between communities from both domains to mitigate and adapt to environmental and security challenges. For example, extension of GMES services into the cross-cutting domains of Security, Emergency Response and Climate Change re-enforce the need for cross-thematic data harmonisation and interoperability between services which can be fulfilled by INSPIRE based initiatives. In this regard, the FP6 HUMBOLDT project provides various INSPIRE and OGC compliant tools, components and services that are applied on various environmental scenarios related to GMES application domains. In this paper, we discuss the HUMBOLDT urban scenario where the aforementioned cross-thematic harmonisation and interoperability practices are critically necessary to advance integrated urban management, with the objective to identify potential contributions towards GMES initial operations.