Antti Jakobsson
Technical Co-ordinator of the ELF project
National Land Survey of Finland
Finland

Abstract
European Location Framework - Providing Platforms for Accessing INSPIRE Based Reference Data

Co-Author: Olaf Ostensen, Co-ordinator of the ELF Project, Statens Kartverk
BR> The European Location Framework (ELF) project (www.elfproject.eu) is working to create the first implementation of a geospatial reference infrastructure based on national information assets. Further description of the European Location Framework is available in the ELF White Paper. The Project is working currently with 14 countries to start provision of INSPIRE based services for utilization at European, cross-border and national uselevel. Project started in 2013 and launched first services in 2014 available in www.locationframework.eu. The ELF Platforms are at the core of the technical architecture. The ELF Oskari Platfrom connects the data services provided by the NMCAs and, in the future, other data providers. Using the ELF geo-tools, the datasets are prepared by the NMCAs to conform to the applicable ELF/INSPIRE data and product specifications.
The ELF Platform also comprises the view and download services that provide these datasets to users. "Users" includes end-users e.g. the European Commission, application developers using ELF services and data in their applications e.g. health statistics, insurance and reinsurance as well as developers that provide ELF data in other platforms e.g. ArcGIS Online. There are and will continue to be multiple platforms where geospatial data is used and value is created through applications. These include governmental spatial data infrastructures, typically based on OGC Web Services, but also other platforms like ArcGIS, Google Maps, MapBox, Nokia Here, the Linked Open Data Cloud, and others. These commercial platforms are designed to be able to connect to the ELF platform and provide an easy way to access otherwise rather complex ELF/INSPIRE services. The ELF should be the preferred solution for authoritative reference geo-information; to achieve this it is necessary to provide a platform which meets the user's criteria for quality, security, updating, ease of access and simplicity. As a part of the ELF project, the necessary agreements and licenses will be developed. This will be closely related to the future governance structure of ELF, which is also being developed in the project.