Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

Country fiche: Bulgaria(draft 24 October 2018)

Date of evaluation: August 2018

SummaryOverall information governance

In Bulgaria most of the information and data on the environment is distributed between to major portals, the website of the Ministry of Environment and Water (moew.government.bg) holds the legal information for all the domains. The national Environment Agency site (eea.government.bg) contains reports and assessments. The two portals are very much interlinked, but unfortunately the information is rather fragmented between the portals. There is a general overlap and causes confusion between the type of information of the main site of the Ministry of environment and waters and the site of the Executive Environmental Agency. Additionally, there is also the national INSPIRE Geoportal (eea.government.bg), but it holds only a small amount of data so far. Bulgaria has an interlinked approach for dissemination of environmental information and data.

Overall findings including on content, sharing and usability

Most content could be found via the menu and related links. Searching for general information is easy; searching for specific information takes more time and is sometimes confusing within the menu of the sites. Legal information and national plans and programs were found for all the domains. For most of the other queried information the results differ between the domains. Some like Water are decently covered. Metadata and references to data quality related to the monitoring data were hardly ever found.

In general the sharing criteria are met, except that an explicit licence for re-use was not found.

The usability is fine. No alternatives for visually and hearing-impaired users is available and while the site is largely accessible and there is an English version available, only part of the content has been translated. English and Bulgarian sites have often different structure and content. The portal is regarded as pleasant. Just over 60% of the content is found, but most of it was found easily and almost everything was found using the menu.

Guidance

Overall the link between the most important websites could be enforced and there are gaps in the availability of data across the most important environmental domains. Promotion of re-use of monitoring data would benefit of more available and better metadata.

The national Environment Agency site (eea.government.bg) would benefit from some restructuring, as at the moment information is delivered in many different places (different sub-menus, infoboxes) and a more cohesive approach would increase usability.

IntroductionThis country fiche is a product of a project1 financed by the European Commission carried out mainly in 2018 with the objective to assess the maturity of active dissemination of environmental information in EU Member States. The examination and evaluation of active dissemination was by reference to a set of precise EU environmental legislative and policy frameworks. These have high overall importance and are representative, but they are not the totality of what the EU environmental acquis covers. It is not excluded that, in the Member State, levels of active dissemination will be different outside of the specific areas examined. 1 ‘Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting

at EU level’ under Framework Contract No 07.0203/2017/761039/SER/ENV.E.4 of Directorate General for Environment

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Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

Moreover, the project aims to retrieve information on environmental data spread out in different locations and systems and to explore ways to collect this data in the most efficient manner. Targeted collection of environmental data through active dissemination could lower the administrative reporting burden in the Member States. Currently, the legal obligation to report and monitor throughout the full environmental domain shows a scattered landscape of different environment information systems targeted at specific regulatory monitoring and reporting obligations.

As a starting point, the situation for every Member State was analysed and summarised in a country fiche in which the current situation (2018 or earlier) on governance, content, sharing and usability performance of the national environmental systems are described. The country fiches are linked to the preparation of the guidance document for good practices for national environmental information systems. For more information on the project and the methodology, see the final paragraph of the country fiche and the project webpage (www.eis-data.eu ) 2 .

Governance By ‘governance’ we mean the structure that Member States have put in place for active dissemination of information and data on the environment. Good governance means that Member States actively disseminate environmental data and information in an (easy) accessible manner for all and the system is well-maintained and updated as frequently as feasible. In the Governance part we look into the structure and refer to INSPIRE and the analyses is made based on the findings in the content part of the evaluation.

In Bulgaria most of the information and data is distributed between to major portals, the website of the Ministry of Environment and Water (moew.government.bg) holds the legal information for all the domains, as well as more detailed information and data for the water directive. The national Environment Agency site (eea.government.bg) contains reports and assessments, and further information and links to some other topics, especially information and data connected to the habitat directive. The two portals are very much interlinked, but unfortunately the information is rather fragmented between the portals. Additionally, there is also the national INSPIRE Geoportal, but it holds only a small amount of data so far. Bulgaria has an interlinked approach for dissemination of environmental data.

Next to the main Environmental Portals there are few other specific websites related to (e.g. Biodiversity portal), Information systems on Monitoring and sub-sites of the Regional Environmental Agencies. The sites of the Regional Environmental Agencies contain additional specific information on the state of the environment per region and the EIAs and SEAs procedures.

2 During the duration of the project.

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Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

INSPIRE

The Information on INSPIRE is not well linked to the main environmental portals and is part of a different system linked to the Ministry of Transport and Communications. This makes the INSPIRE rather detached from the environmental framework and the operational programme on environment of Bulgaria. Three other sectoral operational programmes are currently part of the INSPIRE related portal, among which the Operational programme on regional development which deals with territorial and spatial planning.

Criterion Rating Remarks

1.1 How is the governance of dissemination of environmental data and information arranged? Bulgaria has an interlinked system. There are two

main portals that are well linked

1.2 What is the link with INSPIRE and the INSPIRE portal In national environmental portal reference is

made to INSPIRE (eea.government.bg), but the EIS’s and the INSPIRE portal are not very well linked.

ContentThe criteria on content indicate the ease of finding environmental data and information within a Member State. We searched in the six main environmental domains, Air, Biodiversity, Water, Chemicals, Industrial Emissions and Waste and restricted the search to one specific Directive as indicated above the tables. If the answer ‘not found’ is given it does not necessarily mean the information is not there, but it means we could not find it using the methodology set out in documents available on www.eis-data.eu.

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Search protocol

First search main environmental portal (and if relevant linked portals) via menu and keyword search

If not found, next search other relevant portals in longlist via menu and keyword search If not found, finally perform keyword search in general search engine

Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

General overview

Legal information and national plans and programs were found for all the domains almost exclusively on the Ministry of Environment and Water website (moew.government.bg). For most of the other queried information the results differ between the domains. Some like Water are decently covered. Regarding INSPIRE, data was available for the Habitat domain which is connected to the INSPIRE Protected Sites Annex, but most other topics do not come according to INSPIRE guidelines. Impact assessment reports were found for all domains, but generally with some difficulty. Monitoring data was found mostly on the national Environment Agency site (eea.government.bg). Metadata and references to data quality related to the monitoring data were hardly ever found.

Content criteria related to State of the Environmental report and permits/licenses

Criterion Rating

Remarks

2.0 Are reports on state of the Environment provided? The National Report on the Status and Protection of

the Environment in the Republic of Bulgaria is easily found at the main data portal in a publication directory or in the domain sub-sites at eea.government.bg

2.1 Is information on permits and licenses available? No information was found on the main portal, nor in

the other portals in the longlist or via keyword search in a general search engine.

easily found (within 5 clicks); difficult to find (more than 5 clicks); not found

Content criteria related to legislation

For the domain of Air, the following legislation is selected: Directive 2008/50/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2008 on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe. The criteria below are searched for in relation to this directive. For the search for monitoring data we focussed on data of air quality.

Air Rating

Remarks

2.2 Are links to European legal base of this legislation provided? The website of the Ministry of Environment and

Water has information on both national and international legislation where the directive was available. It was easily found via the menu at moew.government.bg

2.3 Are links to national policies, plans, programs related to environment linked to this legislation provided? A national legislation on clean air was easily found

via menu on the website of the Ministry of Environment and Water at moew.government.bg

2.4 Are monitoring data (or summaries thereof) connected to this legislation provided? A search for air quality data (spatial or statistical) is performed.

Monitoring data for this directive, the last recorded values of the alarm thresholds, was easily found via menu at eea.government.bg

2.5 Are environmental impact studies connected to the legislation provided? Publications on the impact of air quality have

been found. They are also available on regional portals. They were easily found via menu at eea.government.bg

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Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

2.6 Are the monitoring data found and provided according to the INSPIRE directive? The INSPIRE portal is linked, but it does not

contain data connected to this directive. Data found via: eea.government.bg

2.7 Are historical datasets available of the monitoring data found? The monitoring data found earlier does contain

historical data. It was easily found via menu at eea.government.bg

2.8 Is metadata of the monitoring data found accessible and harvestable? No metadata found related to the monitoring data

found at 2.4 was found.

2.9 Is there an indication of quality control (incl. accuracy, consistency, coherence, completeness, schema validation) given for the monitoring data found?

No indication of quality control was found related to the monitoring data found at 2.4.

easily found (within 5 clicks); difficult to find (more than 5 clicks); not found

For the domain of Biodiversity, the following legislation is selected: Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora. The criteria below are searched for in relation to this directive. For the search for monitoring data we focussed on data of habitats.

Biodiversity Rating

Remarks

2.10 Are links to European legal base of this legislation provided? The directive was found on the website of the

Ministry of Environment and Water. It was easily found via menu at moew.government.bg

2.11 Are links to national policies, plans, programs related to environment linked to this legislation provided? The website of the Ministry of Environment and

Water has a section dedicated to national legislation which include laws on nature and species protection. It was easily found via menu at moew.government.bg

2.12 Are monitoring data (or summaries thereof) connected to this legislation provided? A search for habitat data (spatial or statistical) is performed.

Monitoring data for this directive, the BioMon RDB, was easily found via the menu at eea.government.bg

2.13 Are environmental impact studies connected to the legislation provided? Reports and assessments on this domain are

available and easily found via the main menu at eea.government.bg

2.14 Are the monitoring data found and provided according to the INSPIRE directive? For this domain a link to INSPIRE has been found.

It was easily found via keyword search at eea.government.bg

2.15 Are historical datasets available of the monitoring data found? No historical datasets related to the monitoring

data found at 2.12 have been found.

2.16 Is metadata of the monitoring data found accessible and harvestable? A link towards metadata was found but broken. It

was found via the menu at eea.government.bg

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Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

2.17 Is there an indication of quality control (incl. accuracy, consistency, coherence, completeness, schema validation) given for the monitoring data found?

No information regarding quality control found related to the monitoring data found at 2.12.

easily found (within 5 clicks); difficult to find (more than 5 clicks); not found

For the domain of Water, the following legislation is selected: Water frame directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy. The criteria below are searched for in relation to this directive. For the search for monitoring data we focussed on data of water quality data of WFD water bodies. All items were found except for the indication of quality control in relation to the found monitoring data.

Water Rating

Remarks

2.18 Are links to European legal base of this legislation provided? The directive was found on the website of the

Ministry of Environment and Water. It was easily found via menu at moew.government.bg

2.19 Are links to national policies, plans, programs related to environment linked to this legislation provided? The Ministry website has a section dedicated to

national law, which included the Water Act. It was easily found via menu at moew.government.bg

2.20 Are monitoring data (or summaries thereof) connected to this legislation provided? A search for water quality data of WFD water bodies (spatial or statistical) is performed.

Monitoring data for this directive, information about the state of water bodies, was easily found via the menu at moew.government.bg

2.21 Are environmental impact studies connected to the legislation provided? Reports and assessments on this domain are

available but not easy to find. They are found via menu at moew.government.bg

2.22 Are the monitoring data found and provided according to the INSPIRE directive? For this domain a link to INSPIRE has been found.

It was found via key word search at eea.government.bg

2.23 Are historical datasets available of the monitoring data found? Historical datasets could be found via the menu

on the site of the Ministry of Environment and Water at moew.government.bg

2.24 Is metadata of the monitoring data found accessible and harvestable? No metadata related to the monitoring data found

at 2.20 was found

2.25 Is there an indication of quality control (incl. accuracy, consistency, coherence, completeness, schema validation) given for the monitoring data found?

Information on quality control related to the monitoring data was easily found via menu at moew.government.bg

For the domain of Chemicals, the following legislation is selected: Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 – REACH of 18 December 2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) and establishing a European Chemicals Agency. The criteria below are searched for in relation to this directive. For the search for monitoring data we focussed on data on presence of chemicals in soil or water.

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Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

Chemicals Rating

Remarks

2.26 Are links to European legal base of this legislation provided? The directive was found on the website of the

Ministry of Environment and Water. It was easily found via menu at moew.government.bg

2.27 Are links to national policies, plans, programs related to environment linked to this legislation provided? National legislation such was the Law on

Protection Against Harmful Impact of Chemical Substances and Mixtures can be found on the website of the Ministry of Environment and Water was easily found via menu at moew.government.bg

2.28 Are monitoring data (or summaries thereof) connected to this legislation provided? A search for presence of chemicals in soil or water (spatial or statistical) is performed.

Some data has been found but it was not very comprehensive. It included a lot of regulatory information on procedures. It was found with some difficulty via menu at moew.government.bg

2.29 Are environmental impact studies connected to the legislation provided? Some reports have been found but the

information was not very comprehensive. It was found with some difficulty via menu at moew.government.bg

2.30 Are the monitoring data found and provided according to the INSPIRE directive? No INSPIRE themes are mentioned in relation to

the monitoring data found at 2.28

2.31 Are historical datasets available of the monitoring data found? No historical datasets found related to the

monitoring data found at 2.28

2.32 Is metadata of the monitoring data found accessible and harvestable? No metadata found related to the monitoring data

found at 2.28

2.33 Is there an indication of quality control (incl. accuracy, consistency, coherence, completeness, schema validation) given for the monitoring data found?

No quality information found related to the monitoring data found at 2.28

For the domain of Industrial Emissions, the following legislation is selected: Directive 2010/75/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 November 2010 on industrial emissions (integrated pollution prevention and control and the Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 January 2006 concerning the establishment of a European Pollutant Release. The criteria below are searched for in relation to this directive. For the search for monitoring data we focussed on data of industrial emissions in air.

Industrial emissions Rating

Remarks

2.34 Are links to European legal base of this legislation provided? The directive can be found on the website of the

Ministry of Environment and Water. It was easily found via menu atmoew.government.bg

2.35 Are links to national policies, plans, programs related to environment linked to this legislation provided? Information on national legislation like the law on

the Clean Air Atmosphere can be found on the website of the Ministry of Environment and Water

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Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

has information on both national and international legislation. It was easily found via menu atmoew.government.bg

2.36 Are monitoring data (or summaries thereof) connected to this legislation provided? A search for data on industrial emissions in air (spatial or statistical) is performed.

No monitoring data was found on the main portal, nor in the other portals in the longlist or via keyword search in a general search engine

2.37 Are environmental impact studies connected to the legislation provided? Some studies were available but they were

difficult to find. It was found via menu at eea.government.bg

2.38 Are the monitoring data found and provided according to the INSPIRE directive? No information on INSPIRE compliancy was found

on the portal since no monitoring data was found

2.39 Are historical datasets available of the monitoring data found? No historical datasets found since no monitoring

data found at 2.36

2.40 Is metadata of the monitoring data found accessible and harvestable? No metadata of the monitoring was found on the

portal since no information on monitoring data was found

2.41 Is there an indication of quality control (incl. accuracy, consistency, coherence, completeness, schema validation) given for the monitoring data found?

No quality information since no information on monitoring data was found

For the domain of Waste, the following legislation is selected: Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste. The criteria below are searched for in relation to this directive. For the search for monitoring data we focussed on data of amount of waste or landfill sites (spatial/statistical).

Waste Rating

Remarks

2.42 Are links to European legal base of this legislation provided? The directive can be found on the website of the

Ministry of Environment and Water. It was easily found via menu atmoew.government.bg

2.43 Are links to national policies, plans, programs related to environment linked to this legislation provided? Information on national legislation like the Waste

Management Act can be found on the website of the Ministry of Environment and Water has information on both national and international legislation. It was easily found via menu at moew.government.bg

2.44 Are monitoring data (or summaries thereof) connected to this legislation provided? A search for data on produced waste or landfills (spatial or statistical) is performed.

Data found were public registers and a national information system for monitoring of waste. Reports available also per municipality. It was easily found via menu at eea.government.bg

2.45 Are environmental impact studies connected to the legislation provided? Some studies were available but they were

difficult to find via menu at eea.government.bg

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Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

2.46 Are the monitoring data found and provided according to the INSPIRE directive? No INSPIRE themes mentioned in relation to the

monitoring data found at 2.44

2.47 Are historical datasets available of the monitoring data found? No historical data found in relation to the

monitoring data found at 2.44

2.48 Is metadata of the monitoring data found accessible and harvestable? No metadata found in relation to the monitoring

data found at 2.44

2.49 Is there an indication of quality control (incl. accuracy, consistency, coherence, completeness, schema validation) given for the monitoring data found?

No quality information found in relation to the monitoring data found at 2.44

SharingThe criteria on sharing indicate the ease with which data and information provided by an environmental portal can be shared. Users can be persons to look up information and/or view and download the data on a portal, but it can also mean automatic extraction of data and information by harvesting. For the main environmental portals moew.government.bg and eea.government.bg a number of issues regarding sharing are evaluated.

In general the sharing criteria are met, except that the licence to re-use was not found.

Sharing Rating

Remarks

3.1 Is it possible to view the data? Viewing services are present and linked in the main portal.

3.2 Is it possible to download the data in most commonly used file formats? Data can be downloaded in common formats,

sometimes this includes database dumps. However, accessing data via the view services is difficult.

3.3 What communication possibilities are available? It is possible to contact the site

owners/administrators via contact form or email, but it is not possible to communicate with other users.

3.4 Is the license to re-use data published? No clear licencing was found.

3.5 Is access to registers or lists open? (catalogues, thesaurus, vocabularies) Registers found were open and free of charge.

3.6 Is environmental data freely available (free of charge)? Data found were open and free of charge.

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Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

UsabilityThe criteria regarding the usability indicate the ease of use by consumers. For the main environmental portals moew.government.bg and eea.government.bg the following issues regarding usability are evaluated.

When searching for the data and directives most content was found (62%). Most of the found content was found by using the menu options of the portal (94%). Of the items that were found 77% were found easily (within 5 clicks).

The usability is fine. No alternatives for visually and hearing-impaired users were available and while the site is largely accessible and there is an English version available, only part of the content has been translated. English and Bulgarian sites have often different structure and content. The portal is regarded as pleasant. Just over 60% of the content is found, but most of it was found easily and almost everything was found via the menu.

Usability Rating

Remarks

4.1 Are environmental indicators used? Environmental indicators are used in the portal.

4.2 Are facilities to support the user provided? There is some help functionality like a clear menu,

sitemaps and search functions.

4.3 Are alternatives for visually and hearing impaired users available? No alternatives found.

4.4 Is the portal multi-lingual? The portals is available in Bulgarian and English, but not all the content has been translated.

4.5 How was your overall experience? Data is distributed between 2 portals eea.government.bg and meow.government.bg, the latter holds all the legal documentation, while the former should be a gateway to monitoring data.

4.6 How do you judge the appearance of the site Pleasant websites.

4.7 What is your impression of the complexity of the site The site of the Ministry of Environment and Water

is well structured, while information on the Environmental portal is not always easy to find (there are different menus and info boxes throughout the site)

4.8 Percentage of criteria of content found by using the menu 33-66% (29 out of 31)

4.9 Percentage of criteria of content found >66% (31 out of 50)

4.10 Percentage Criteria of content found easily if found >66% (24 out of 31)

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Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

GuidanceOverall the link between the most important websites could be stronger and there are gaps in the availability of data across the most important environmental domains. Promotion of re-use of monitoring data would benefit of more and better metadata.

The national Environment Agency site (eea.government.bg) would benefit from some restructuring, as at the moment information is delivered in many different places (different sub-menus, infoboxes) and a more cohesive approach would increase usability.

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Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

Longlist These are the EIS’s that were foundduring the first inventory. In the first column is indicated which column we encountered during the evaluation.

√ Portal Portal type

URL Owner Administrator

BSDI (Bulgarian Spatial Data Infrastructure)

National http://bsdi.asde-bg.org ASDE ASDE

Datecs GIS center National http://gis.datecs.bg Datecs GIS center Kiril Vachov√ Ministry of Environment

and WaterNational http://www.moew.government.bg/ Bulagaria Ministry of Environment and Water

National Institute of Geophysics, Geography and Geodesy

National http://www.niggg.bas.bg/en/ Bulagaria National Institute of Geophysics, Geography and Geodesy

√ National Statistical Institute

National http://www.nsi.bg National Statistical Institute National Statistical Institute

√ EEA Site Bulgaria National http://eea.government.bg EEA EEA

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Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level

Reference to project and methodologyThe evaluation was carried out by at least two members of the project team for ‘Promotion of best practices for national environmental information systems and tools for data harvesting at EU level’. Differences between the results of both evaluations are discussed and checked and this country fiche visualises the results. For background information and references regarding the method we refer to the guidance document available at www.eis-data.eu.

DisclaimerThis draft country fiche is part of an ongoing project and is work in progress. This document has been prepared for the European Commission however it reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

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