GIS in nature protection and
spatial planning of Latvia
GREENINFRANET project “Best practice transfer workshop I. Spatial planning tools for the
protection of natural values”
Budapest-Gödöllő
07.10.2013.
Martins Grels
Ministry of Environmental Protecion and Regional Development
Spatial Planning Department
Spatial Planning Policy Division
Pils street 17, Riga, LV-1050, Latvia
email: martins.grels@varam.gov.lv
Tel.: (+371) 66016 733
Mob. (+371) 2910 6061
Quick overview of presentation
•
•
•
•
•
•
Geographical overview of Latvia.
Nature protection in Latvia
Spatial planning in Latvia
Problems with the use of GIS
Financing the use of GIS.
Cooperation
What kind of country is Latvia?
Geographical overview (1)
• Area of Latvia is 64 562 km 2.
• Forests - ~54% of area.
• Latvia is a flat country. Latvia's highest point is
Coat of arms
Flag of Latvia
Gaiziņkalns, 311.6 m.
• Long sea coast line – 498 km.
• Very low population density -~2 million
inhabitants (~700 000 in capital city – Riga)
• In a typical Latvian landscape, a mosaic of vast
forests alternates with fields, farmsteads, and
pastures.
Geographical overview (2)
• Main socioeconomic data:
–
–
–
–
GDP = 21.9 billion EUR,
GDP per capita = 10 943 EUR.
Import > Export (14.3 billion EUR > 13.6 billion EUR)
Latvia is listed 44th on the Human Development Index
• Latvia is part of EU and a post-soviet state.
• Coordinate systems mainly used:
– Official orthogonal coordinate system is in Transverse Mercator
projection - LKS-92 (Latvian coordinate system),
• which is based on European Terrestrial Reference System
• with axial meridian 24° eastern longitude,
• it is adjusted to WGS 84 and equatorial abscissa X has value 0. (in fact there
is a double system: some still use system with +6 million m latitude)
– geographical coordinate system is WGS 84.
Administrative structure - Municipalities
in Latvia
• We have 119 municipalities (very diverse)
• 5 planning regions (complicated status, financed by state, but decisions are made
by representatives of municipalities)
Nature protection in Latvia (1) –
General information
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
A relatively green country with low pollution levels and many valuable habitats.
Altogether, approximately 27 700 flora and fauna species have been registered in Latvia. Many of
them are endangered in Europe.
Latvia has a long tradition of nature conservation, first protected area – 1900 (Moricsala
reserve).
Protection Zone Law helps protect ecosystems by defining protected belts or buffer-zones around
water objects and infrastructure, around marshes, forest protection zones around cities etc.)
MEPRD and Nature conservation agency are responsible for nature protection in Latvia,
municipalities play minor role.
Lack of GIS experts (and spatial perspective) in governmental institutions and in private
sector as well.
Specially protected nature territories (SPNT) are geographically defined areas that are
under special protection of the State in order to protect and preserve diversity of the nature.
Natura2000 territories – 327, they cover 12 % of Latvia.
Classification of SPNT:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Strict Nature reserves (4)
National parks (4)
Biosphere reserves (1)
Nature parks (42)
Nature monuments (206 geological and geomorphological nature monuments, 89 dendrological plantings
and 60 avenues are protected in Latvia, protected trees)
Nature reserves (275)
Protected landscape areas (9)
Protected marine areas (7)
Nature protection in Latvia (2) – Specially
protected nature territories (SPNT)
Nature protection in Latvia (3) – “OZOLS”
• Nature protection GIS for Latvia: “OZOLS”. Good
project, created with financial support of ERDF (Project Nr.
3DP/3.2.2.1.1/09/IPIA/IUMPELS/013 - "OZOLS“)
• One of the best sources of information for all
stakeholders about SPNT. The information is
combined with cadastre information and topographical
data and orthophoto.
• OZOLS is integrated in nature conservation agency
homepage (ESRI solution)
• Good data quality and topology
• Metadata available
Nature protection in Latvia (4) – OZOLS interface
Nature protection in Latvia (5)– OZOLS GIS system
Organisations in Nature protection
• Organisations, who are mapping Nature protection
and dealing with nature protection daily:
– Nature protection Department
• Only 1 GIS user (2013) [main tasks include creation of boarders of protected
areas, making overview maps, simple spatial analysis, issuing official opinion for EIA
etc.]
– Nature conservation agency (Supervised by MEPRD)
• Only 2 GIS users (2013) [main tasks include spatial work with protected
areas, subdivision of areas(eg. habitats), attribute data management, other
work within OZOLS system]
– Private consultant firms
• Where most of GIS specialists are [main tasks are digitalization or
other spatial data creation (or data conversion to spatial data) and
traditional cartography (making maps), but they also have capacity
for remote sensing (aerial photography, LIDAR), complex spatial
analysis, pollution or noise modeling etc.]
Spatial planning in Latvia
• MEPRD Spatial planning department is responsible for:
– national level thematic planning in Latvia (e.g., National level coastal
infrastructure development plan etc.),
– marine spatial planning (MSP).
– Supervision territorial planning procedure in municipalities and regions.
• There is lack of GIS specialists in this department. Fortunately
we have an ArcGIS now in 2013 and we are developing internal
use of GIS also for interinstitutional communication purposes –
mapping overview or thematic maps (e.g., MSP).
• Consulting companies from private sector made spatial plans in
most cases, ministry was more of a coordinating and controlling
institution.
• TAPIS spatial planning tool in MEPRD for municipalities is being
created now for unified spatial planning in municipalities. (Many
problems)
Municipality level spatial planning
• Binding plans only on municipality level territorial planning, thematic plans, local plans.
• Biggest capacity for spatial planning (including
online GIS) is in capital of Latvia – Riga.
• Most municipalities have no capacity for GIS or
spatial planning, that is why private companies
do it. (ESRI, Bentley and Autodesk softwares are used in Latvia)
Problems with GIS
• Too little data available for institutions (!)
– Not enough data about altitudes
– Not enough specific data besides topography
– Not enough statistical data from municipalities available
– Lack of precise data (small scale >1:10000)
– Lack of monitoring and mapping of monitoring data (habitat, species, quality of water etc)
• Unknown/unusable private (copyrighted) data, very little shared data about Latvia.
• Sometimes unreliable data (Incomplete, not precise, topological mess...)
• Lack of attribute data
• Different coordinate systems in one project or unknown coordinate system.
• Problems with conversion from Bentley (Microstation) *.DGN and Autodesk
(AutoCAD) *.DWG to shapefiles
• Lack of GIS coordinating agency under MEPRD which would deal with
“environmental” spatial data management and GIS (nature and environmental
protection, spatial planning etc.). Latvian Geospatial Information Agency (LGIA) is
responsible for management of general data (topography, orthophoto etc.), but it
lacks resources for gathering and managing all available data.
Financial resources for the use of GIS
• State budget – software, salaries for workers
• Project funding from:
– ERDF (European Regional Development Fund)
– ESF (European Social fund through State Regional Development Agency)
– Latvian Environmental Protection Fund
Administration
– LIFE+
– EEA/Norwegian Financial Mechanism programs
– Other funds
• Private finances (for the use of GIS in business, EIA,
EMAS, monitoring of pollution and other needs)
Cooperation
• Cooperation and data exchange is not sufficient,
and should be improved in these levels:
– Inter-institutional (institutions should share data
more, integration of data should be improved)
– International (countries should help each other with
sharing experience and data).
– Personal (Informal cooperation – based on trust and
friendship)
• Hopefully GREENINFRANET project will help to
improve the cooperation!
Thank you!
Any questions?
Contact information:
Martins Grels
Ministry of Environmental Protecion and Regional Development
Spatial Planning Department
Spatial Planning Policy Division
Pils street 17, Riga, LV-1050, Latvia
email: martins.grels@varam.gov.lv
Tel.: (+371) 66016 733
Mob. (+371) 2910 6061