Because the original and essential value of spatial data ' data that refer to specific geographical locations or areas ' lies in environmental decision-making, such data mostly originate in the public sector and are made available to people,

The Availability of Spatial and Environmental Data in the European Union

Understanding the legal challenges relating to spatial data information (SDI).

"The new book Mapping Ecosystem Services provides a comprehensive collection of theories, methods and practical applications of ecosystem services (ES) mapping, for the first time bringing together valuable knowledge and techniques from leading international experts in the field." (www.eurekalert.org).

This book provides user studies and theories related to user-centered technology design processes for e-government projects. The book mainly discusses inherent issues of technology design implications, user experiences, and guidelines for technology appropriation. Ethnographic studies focusing on real life examples will enable readers to understand the problems in an effective way. Furthermore, the theories and results will help researchers and practitioners to handle these challenges in an efficient way. E-Government is about harnessing the information revolution to improve the efficiency of government processes and the lives of citizens. It aims at a citizen centered approach to governance through effective use of the Internet and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). E-Government promotes transparency and effectiveness of a government’s processes as well as citizens’ participation (e-participation) in the affairs of the government. Whereas E-government projects are huge undertakings for government departments, a user-centric approach requires citizens’ participation in the design and delivery of e government services. In both these respects, there are huge challenges and governments require long term commitment as well as correct planning and availability of financial resources to address them. System design for e-governmental applications is inherently a complex process. In successful e-government projects, appropriately designed technology infrastructure plays a pivotal rule. The technology appropriation process requires that e-government technologies should be in line with the work practices of end users, so that successful usage of these technologies can be realized. E-governmental systems which fail to take into account such human factors result in failure and wasting huge amounts of public money as well as a loss of confidence of the public in such technological infrastructures. It is highly important that citizens are enabled to have access to the appropriate information technology, have knowledge and skills to use the available technology, and have the positive commitment to affect the governments’ strategies. So, enabling citizens to effectively participate is much more difficult. This book addresses these inherent challenges and available opportunities with respect to user-centric e-government.

This book relies on the conceptual model of Open Government (OG), focusing on transparency and, concretely, in open data initiatives at the local government context with the aim of improving participation and collaboration. Most Open Government models are centered on three pillars: transparency, participation and collaboration. Transparency is a crucial ingredient of OG and, applied to data openness means to ensure that the data are well known, comprehensible, easily accessible and open to all. new governance models based on different open data models have not been proposed up to now. The chapter authors seek to contribute recent research to the discussion on governance models of open data initiatives to support Open Governments with the aim of creating public value. It includes both theoretical and empirical studies on governments models in open data initiatives.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 12th IFIP WG 5.11 International Symposium on Environmental Software Systems, ISESS 2017, held in Zadar, Croatia, in May 2017. The 35 revised full papers presented together with 4 keynote lectures were carefully reviewed and selected from 46 submissions. The papers deal with environmental challenges and try to provide solutions using forward-looking and leading-edge IT technology. They are organized in the following topical sections: air and climate; water and hydrosphere; health and biosphere; risk and disaster management; information systems; and modelling, visualization and decision support.