There are only a few days left until the end of summer and, as with every change of season, it is time to review what the last three months have brought in the Spanish open data ecosystem.

In July we learned of the latest edition of the European Commission's DESI (Digital Economy and Society Index) report, which places Spain ahead of the EU average in digital matters. Our country is in seventh position, improving two places compared to 2021. One of the areas where it performs best is in open data, where it ranks third. These good data are the result of the fact that an increasing number of organisations are committed to opening up the information they hold and more reusers are taking advantage of this data to create valuable products and services, as we will see below.

Advances in strategy and agreements to promote open data

Open data is gaining ground in political strategies at national, regional and local level.

In this regard, in July the Council of Ministers approved the draft Act on the Digital Efficiency of the Public Justice Service, an initiative that seeks to build a more accessible Justice Administration, promoting the data orientation of its systems. Among other issues, this act incorporates the concept of "open data" in the Administration of Justice.

Another example, this time at the regional level, comes from the Generalitat de Valencia, which launched a new Open Data Strategy at the beginning of the summer with the aim of offering quality public information, by design and by default.

We have also witnessed the signing  of collaboration agreements to boost the open data ecosystem, for example:

• The Ajuntament de L'Hospitalet and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya have signed an agreement to offer training to undergraduate and master's degree students in Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, based on open data work.
• The University of Castilla la Mancha has agreed with the regional government to launch the 'Open Government' chair in order to promote higher education and research in areas such as transparency, open data or access to public information.
• The National Centre for Geographic Information (CNIG) and Asedie have signed a new protocol to improve access to geographic information, in order to promote openness, access and reuse of public sector information.

Examples of data reuse

The summer of 2022 will be remembered for the heat waves and fires that have ravaged different corners of the country. A context in which open data has demonstrated its power to provide information on the state of the situation and help in extinguishing fires. Data from Copernicus or the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) have been used to monitor the situation and make decisions. These data sources, together with others, are also being used to understand the consequences of low rainfall and high temperatures on European reservoirs. In addition, these data have been used by the media to provide the public with the latest information on the evolution of the fires.

Firefighting based on open data has also been developed at the regional level. For example, the Government of Navarre has launched Agronic, a tool that works with Spatial Data Infrastructures of Navarre to prevent fires caused by harvesters.  For its part, the Barcelona Provincial Council's open data portal has published datasets with "essential information" for the prevention of forest fires. These include the network of water points, low combustibility strips and forest management actions, used by public bodies to draw up plans to deal with fire.

Other examples of the use of open data that we have seen during this period are:

• The Environmental Radiological Surveillance Network of the Generalitat de Catalunya has developed, from open data, a system to monitor the radiation present in the environment of the nuclear power plants (Vandellòs and Ascó) and the rest of the Catalan territory.
• Thanks to the open data shared by Aragón Open Data, a new scientific article on Covid-19 has been written with the aim of finding out and identifying spatio-temporal patterns in relation to the incidence of the virus and the organisation of health resources.
• The Barcelona Open Data initiative has launched #DataBretxaWomen, a project that seeks to raise public awareness of the existing inequality between men and women in different sectors.
• Maldito dato has used open data from the statistics developed by the National Statistics Institute (INE) based on mobile positioning data to show how the population density of different Spanish municipalities changes during July and August.
• Within its Data Analytics for Research and Innovation in Health Programme, Catalonia has prioritised 8 proposals for research based on data analysis. These include studies on migraines, psychosis and heart disease.

Developments in open data platforms

Summer has also been the time chosen by different organisations to launch or update their open data platforms. Examples include:

• The Statistical Institute of Navarre launched a new web portal, with more dynamic and attractive visualisations. In the process of creation, they have managed to automate statistical production and integrate all the data in a single environment.
• Zaragoza City Council has also just published a new open data portal that offers all municipal information in a clearer and more concise way. This new portal has been agreed with other city councils as part of the 'Open Cities' project.
• Another city that already has an open data portal is Cadiz. Its City Council has launched a platform that will allow the people of Cadiz to know, access, reuse and redistribute the open data present in the city.
• The Valencian Institute of Business Competitiveness (IVACE) presented an open data portal with all the records of energy certification of buildings in the Valencian Community since 2011. This will allow, among other actions, to carry out consumption analysis and establish rehabilitation strategies.
• Aragón Open Data has included a new functionality in its API that allows users to obtain geographic data in GeoJSON format.
• The National Geographic Institute announced a new version of the earthquake app, with new features, educational content and information.
• The Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge presented SIDAMUN, a platform that facilitates access to territorial statistical information based on municipal data.
• The open data portal of the Government of the Canary Islands launched a new search engine that makes it possible to locate the pages of the portal using metadata, and which allows exporting in CVS, ODS or PDF.

Some organisations have taken advantage of the summer to announce new developments that will see the light of day in the coming months, such as the Xunta de Galicia, which is making progress in the development of a Public Health Observatory through an open data platform, Burgos City Council, which will launch an open data portal, and the Pontevedra Provincial Council, which will soon launch a real-time budget viewer.

Actions to promote open data

In June we met the finalists of the IV Aporta Challenge: "The value of data for the health and well-being of citizens", the final of which will be held in October. In addition, some competitions have been launched in recent months to promote the reuse of open data, for which the registration period is still open, such as the Castilla y León competition or the first UniversiData Datathon. The Euskadi open data competition was also launched and is currently in the evaluation phase.

With regard to events, the summer started with the celebration of the Open Government Week, which brought together various activities, some of them focused on data. If you missed it, some organisations have made materials available to citizens. For example, you can watch the video of the colloquium "Open data with a gender perspective: yes or yes" promoted by the Government of the Canary Islands or access the webinar presentations to learn about the Data Office and the Aporta Initiative.

Other events that have been held with the participation of the Data Office and whose videos are public are: the National Congress on Archives and Electronic Documents and the Data Spaces as ecosystems for entities to reach further.

Finally, in the field of training, some examples of courses that have been launched these months are:

• The National Geographic Institute has launched an Inter-administrative Training Plan, with the aim of generating a common culture among all the experts in Geographic Information of the public bodies.
• Andalucía Vuela has launched a series of free training courses aimed at citizens interested in data or artificial intelligence.

International News

The summer has also brought many new developments at the international level. Some examples are:

• The beginning of the meteorological summer saw the publication of the results of the first edition of the Global Data Barometer, which measures the state of data with respect to societal issues such as Covid19 or climate.
• The 12 finalists of the Eu Datathon 2022 were also announced.
• An interactive edition of Eurostat's regional yearbook 2021 was published.
• England has developed a strategy to harness the potential of data in health and healthcare in a secure, reliable and transparent way.

This is just a selection of news among all the developments in the open data ecosystem over the last three months. If you would like to make a contribution, feel free to leave us a message in the comments or write to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.

The pandemic situation we have experienced in recent years has led to a large number of events being held online. This was the case of the Iberian Conference on Spatial Data Infrastructures (JIIDE), whose 2020 and 2021 editions had a virtual format. However, the situation has changed and in 2022 we will be able to meet again to discuss the latest trends in geographic information.

Seville will host JIIDE 2022

Seville has been the city chosen to bring together all those professionals from the public administration, private sector and academia interested in geographic information and who use Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) in the exercise of their activities.

Specifically, the event will take place from 25 to 27 October at the University of Seville. You can find more information here.

Focus on user experience

This year's slogan is "Experience and technological evolution: bringing the SDI closer to citizens".  The aim is to emphasise new technological trends and their use to provide citizens with solutions that solve specific problems, through the publication and processing of geographic information in a standardised, interoperable and open way.

Over three days, attendees will be able to share experiences and use cases on how to use Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Cloud Computing techniques to improve the analysis capacity, storage and web publication of large volumes of data from various sources, including real-time sensors.

New specifications and standards that have emerged will also be discussed, as well as the ongoing evaluation of the INSPIRE Directive.

Agenda now available

Although some participations are still to be confirmed, the programme is already available on the conference website. There will be around 80 communications where experiences related to real projects will be presented, 7 technical workshops where specific knowledge will be shared and a round table to promote debate.

Among the presentations there are some focused on open data. This is the case of Valencia City Council, which will talk about how they use open data to obtain environmental equity in the city's neighbourhoods, or the session dedicated to the "Digital aerial photo library of Andalusia: a project for the convergence of SDIs and Open-Data".

How can I attend?

The event is free of charge, but to attend you need to register using this form. You must indicate the day you wish to attend.

For the moment, registration is open to attend in person, but in September, the website of the conference will offer the possibility of participating in the JIIDE virtually.

Organisers

The Jornadas Ibéricas de Infraestructuras de Datos Espaciales (JIIDE) were born from the collaboration of the Directorate General of Territory of Portugal, the National Geographic Institute of Spain and the Government of Andorra. On this occasion, the Institute of Statistics and Cartography of Andalusia and the University of Seville join as organisers.

A data space is an ecosystem where, on a voluntary basis, the data of its participants (public sector, large and small technology or business companies, individuals, research organizations, etc.) are pooled. Thus, under a context of sovereignty, trust and security, products or services can be shared, consumed and designed from these data spaces.  

This is especially important because if the user feels that he has control over his own data, thanks to clear and concise communication about the terms and conditions that will mark its use, the sharing of such data will become effective, thus promoting the economic and social development of the environment.

In line with this idea and with the aim of improving the design of data spaces, the Data Office establishes a series of characteristics whose objective is to record the regulations that must be followed to design, from an architectural point of view, efficient and functional data spaces.

We summarize in the following visual some of the most important characteristics for the creation of data spaces. To consult the original document and all the standards proposed by the Data Office, please download the attached document at the end of this article. 

(You can download the accessible version in word here)

The following infographic shows the context driving the development of data spaces, focusing on some related European initiatives such as Gaia-X and ISDA. For more in-depth content you can read the following articles:

• The importance of deploying European Data Spaces
• Gaia-X and the drive for the data economy
• https://datos.gob.es/en/blog/ids-ram-reference-architecture-model-and-its-role-data-spaces
• The Data Office: the challenge of promoting the Data Economy

Click on the infographic to see it in full size and access the links:

Thanks to the efforts of the 160 organizations that publish data on the datos.gob.es platform, the National Open Data Catalog has reached 50,000 published datasets. Among them, we find datasets published by all levels of administration (state, regional and local), divided into the 22 thematic categories defined in the Technical Interoperability Standard (NTI, in Spanish acronyms), such as Public Sector, Society and Welfare, Environment or Economy.

In this article we want to zoom in on some of these datasets published by organizations belonging to the General State Administration (known as AGE in Spanish), based on three criteria:

• Data that receive a higher number of visits.
• High value and georeferenced data.
• Data with a high potential for reuse.

Most requested data

The Catalog's datasets recorded an average of more than 100,000 visits per month during the past year. These are some examples of the most visited datasets.

1. Price of fuel at the pump Spanish

• Publisher: Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism
• Format: CSV, XLS, KML, XML, JSON and PNG.

Contains information on the price of the different types of fuels in Spanish gas stations, such as gasoline, diesel, liquefied petroleum gases or natural gas (both compressed and liquefied). It also includes the address and opening hours of the establishments.

This dataset is widely used in applications that report on fuel price variations, such as GeoGasolineras, from the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Search for cheap gas stations in Spain or Gasoline prices on the road, both from private companies.

2. Evolution of coronavirus disease (COVID-19)

• Publisher: Ministry of Health
• Format: CSV, HTML, PDF

It collects daily data on cases and incidence of the disease COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. It also offers the historical series of cases by Autonomous Communities and Provinces. The data come from those reported by the health services of the Autonomous Communities themselves.

These data have been used to create different visualization tools that facilitate the understanding of the disease, such as the scorecard of the Ministry of Health itself, but it should be noted that there are numerous efforts at provincial and even local level in this area, some of which are included in this website.

3. Common Directory of Organizational Units and Offices (DIR3)

• Publisher: Ministry of Territorial Policy and Public Function
• Format: RDF-XML y XLSX

DIR3 codes are three codes assigned respectively to the organizational units, their associated offices and the economic and budgetary management units of a public entity.

This set of data provides a unified and common inventory for the entire Administration, facilitating the distributed and co-responsible maintenance of information.

4. Telecommunications Numbering Registry

• Publisher: National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC)
• Format: XHTML, ZIP

This is a detailed list of information relating to the different telephone numbering ranges. It also includes the services provided by the teleoperator and the maximum prices, if regulated.

In addition to offering all the data from the CNMC's Telecommunications Numbering Registry by downloading the files in compressed format, the CNMC also provides access to a search engine. On the website of the National Commission for Markets and Competition, a search tool can be accessed to find out directly to which company each telephone number belongs.

High-value geo-referenced data

A georeferenced database is one where the exact location of its elements is defined based on a coordinate system. The referenced data allow us to locate the information on maps and to superimpose layers of information that allow us to perform more in-depth analyses. Below are 4 examples of georeferenced data that you can find in datos.gob.es.

5. SIU (Urban Information System). Graphic data on land classes, urban development areas and degrees of development

• Publisher: Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda
• Format: XLS y ODS.

It offers urban information on 4,883 municipalities, including 100% of urban areas. Through a cartographic viewer, users can access the graphic and alphanumeric content of the Urban Information System.

This dataset allows a homogeneous and comparable approach to the Spanish urban reality. Among other uses, it offers information of interest in the field of decision making and urban planning.

6. Geographic reference population information

• Publisher: National Center for Geographic Information
• Format: SHP

It includes geographic information related to municipalities and population entities. It includes the names, coordinates, population, etc. of each one of them. 

The reference sources for the elaboration of this database are the Registry of Local Entities (MINHAP), the National Institute of Statistics and cartographic databases of the National Geographic Institute.

7. ZESIS - Seismogenic Zonation of Iberia

• Publisher: Geological and Mining Institute of Spain
• Format: MDB, XLS, HTML, JSON, KMZ, XML, SHP.

This is a database of seismogenic zones of the Iberian Peninsula and its territories of influence. Its use is intended for the calculation of the update of the hazard and earthquake risk map in Spain.

In this viewer you can see in a simple way the different points and know their level of danger.

8. Natural systems of Spanish natural parks

• Publisher: National Parks Autonomous Agency
• Format: SHP, HTML

It collects the cartography of the natural vegetation and geological systems of the Spanish National Park Network. As it is homogeneous information, it allows comparisons to be made throughout the territory.

A cartographic viewer has also been developed that includes additional information on their location or the species of fauna and flora that inhabit them.

Data with high reuse potential

In datos.gob.es you can find versatile data with a multitude of formats that facilitate its reuse, many of them also georeferenced. Here are some examples:

9. Directory of Spanish Libraries and Periodical Libraries

• Publisher: National Library of Spain
• Format: CSV, HTML, JSON, ODS, plain, XML

Contains descriptions of Spanish libraries and documentation centers in any country. It includes information about their location, type of collection (books, reports, newspaper articles, maps, engravings, etc.) or the type of library (public, school, etc.), among other aspects.

Very useful for integration into tourist or citizen information applications that show the location of various services in a centralized way.

10. Database of Spanish Administrative Divisions

• Publisher: National Center for Geographic Information
• Format: SHP, atom, WFS, WMS

It includes geographic data related to municipal, provincial and autonomic precincts and their boundary lines. The scale used is 1:25,000.

It is very useful to know the space occupied by our towns and to know to which municipality a specific space belongs.

11. State of drought and water scarcity in the Guadalquivir, Ceuta and Melilla river basin districts

• Publisher: Guadalquivir Hydrographic Confederation
• Format: HTML, ODS, PNG, SHP

It provides the history of drought and water scarcity indicators in the Guadalquivir, Ceuta and Melilla river basin districts, as well as a map of the current status, with a monthly update frequency.

This is an essential dataset for monitoring the situation and promoting informed decision making.

12. Resident population by date, sex, generation, nationality and place of birth

• Publisher: National Institute of Statistics
• Format: CSV, JSON, XLSX, XLS, PC-Axis

The National Institute of Statistics offers open access to a large amount of data extracted from the surveys and studies it carries out periodically. One of them is this dataset containing information on the resident population in Spain. The data can be filtered by date, sex, generation (age on December 31), nationality and place of birth. The INE website includes a search engine to access the data more easily.

This dataset allows to know the characteristics of the Spanish population, and can be crossed with other data (economic, health, etc.) to generate a deeper knowledge of the society.

160 publishing organizations

This is just a small sample of some of the datasets available, but many more can be found in the National Catalog.

We currently have 160 publishers: 83 belonging to the General State Administration, 17 Autonomous Communities, 44 local entities, 11 universities and 1 private entity. In addition, there are 5 State institutions that do not fall into these categories, such as the Parliament of the Canary Islands.

The organizations that publish the most data in the Catalog are the autonomous administrations (45%), followed by the State (32%) and local administrations (15%), as shown in the following graph. You can obtain more information on the catalog through the scorecard.

From datos.gob.es we invite you to explore our catalog. If you have any questions, you can write to us at contacto@datos.gob.es.

In 2015, the UN adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, an action plan made up of 17 global goals to eradicate poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity. This is what is known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In order to measure and evaluate the progress of the SDGs - in addition to their own development - accurate, up-to-date, sufficiently disaggregated, relevant, accessible and user-friendly data and statistics are needed. In other words, quality open data disaggregated by sex, age, municipality, etc. is needed.

In this regard, the UN itself has developed a set of indicators and statistical data aimed not only at monitoring progress, but also at informing policy and ensuring the accountability of all stakeholders. There are 232 indicators that refer to 169 targets. In addition, the Open SDG Data Hub portal provides geographically referenced data by target. Users can explore, analyse and use authoritative data sources on the SDGs to discover patterns, relationships and trends. For its part, the World Bank has an atlas where it presents interactive narratives and data visualizations on the SDGs, using its World Development Indicators database as a primary source.

But what if we want to delve deeper into what is happening in our country with respect to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals?

Resources related to the Sustainable Development Goals in Spain

Several organizations publish open data on the SDGs in our country. Below, we show you several examples at national and regional level.

National Statistics Institute (INE)

Through its website, the INE has launched an electronic platform with updated statistical information about the global indicators established by the UN to monitor compliance with the SDGs.

When entering the available sub-indicators, the evolution of the indicator is shown graphically and, when possible, the breakdown by Autonomous Communities, age and sex. Data tables can also be accessed and downloaded in various formats (XLS, CSV, PC-Axis, etc.). These data are also available in our data catalog.

Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.

Throughout history, geospatial data have allowed humankind to better understand its environment. When we talk about geographic or spatial data, we refer to data "that implicitly or explicitly refer to a location relative to the Earth", according to the Spanish Standard UNE 148004:2018. Generally, these data are accessible on maps, visualisers, mobile devices and other media helping us to move and manage the territory in a more efficient way, thus achieving greater progress.

Today, geospatial data remains of particular importance. According to a study by the European Open Data Portal, geospatial data is the second most reused data, behind only statistical data. Both individuals and companies use them to create tools to help citizens in their daily lives - when choosing the most appropriate route to reach a destination -, in management situations - such as fighting a fire - or when they want to disconnect through recreational elements - such as strategy games.

Given this demand, it is not surprising that there is a need for infrastructures that allow us to access this type of information in a harmonised and interoperable way, facilitating its reuse.

What is a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI)?

According to the website of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI or IDE in Spanish) "is an information system made up of a set of resources dedicated to managing Geographic Information, available on the Internet, which meet a series of interoperability conditions, and which allow a user, using a simple browser, to use and combine them according to their needs". Through an SDI, geographic information is accessed on the Internet through web services and is catalogued (with metadata) for its location or search, considering regulations, technical documents, international norms and standards that guarantee its interoperability and harmonisation.

It is therefore a mechanism that facilitates the task of searching and accessing geographic data in a uniform manner. This is essential to promote their reuse through the development of digital solutions.

The Spatial Data Infrastructure of Spain (IDEE, in Spanish)

In Spain there are a multitude of geoportals and SDI nodes at state, regional and local level, which are centralised through the geoportal of the Spatial Data Infrastructure of Spain (IDEE). This is a project designed to merge the geographic data with which the Public Administrations of Spain work under the umbrella of the LISIGE and the Regulations of the INSPIRE Directive (Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe).

IDEE Geoportal: https://www.idee.es/

The main objective of the IDEE is to publish official geographic information for viewing and downloading and to offer the possibility of locating the data through its descriptions (metadata), so that the data is accessible, machine-readable, easy to locate and reusable. Today, re-use is generally free of charge. To achieve this goal, the NSDI is based on international standards and European regulations that make data interoperable and accessible through open formats.

In charge of coordinating the IDEE is the Consejo Directivo de la Infraestructura de Información Geográfica de España (CODIIGE), created by the Consejo Superior Geográfico, a governing body belonging to the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA). The CODIIGE is made up of representatives of the three levels of the Administration, experts from the Commissions of the High Geographic Council and experts in environmental policies.

The IDEE is part of the European SDI and publishes approximately 250 resources on the European Commission's Geoportal classified by subject.

Who participates in the IDEE?

As mentioned above, the IDEE is made up of the organisations responsible for the data that the European Commission has classified, identified and documented through the INSPIRE Directive Regulation 1089/2010, such as, for example:

• General Directorate of Cadastre, which publishes cadastral plots, buildings and addresses freely and free of charge through viewing and downloading services, allowing this data to be consulted on sites such as the Cadastre's Electronic Headquarters. It is worth highlighting its coordination with the Land Registry. Now any citizen can voluntarily request in a sale or purchase, or at any time, without waiting for the registration of a new act, the incorporation in the Land Registry of a cadastral graphic representation.
• MAPA and MITECO, which work jointly on the publication of data classified as priority data by the European Commission. Its publication is materialised in its IDE geoportal.
• National Centre for Geographic Information (CNIG), responsible for the Cartociudad project, which compiles and publishes freely and free of charge the addresses from the G.D. of Cadastre, the Post Office Group, the National Statistics Institute, the National Geographic Institute, the Autonomous Communities such as the Basque Country, the Community of Navarre, the Community of Valencia, La Rioja, the Balearic Islands and the Community of Madrid, and at a local level, the City Council of Cáceres and the Provincial Council of Madrid.
• Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, with its Gas Stations Geoportal application, for searching and visualising service stations, facilitates locating the most economical stations closest to the user through the use of location data.

Other organisations and some of their SDI projects can be consulted on this map.

Other services and web resources of the IDEE

Some time ago we wrote an article about the services and resources included in the IDEE Geoportal, and since then, this geoportal has been complemented with the recent publication of the IDEE Platform, whose main objective is to collect, for the developers of the geospatial community, software development initiatives, thus facilitating the reuse of resources.

In the resources section of the geoportal and the IDEE platform, sections continue to be offered that provide added value beyond the datasets themselves; these are resources published by different administrations and international organisations to facilitate decision-making. To the sections analysed in the previous article, we must add as a novelty a section dedicated to Open Resources on COVID-19, whose incorporation is due to the importance that spatial data are having in the management of this health crisis.

The IDEE also has a blog where questions of interest to all users interested in geographic data are collected.

Want to know more about IDEs?

The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda has recently published a guide on Spatial Data Infrastructures, which covers the basic concepts, the legal framework, the web technologies needed to implement such an infrastructure, web services, information on how to catalogue geographic information (metadata) and other related topics.

In addition, if you are interested in publishing geographic data, we encourage you to read our "Practical Guide to Publishing Spatial Data", where you will find good practices and guidelines to facilitate the publication of spatial data efficiently on the Internet.

Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.

In the last year, we have seen how decisions on health matters have marked the political, social and economic agenda of our country, due to the global pandemic situation resulting from COVID-19. Decisions taken on the basis of public data on cumulative incidence, hospital bed occupancy or vaccination rates have marked our daily lives.

This fact highlights the importance of open health data for the management and decision-making of our governments, but it is also fundamental as a basis for solutions that help both patients and doctors.

The types of data used in the field of health and wellbeing are numerous: results of medical studies and research, anonymised patient records, data on patients' habits (such as how much exercise we do or how much sleep we get) or data linked to health services and management. All these data are of great value that can be exploited by healthcare professionals, providers and citizens alike.

How have health services been using open data?

According to the study "The Open Data Impact Map", a project of the Open Data for Development Network (OD4D), health-related organisations use open data mainly for the purpose of optimising their management and organisation of resources. Of the 124 organisations interviewed in 2018, only 19 indicated that they use open data for the development of health products and services, and only 13 for research. The same study indicates that the most widely used open data are those directly related to health, and that very few organisations combine them with datasets from other themes - mainly geospatial or demographic or social indicators - to generate deeper and more detailed knowledge.

However, the opportunities in this field are vast, as shown below.

Click here to see the infographic in full size and in its accessible version

Examples of services based on open health data

The situation seems to be changing and there is increasing momentum for the implementation of applications, services or projects based on data in this field. Europe is committed to the creation of data spaces focused on the field of health, as part of its strategy to build a European cloud, while the Spanish government has included the promotion of Digital Health solutions in its Digital Spain 2025 strategy. Among the actions envisaged by our country is the streamlining of information systems to enable better data sharing and interoperability.

Applications that collect health services

When it comes to health apps, the most common are those that help citizens find local healthcare providers that meet their needs. An example is 24-hour pharmacies in Tudela and la Ribera or the search engine for health centres in the community of Madrid. Thanks to these, patients can find out where the centres are located and find out information of interest, such as opening hours. Some applications include additional services, such as Salud Responde, from the Junta de Andalucía, which allows the request and modification of medical appointments, improving the efficiency of the system.

But such services can also provide important information for more efficient resource management, especially when cross-referenced with other datasets. For example, Pharmacies, Health Centres and Health Areas of the Government of Cantabria, developed by Esri, includes information on the territorial organisation of health resources according to geographical, demographic, epidemiological, socio-economic, labour, cultural, climatological and transport factors. Its main objective is not only to facilitate citizens' access to this information, but also to ensure that "the provision of health services is carried out in the best conditions of accessibility, efficiency and quality".

The Health, environmental and socio-economic atlas of the Basque Country by small areas shows a series of maps with the aim of "monitoring geographical inequalities in health, socioeconomic and environmental indicators in the Basque Country, taking into account the gender perspective". This information is very useful for service managers in trying to promote greater equity in access to healthcare.

Disease prevention tools

There are also applications on the market aimed at disease prevention, such as ZaraHealth, a web application that displays real-time data on water quality, air quality and pollen levels in the city of Zaragoza. The user can set a series of thresholds for pollen and pollution levels, so that a warning is issued when they are reached. In this way, they can avoid going outdoors or exercising in areas that do not meet their needs. APCYL: Allergy to pollen CyL has the same goal.

Another important aspect of our health is our diet, a key factor in the prevention of various pathologies such as cardiovascular diseases or diabetes. Websites such as Mils, which offers detailed nutritional information on food, can help us to eat more healthily.

Services for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases

Open data can help assess health outcomes, develop more effective treatments and predict disease outbreaks.

In the field of mental health, for example, we find Mentalcheck, an app that enables psychological assessments and self-reporting via mobile devices. It aims to improve Ecological Momentary Assessment and Intervention (EMA and EMI). The application incorporates open data on medications and mental health services from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It also allows the integration of psychological and physiological data to generate correlations.

Another example is Qmenta, a company focused on analysing brain data, using MRI and related clinical data. In recent months they have also incorporated open data related to COVID-19 in some of their work. Through medical image processing algorithms, they seek to accelerate the development of new therapies for neurological diseases.

Up-to-date information on diseases or system needs

Another area where open data can drive improvements is in the reporting of certain situations. This has become especially important in the context of the global pandemic where citizens demand constant and updated information. In this sense, we find the scorecard of the Ministry of Health at state level and different regional initiatives, such as Curve in Aragon: Evolution of Coronavirus in Aragon, or Evolution of the coronavirus in Castilla y León. These are just a couple of examples, but it should be noted that there are numerous efforts in this area, as the Ministry of Health reports on its website.

It is also important to make information on medicines transparent, both for doctors and patients, by facilitating comparisons. In this regard, the Nomenclature of Medicines shows more than 20,000 medicines marketed in Spain with Social Security coverage, offering information on price, presentation, links to the package leaflet, safety notes and active ingredients, among others.

Finally, it is also important to provide information on resource needs, for example, doctor vacancies or the state of blood reserves.

Data in general has driven important advances in improving health outcomes, from increased access to care to medical research and diagnosis. Open data is a key ingredient that can help further enrich these solutions with new variables. It is therefore essential that more and more health and wellness data will be opened, following a set of guidelines and standards that ensure the privacy and security of patients. In this sense, the report "Open data and health: technological context, stakeholders and legal framework" includes information on what types of data can be opened and what the legal framework says about it.

Do you know more use cases of open data applied to the health and welfare sector? Leave us a comment or write to dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.

Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.

Open data is a source of information for the development of smart services, as well as for decision-making and policy-making. It is therefore not surprising that an increasing number of public bodies, in addition to opening data - for reuse by others and for reasons of accountability and transparency - are also reusing their own data for different purposes.

In this sense, the rise of smart city management platforms is encouraging many city councils and autonomous communities to develop smart applications and tools that take advantage of the use of data and analytical techniques to innovate and improve the public services they offer to citizens. Below, we show you several examples.

Resource optimisation

Open data can be used by public bodies to understand how public resources are being managed, as well as to promote actions that enable more efficient management and economic savings, e.g. in terms of energy consumption or by promoting more efficient resource management.

Energy consumption scorecard. Junta de Castilla y León.

This energy datahub, developed by the open data initiative of the Junta de Castilla y León, offers detailed and visual information on energy consumption in the centres managed by the Junta, such as educational centres, health centres, administrative offices or hospitals, among others.

It is a scorecard that gathers information from more than 1,500 consumption centres, offering different types of graphical representations that make it easier for the reader to understand the data. The data source used for the development of this platform can be consulted via this link.

The tool facilitates disaggregated analysis by type of energy and geographical location. This information may be of interest to citizens, but also to the Board's own managers. Thanks to this platform, between 2015 and the beginning of 2020, the Board saved more than 12 million euros in electricity.

In addition, the regional government has an electricity table that focuses exclusively on the electricity consumption of hospitals in Castilla y León on an hourly basis. The data is linked to meteorological information, so that future costs can be estimated and the use of heating can be optimised. The data used to develop this table can be consulted here.

Organic solid waste management. City Council of Santiago de Compostela.

The City Council of Santiago de Compostela has launched, within the Smartiago initiative, a project that aims to achieve a sustainable and intelligent management of municipal solid waste (MSW). The main objective of this tool is to design, develop and build smart surface containers for the characterisation of organic solid waste, based on the use of open IoT technologies, the application of machine learning algorithms and the use of open data as sources for the enrichment of community composting prediction models. This aims to achieve the 50% readiness for reuse and recycling target, up from the current 13%. The project, currently under development, will also include a gamification app to encourage good practices in sustainability.

Improving service delivery

Thanks to open data it is also possible to create tools for social service professionals to provide a better response and attention to the needs of citizens. Let's look at a couple of examples:

Civil protection map. Generalitat de Catalunya.

This interactive map shows the main resources of the civil protection system in Catalonia. The civil protection map allows you to see where the different risks are located (technological, environmental...) and the situation of the teams in order to better plan responses. Here you can consult the main source of data used by this tool.

Pharmacological Guide. Andalusian Regional Government.

This application has been designed by the Andalusian Regional Government to offer healthcare professionals a faster and more efficient consultation of the main drugs used in emergency care in Andalusia. It is a useful working tool for those healthcare professionals who aid in critical situations as it includes constantly updated and contrasted information on the main indications, doses, contraindications and interactions of the most commonly used drugs.

Decision-making and policy formulation

Open data provides greater knowledge about what is happening around us, enabling us to make better decisions. It is a very useful tool for public bodies to develop policies that respond to the real needs of citizens. Over the last year, we have seen how measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have been taken on the basis of data on the evolution of the disease. Other examples are:

The Noise Map. Valladolid City Council.

Valladolid City Council has a Noise Map that organises information on noise pollution. This map has been developed to be used in a compulsory way in the execution of the calculations foreseen in the different regulatory standards, as well as in the technical building code and which will apply to residential, institutional and industrial buildings, as well as in the technical building code and which will apply to residential, institutional and industrial buildings.

Intelligent tourism management platform. Conil Town Council.

Within the framework of Red.es' Smart Cities, Territories and Islands calls for proposals, we are finding more and more proposals that include the development of data management platforms that promote efficient decision-making. One example is the City Council of Conil de la Frontera, which is working with a smart tourism management platform to increase the knowledge of tourists, through the aggregation and centralisation of data related to the origin of the tourist, mobility and most visited areas, preferred places to visit and stay overnight or satisfaction surveys, among other parameters. In this way, the local administration can identify patterns and carry out actions to adapt and improve management, detect irregularities, promote economic and business development or favour the generation of employment in the priority areas identified. These data have also been used to estimate the real population during the pandemic and to make a better estimate of incidence rates. Although these data do not appear to be public for the moment, the aim is to open them to companies through an open data platform.

CitizenLab. Madrid City Council.

The regional government of Madrid, together with Grant Thornton, has launched a datalab to better understand citizen behaviour. The project seeks to analyse predictive models of citizen behaviour using Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI), with the aim of improving public services in the Madrid region in areas such as mobility, healthcare, tourism and infrastructure. In the last year, for example, it has been used to predict the demand for vaccines.

Undoubtedly, there are numerous applications and digital tools used by public administrations - and it seems that there will be more - that base their operation on open data to offer more and better services to citizens. In this article we have compiled some examples, but if you know of any related ones that may be of interest, do not hesitate to leave a comment or write to us at our email address dinamizacion@datos.gob.es.

Content prepared by the datos.gob.es team.

The Cross-Forest project combines two areas of great interest to Europe, as set out in the Green Deal. On the one hand, the care and protection of the environment - in particular our forests-. On the other hand, the promotion of an interoperable European digital ecosystem.

The project started in 2018 and ended on 23 June, resulting in different tools and resources, as we will see below.

What is Cross-Forest?

Cross-Forest is a project co-funded by the European Commission through the CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) programme, which seeks to publish and combine open and linked datasets of forest inventories and forest maps, in order to promote models that facilitate forest management and protection.

The project has been carried out by a consortium formed by the Tragsa Public Group, the University of Valladolid and Scayle Supercomputacion of Castilla y León, with the institutional support of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO, in Spanish acronyms). On the Portuguese side, the Direção-Geral do Território of Portugal has participated.

The project has developed:

• A Digital Services Infrastructure (DSI) for open forest data, oriented towards modelling forest evolution at country level, as well as predicting forest fire behaviour and spread. Data on fuel materials, forest maps and spread models have been used. High Performance Computing (HPC) resources have been used for their execution, due to the complexity of the models and the need for numerous simulations.
• An ontological model of forest data common to public administrations and academic institutions in Portugal and Spain, for the publication of linked open data. Specifically, a set of eleven ontologies has been created. These ontologies, which are aligned with the INSPIRE Directive, interrelate with each other and are enriched by linking to external ontologies. Although they have been created with a focus on these two countries, the idea is that any other territory can use them to publish their forest data, in an open and standard format.

The different datasets used in the project are published separately, so that users can use the ones they want. All the data, which are published under CC BY 4.0 licence, can be accessed through this Cross-Forest Github repository and the IEPNB Data Catalogue.

4 flagship projects in Linked Open Data format

Thanks to Cross-Forest, a large part of the information of 4 flagship projects of the General Directorate of Biodiversity, Forests and Desertification of the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge has been published in linked open data format:

• National Forest Inventory (IFN-3). It includes more than 100 indicators of the state and evolution of the forests. These indicators range from their surface area or the tree and shrub species that inhabit them, to data related to regeneration and biodiversity. It also incorporates the value in monetary terms of the environmental, recreational and productive aspects of forest systems, among other aspects. It has more than 90,000 plots. Two databases corresponding to a subset of the NFI indicators have been published openly.
• Forest Map of Spain (Scale 1:50.000). It consists of the mapping of the situation of forest stands, following a conceptual model of hierarchical land uses.
• National Soil Erosion Inventory (INES). This is a study that detects, quantifies and cartographically reflects the main erosion processes affecting the Spanish territory, both forest and agricultural. Its objective is to know its evolution over time thanks to continuous data collection and it has more than 20,000 plots.
• General Forest Fire Statistics. It includes the information collected in the Fire Reports that are completed by the Autonomous Communities for each of the forest fires that take place in Spain.

These datasets, along with others from this Ministry, have been federated with datos.gob.es, so that they are also available through our data catalogue. Like any other dataset that is published on datos.gob.es, they will automatically be federated with the European portal as well.

The predecessor of this project was CrossNature. This project resulted in the Eidos database, which includes linked data on wild species of fauna and flora in Spain and Portugal. It is also available on datos.gob.es and is reflected in the European portal.

Both projects are an example of innovation and collaboration between countries, with the aim of achieving more harmonised and interoperable data, facilitating to compare indicators and improve actions, in this case, in the field of forest protection.