The harmonised data model for assessing Land Parcel Identification Systems compliance with requirements of direct aid and agri-environmental schemes of the CAP

The EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies to farmers are administered through dedicated information systems, a part of which is the GIS-based Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS). The requirement to map and record land eligible for payments has led to a situation where the agricultural administrations have acquired a large amount of geographic data. As the geospatial community of data producers, custodians and users has grown during the last decades, so has the need to assess the quality and consistency of the LPIS towards the EU regulations on the CAP as well as for cross compliance with environmental legislation. In view of this, a LPIS Conceptual Model (LCM) is presented in this paper in order to address harmonisation and data quality needs. The ISO 19100 series standards on geoinformatics were used for LCM development, including an UML modelling approach and the handling of the quality of geographical information. This paper describes the core elements of the LCM and their integration with data supporting management of agri-environment schemes. Later, the paper shows how the LCM is used for conformity and quality checks of the member states' LPIS system; an Abstract Test Suite (ATS) for mapping the LCM model against existing system implementations was developed and tested in collaboration with several member states. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.