a Pan-European Infrastructure for Ocean and Marine Data

a Pan-European Infrastructure for Ocean and Marine Data Management Dick M. A. Schaap – MARIS (Sea. Data. Net technical coordinator)

Background • Data availability of vital importance for marine research • European data set is fragmented • Not always quality controlled • Not always easily accessible • In 35 countries bordering European seas • more than 600 scientific laboratories from government organizations and private industry collect data • use various sensors on board of research vessels, submarines, fixed and drifting platforms, airplanes and satellites • measure physical, geological, biological and chemical parameters, biological species, etc.

Sea. Data. Net project • EU Sixth Framework Programme • Integrated Infrastructure Initiative (I 3) • 1 April 2006 to 31 March 2011 • Objectives • develop an efficient distributed pan-European marine data management Infrastructure for managing large and diverse data sets • network existing professional data centres of 35 countries, active in data collection • provide integrated databases of standardised quality online

Sea. Data. Net partnership 49 partners including: • Major oceanographic institutes of 35 countries • National Oceanographic Data Centres (NODCs) • Divisions of major national marine research institutes • 3 satellite data centres • 3 scientific modelling centres • 2 SMEs experts in software development • 3 International organisations

Building on experience • Data management of scientific projects, e. g. MTPIIMATER, CANIGO, OMEX, MERSEA, etc. • Leaders of Data Management Concerted Actions • MEDAR/MEDATLAS II - Mediterranean Data Archaeology and Rescue, aiming to make available a comprehensive data product of temperature, salinity and bio-chemical data in the Mediterranean and Black Sea through a wide international cooperation • Sea-Search – The gateway to Oceanographic and Marine Data & Information in Europe, to provide an effective navigation tool to oceanographic and marine data and information sources for European marine waters and to centres in Europe with expertise and skills in oceanographic and marine data & information management. • Bringing in new partners – satellite data centres

Sea. Data. Net components

Infrastructure versions • Version 0 Continuation and maintenance of existing Sea-Search systems with minor modifications • Version 1 All data centres involved in upgraded meta-databases Technical Task Team partners involved in transparent data access, security, monitoring, viewing services = trans-national access Pre-operational by November 2007 and operational by February 2008 • Version 2 All data centres involved in trans-national access and access upgraded Operational by 2010

Sea. Data. Net Data Policy • Metadata • free and open access, no registration required • each data centre should provide the meta-data in standardized format to populate the catalogue services • Data and products services • the general case if free and open access/mandatory registration • a “Sea. Data. Net role” (partner, academic, commercial etc. ) is attributed to each user • Each NODC attributes the roles to the users of its of country • Out of the partnership, the roles are assigned by Sea. Data. Net user-desk • each data centre node delivers data according to the user’s role and its local regulation • each data centre should provide freely the data sets necessary to develop the common products

Discovery services • Marine environmental data sets (EDMED) • Marine environmental research projects (EDMERP) • Observing systems (EDIOS) • Research Cruise Summary Reports (CSR) • Common Data Index (CDI) • Directory of marine organisations (EDMO)

Common Data Index = linking pin • Index to individual data sets • Approx. 200000 entries from 10 partners • ISO 19115 metadata standard has been adopted • On-line searchable directory • Direct access to on-line data sets, catalogues or e-mail request

Technical developments • Establishment of common vocabularies • Upgrading metadata formats for harmonisation and interrelationships (ISO 19115 as basis) • Upgrading metadata entry and retrieval systems: • XML exchange (push and pull) • XML validation services • Java. Tool (MIKADO) for generation of XML files • Online Content Management Systems (CMS) • Adopting Web services technology • Vocabularies • Metadata catalogues • Defining common transport formats (Net. CDF, ODV ASCII and Med. Atlas) • Developing delivery services (shopping basket and download manager) • Developing viewing services (OGC mapping, ODV software, . . )

Sea. Data. Net User’s portal schema V 1 General request Metadata request Project info Standards Data request Status of request metadata User Data registration download data Cross search My transact. Software EDIOS EDMED CDI Vocabularies CSR EDMERP EDMO Shopping basket Requests status manager Organisation + data source id CSR EDIOS CDI EDMO EDMED at BODC Database + EDMERP at MARIS BSH Database Metadata & Data catalogues Entry point for access hits services for metadata Data downloading services Visualization services (WMS) for V 2 AAA User Register Ifremer Database at BSH Registr. . Download managers in Data centers

Involvement in other networks • Sea. Data. Net partners are involved in many other European and international projects, contributing and safeguarding good data management. Examples are: • Services for the marine geological institutes in Europe in the projects EUMARSIN, EUROCORE and EUROSEISMICS. See www. eu-seased. net • Services for EUROGOOS for the European Directory of Oceanobserving Systems (EDIOS). See www. edios. org • Partners in the MERSEA project (GMES) for the set up of the Mersea Information Management (MIM) system • Partners in the Humboldt project (GMES) contributing to a European Spatial Data Infrastructure

www. eu-seased. net

a searchable catalogue of over 2. 5 million line kilometres of marine seismic and sonar survey data held at European institutions

a searchable catalogue of over 300. 000 seafloor samples from the ocean basins and continental shelves, held at European institutions

Supportive to international initiatives and directives • GEO-GEOSS initiative (ad-hoc Group of Earth Observations of G 8) : Global Earth Observation System of Systems • GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) of ESA and EC as European component of GEOSS • INSPIRE, new directive for spatial data infrastructure in Europe And can provide added-value for Marine Strategy Implementation, providing a wealth of complimentary data (in time and spatial coverage) for high quality assessments

Website www. seadatanet. org