Oceans Portal Workshop30th March 2004

Healthy oceans: cared for, understood and used wisely for the benefit of all, now and

in the future healthy oceans: cared for, understood and use wisely for the benefit

of all, now and in the future healthy

National Oceans Office

Kim FinneyC.I.O.

Oceans Portal ProjectOcean Biodiversity

InformaticsConference

Hamburg, 29 - 1 November 2004

Outline

• Australia’s Oceans Policy & Regional Marine Planning

• Why initiate An Oceans Portal Project ?• Key Ingredients For Success• Implementation

Australia’s Oceans Policy• Launched December 1998

• Maintenance of healthy and productive ecosystems

• Science-based planning and management

• Precautionary

• Economic, environmental, social and cultural aspirations accommodated through integrated planning and management

“Healthy oceans: cared for, understood and used wisely for the benefit of all, now and in the future”

Regional Marine Planning

• 13 Large Marine Domains • Ecosystem-based

management• Ecologically Sustainable

Development• Integrated sectoral

management arrangements

• Participatory decision making

• Facilitate involvement of States

Data To Underpin Regional Marine Planning

Statutory Information

Economic Information

Social & cultural InformationImpacts Information

Indigenous Information

Biological & Physical Information

Why Initiate An Oceans Portal Project ?

Regional IOC/WMOData Centres

Global Observing Programs

National Marine Institutions

Commonwealth R&D Inst.(0.33 of Oz research)

Local Govts.

MuseumsState Fisheries DeptsEPANatural Resource ManagementAgencies

Universities

•Hard to discover what’s out there•IP & access issues•Different data formats•Different quality (scale, resolution, accuracy)•General lack of a common vocabulary to describe phenomena & real world objects•Most data not on-line•Difficult to know where real gaps in data availability are.

• Given issues – what do we need to achieve and how ?• An immediate improvement in access to those national

marine fundamental datasets that are needed to underpin marine management decisions and marine research activities,

• A networked platform ripe for scientific exploitation in terms of: · accessing and sharing up-to-date multi-disciplinary data; · deploying tools and models; · communicating and conceptualising using multi-media 2 &

3D visualisations; · facilitating collaborations across agencies and across

scientific disciplines, and· greater leverage of our existing collective IT infrastructure

and agency-based capabilities.

Why Initiate An Oceans Portal Project ?

The Oceans Portal ProjectAustralian Spatial Data Infrastructure (ASDI) In

Action !Project Components

1. Web-based (demonstration) portal

2. Catalogue service

3. Contributors & service providers (initially museums, Federal marine data centres, OBIS).

Key Ingredients For Success

• Community of interest• Agency-level support• Funding• Governance Arrangements• Architecture• Standards/protocols• Content (semantic interoperability)

Key Ingredients For SuccessMarine Community of Interest Partners

Server

Server

ServerServer

Server

CSIRO MarineResearch

Bureau of Meteorology

Australian Institute ofMarine Science

Australian AntarcticDivision

Geoscience Australia

Server

Department of Defence

Data

Data

Data Data

Data

Data

Virtual Australian Ocean Data Centre Joint FacilityOZCAM

OBIS

Server

Workstation

MarineCatalogue

MarinePortal

• Lobbying agency heads – high level support• Oceans Policy Science Advisory Group –

answers to a Ministerial Board• Workshops, agency visits, presentations,

established project advisory group,• NOO – built Project into first RMP as a key

deliverable• Core funding from NOO – conditional on in-kind

support from agencies• Implementation Plan – sign-off at agency head

level

Key Ingredients For SuccessAgency-level Support & Funding

Key Ingredients For SuccessGovernance Arrangements

• Rules/Procedures for:· Administration, management and

update of marine community profile and associated standards,

· Management & administration of (hosted) Catalogue

· Service level obligations for data/services deployed via the Catalogue and by the Catalogue.

• Overall Project Management • Governance Working Group

Key Ingredients For SuccessArchitecture, Standards & Protocols

• Geospatial Services-oriented-architecture (ISO RM ODP)

· Computational viewpoint· Information viewpoint· Engineering viewpoint· Technology viewpoint

• OGC Catalogue Specification V2.0

• ebXML RIM V2.0• ISO 19119/19115 Metadata

XML encodings ISO 19139.• Metadata harvesting interface

specification (Open Archives Protocol)

• Rendering symbology and styling standards (IHO S52)

• OGC WMS, WFS, WCS

• Developing a marine community application profile· Metadata model – dataset descriptions and services (not

tackling feature types initially). ISO 19115/19119 · Which metadata elements should be core ?· Which code lists should we extend/add ?

– marine keywords (GCMD ?), – thesauri & dictionary of terms (BODC parameter list ??),– species taxonomies (Catalogue of Life or Codes For

Australian Aquatic Biota [CAAB] ??), – marine location names (IHO, AHO, AAD, GA),

• Commence R&D work on marine data modelling, GML application profiles and feature catalogues (Marine XML - NERC Data Grid ?? – relationship to IOC Feature Type Catalogue ?)

Key Ingredients For SuccessContent Semantic Interoperability

Implementation• Scoping Report, high level Technical Specification &

Implementation Plan already developed,• RFT to be let in December – buy/build Catalogue and

Portal (separately deployed)· Evaluation of COTS – shows no truly OGC compliant

Catalogue software yet !• 6 Working Groups have been established:

· Governance,· Symbology/styling· Metadata Application Profile· Species Finder Service· OPENDAP (R&D)· Data Modelling/Feature Type Catalogue (R&D)

• Catalogue developers to work in tandem with WGs – WGs have kicked off first.

• Project Advisory Committee

ImplementationSpecies Finder

Oceans Portal Home Page

Map Viewer

Feedback NewsFrequently Asked

Questions

Species FinderFind Resources

Help

Login

Manage UserDetails

Contribure toMarine Catalogue

Upload Resources

Only available to Authenticated Users

Only Available toPortal

Administrator

Mail ForumSearch Marine

Catalogue

Administration

Harvest data in OBIS Australian OBIS Mirror site

•How to generate ISO compliant metadata

•Wrap OBIS as a map service

•Register data and service in Catalogue

Conclusion• Ambitious project in that it is genuinely a

development by a “community of interest”.• Lead the way in developing some key Australian

Spatial Data Infrastructure technologies and standards,

• Requires national and international collaboration,• Will need to expand partnership once runs are on

the board. • Catalogue will be accessible by anyone.• All standards and specifications will be public.