West Coast Governors Alliance launches new website
- Detalles
- Publicado: 01 Marzo 2014 01 Marzo 2014
In January, the West Coast Governors Alliance on Ocean Health in the United States launched the West Coast Ocean Data Portal to increase access and discovery of critical ocean and coastal data for the West Coast (http://portal.westcoastoceans.org/). The site will help coastal managers, researchers, and the general public discover data relevant to West Coast ocean resource management, policy development, and planning. It builds off existing state and federal portals, including OR and WA Coastal Atlases, and curates data around important West Coast ocean health issues to help users easily find what they need. This Portal is a first step in better connecting data and people to inform issues unique to the West Coast region. This work was funded through the NOAA Regional Ocean Partnership grant opportunity which has greatly enhanced the ability of the three states, federal government, tribes, and the Ocean Observation Systems to collaborate on regional ocean health issues.
“The launch of this website is an important step forward for the West Coast Governors Alliance on Ocean Health. Having tools to access and visualize ocean and coastal data will help us address high priority regional ocean issues like marine debris, sea-level rise, ocean acidification, and marine planning. It is truly a collaboration among our state, federal, tribal, and NGO partners to better share data critical to ocean health decision making,” said Gabriela Goldfarb, Natural Resources Policy Advisor in the Oregon Governor's Office.
Now for the technical stuff: The West Coast Ocean Data Portal incorporates ESRI Geoportal Server with a PostgreSQL backend, and a prototype component called Geoportal Facets Customization (GFC) (Figure 1). The GFC pulls metadata documents from the back-end Geoportal Server database and push them to SOLR, a search platform that provides fast full-text, faceted and geospatial search capabilities accessible through a robust API. The WCODP user interface uses this SOLR API to provide users with the ability to rapidly search and filter through the available datasets by keyword, category, location, or source (Figure 2). This is the same technology used in modern e-commerce websites allowing visitors to quickly drill-down and find the product they are looking for, except instead of filtering by product price and feature, the GFC component creates search facets tuned for discovery of spatial datasets by bounding box, and service type. Then once a user finds a dataset they are interested in, they are provided with a range of additional information provided through the metadata including the title, abstract, date published, creator, publisher, contact, use constraints, and all of the available links for accessing the resource (Figure 2). This decoupled, API-driven approach allows these software components to be quickly integrated into a large organized Portal system.
The development of the Portal is guided by a broad Network of ocean data managers and users on the West Coast. This West Coast Ocean Data Network is made up of representatives from state and federal agencies, tribal governments, and NGOs and serves as a forum to connect people around data, outreach, and information technology issues (Figure 3). Participation in the Network is open to anyone with an interest in sharing ocean and coastal data, to learn more please visit http://portal.westcoastoceans.org/connect
Current work on the Portal encompasses the inclusion of federal, academic, and non-governmental data catalogs, including new partnerships with the West Coast Ocean Observing System (OOS) Regional Associations, NOAA Fisheries, and U.S Geological Survey. Our partnership with the West Coast OOS's has been strengthened by a joint Sea Grant fellowship to develop and integrate regional oceanographic products into the Portal to inform West Coast ocean issues like marine debris transport and ocean acidification.
We are excited to be developing visualization tools to better inform a regional assessment of the sources, sinks, and impacts of marine debris in the coastal environment for policy makers, beach cleanup coordinators, and state regulators. We are working with the WCGA Marine Debris Action Coordination Team to integrate their Marine Debris Database (http://debris-db.westcoastoceans.org/) with the WCODP. Part of this work has included the development of a semantic ontology to allow users to easily search, filter, and display the debris types of interest. ICAN's very own, Yassine Lassoued has been leading this work and helping to integrate it with the WCODP. The visualization tools will also be used to allow Portal visitors the ability to view and ‘mash-up’ any of the data layers that have REST or WMS associated with them.
You can visit the West Coast Ocean Data Portal at http://portal.westcoastoceans.org
If you wish to learn more or contribute your data to the Portal, please contact Todd Hallenbeck Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo.
An on-line mapping tool for marine planning in Scotland
- Detalles
- Publicado: 29 Septiembre 2013 29 Septiembre 2013
Martyn Cox
Marine Planning and Policy, Marine Scotland
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Introduction
My article in the September 2012 issue of the ICAN Newsletter about “Scotland’s Marine Atlas” briefly introduced our on-line GIS tool, National Marine Plan interactive (NMPi) that was under development. NMPi has now reached the stage where it is supporting our public consultation exercise for Scotland’s first national marine plan.
Background
The Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 and UK Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 empower Marine Scotland to deliver marine planning for Scotland’s seas on behalf of Scottish Ministers. This will assist in delivering the government’s vision of “clean, healthy, safe, productive, biologically diverse marine and coastal environments managed to meet the long term needs of nature and people”.
Scotland’s first national marine plan is under development: consultation started in July 2013. At the same time, consultation started on designating marine protected areas and identifying areas for marine renewable energy. Being able to map all these activities and proposals is important as we engage with stakeholders. Scotland’s Marine Atlas, published in 2011 was the “Information for the National Marine Plan”. Marine planning requires a significant and robust evidence base as many other coastal atlases have demonstrated. NMPi is Marine Scotland’s key tool for sharing the data with stakeholders and is complemented by Marine Scotland interactive.
renewables areas (wind, wave and tidal) and sailing routes.
What is NMPi?
NMPi is an online, interactive GIS-based tool (using GeoServer and Open Layers software) allowing you to view different types of information (as map layers) at a scale of your choice. You can find it at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/marine/seamanagement/nmpihome
On web pages associated with each layer, additional information is provided. This includes links to related parts of the Atlas, data sources, links to other sources of information and, where appropriate, downloadable spread sheets to update the Atlas graphs.
Data are presented in layers and grouped into the various aspects of the Government’s vision for the seas - clean and safe seas; healthy and biologically diverse seas; productive seas; as well as background layers on physical characteristics and administrative boundaries.
All users have access to:
- Data display - geographic information through a web-map interface, with a map canvas, a switchable list of layers, and various tools.
- Links to associated web pages with additional information.
- NMPi’s “web map services” using client software (e.g. a desktop GIS package) – a requirement of the INSPIRE directive.
- A dedicated version for browsers on mobile devices (SmartPhones and iPADs).
- Registered users (free to do so) can access additional functionality:
- Create maps for printing.
- Develop their own data layers (which can then be submitted to Marine Scotland).
- Download certain data (subject to a licence agreement).
New content is being added to NMPi on an on-going basis, while existing content is also being updated.
Collaborative working
Marine Scotland is again working closely with its Atlas partners Scottish Natural Heritage, Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology Scotland in keeping data sets updated on NMPi.
Experiences to share
Marine planning requires many data sets to be effective but they are not all collected either by Marine Scotland (MS) or its’ collaborative partners. So MS spends time acquiring data from others (paying for some commercial data sets) so that data can be displayed. The attributes may also have to be limited if there is information of commercial value or a confidential nature. NMPi is designed so that spatial data can be downloaded via a click licence but given the nature and breadth of NMPi’s data, the download function is restricted to MS data with signposting to 3rd party web sites for their data.
Summary
There are currently in excess of 200 layers and this looks set to expand. Developing a system that covers such a range of activities is both challenging and rewarding, as I am sure other ICAN members will agree. The technology we have available today is very powerful whilst at the same time we need to respect intellectual property rights and sensitivities about data, amongst others. There is a much to take into account when making information publicly available. NMPi is the next stage in Marine Scotland’s innovations. It follows the successful Atlas and the later e-publication (for iPads and Kindles etc.).
NMPi is an innovative tool to assist Marine Scotland in its delivery of marine planning. It will support policy making as use of the seas changes, whether that is for sustainable economic growth through a variety of human activities or conservation through the designation of marine protected areas. I am sure NMPi will evolve as needs require. As a member of ICAN we look forward to sharing what we are doing and learning from others in the network.
