Marine Environmental Information System for Colombia: first step toward Coastal Atlas

Julio Bohórquez, INVEMAR, Colombia. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Julián Pizarro, INVEMAR, Colombia, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Leonardo Arias, INVEMAR, Colombia, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Carolina García Valencia, INVEMAR, Colombia This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Marine and Coastal Research Institute (INVEMAR) is linked to Colombian Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MADS) and has the function, among others, to develop technological tools and policy framework which serve to process, store and distribute marine and coastal information required by environmental administration. This information is produced by INVEMAR, MADS, environmental authorities, official coastal entities and marine and coastal research network partners. Since 2000, a technological project called Marine Environmental Information System (SIAM) has met the requirements of the administration and operates the system.

This System creates normative tools and administers policies for publication, dissemination, and access to environmental information. Standards are implemented for several processes: ISO19115 for metadata, and OGC standards for online geographic information exchange using services like WMS. Both standards were adopted in coordination with the responsible institute in order to consolidate national efforts aimed to build spatial data infrastructure (ICDE - www.icde.org.co ).

Main Components

The System organizes different issues relevant to marine management as follows:

1. Biodiversity data, which includes geo-referenced information from biological collections, data from coral reefs, mangroves, and sea grasses monitoring, and tracing reports of invasive species. In the latter case, users have the option of selecting a specific geographic area and receive real time data (Figure 1)
   
   
2. Laws, programs and research documentation in Integrated Coastal Zone Management, providing a tool to support decision-making in protected areas management context. INVEMAR produces the National Marine and Coastal Environmental Status Report annually, including a Marine Atlas based on indicators. For evaluation and monitoring of the marine and coastal management, the system collects data that together allows calculating environmental sustainability indicators about the state of the environment, existing pressures on resources, and the management actions undertaken by competent authorities. The Indicators meet the needs of decision-makers at national and regional level. In the regional case, for example, the system supports the integrated Coastal Zone Management through the research project "Southeast Pacific data and information network in support to integrated coastal area management" - SPINCAM funded by Flemish Government of Belgium in coordination with IOC-UNESCO, which involves the other four South American countries with coastlines on the Pacific ocean (INVEMAR, 2011) (Figure 2)
   
   
3. Data from the environmental quality monitoring of coastal waters (REDCAM) and meteorological and oceanographic data are received by telemetry and developed as a climate change adaptation measure which is part of the Integrated National Adaptation Project in a national multi-institutional effort (IDEAM et al., 2011). At present, four weather and oceanographic stations are distributed along the Colombian Caribbean Sea where 15 environmental variables are permanently registered
   
   
4. Information regarding the vulnerability assessment, mitigation and/or adaptation to natural hazards caused by global climate change and coastal erosion are visualized for information management purposes in tools like CLIMARES and COSTERO
   
   
5. Geographic information services work as tools that integrate geo-referenced data and show their spatial distribution and its changes in time. Using WMS it is possible to access detailed marine ecosystem cartography information for ecosystems such as coral reefs, mangroves and sea grasses. In addition, users can look up dynamic maps of fisheries and marine protected areas. Other tools complement SIAM services: search within INVEMAR’s specialized marine library, the metadata catalogue, and access to organized information in thematic websites (Figure 3)

SIAM components are developed in different technological degrees to offer several online services in order to: enhance services associated with the ocean observation systems and the coastal erosion system, redesign biodiversity monitoring in order to have a better selection of spatial services, and implement a geo-database that corresponds to coastal marine model. With a constantly growing database and datasheets of more than 10 years, the medium term goal is to develop web services with higher benefit, supported on data mining technology and research oriented to geoprocessing.

Several software packages support SIAM’s infrastructure. Among the most relevant are: ORACLE for database management, ESRI tools for the development and deployment of geographic information, GeoNetwork for metadata catalogue, and ALFRESCO for documents management. INVEMAR has its own system information department: the Information Systems Laboratory comprised of a group of specialized researchers trained in software development, remote sensing information analysis tools, and GIS  technologies in general.

The system serves as a technological tool to support knowledge generation activities in marine and coastal issues. Any group that requires technology for data management can use the existing infrastructure following agreement between the parties. The main users of SIAM services are researchers and students of marine sciences that look for the understanding of the dynamics of the physical, biological and social marine processes. Also, government members can benefit of the system for environmental management and decision-making.

The information contained has supported publishing the first Marine, Coastal and Continental Ecosystems Map in Colombia (IDEAM et al., 2007) at 1:500.000 scale. In addition, there are several other examples of its use: - Evaluation, implementation and control measures to ensure the sanitary quality of the tourist beaches, using REDCAM services, reports, indicators and map viewer. The main users are regional environmental authorities. - The design and management of marine protected areas (Decision support system for the Sub-system of Marine Protected Areas and Biodiversity system). The main user is Colombian’s Department of National Parks. - Activities that demand environmental licenses, permits, concessions or authorizations. The system contains the official cartography of marine and coastal ecosystems (coral reefs, sea grasses, mangrove, soft bottoms and beaches) of the country. - Evaluation of possible compensation for the execution of mineral exploration activities (map viewer of fishing grounds), the main user is the National Hydrocarbons Agency.

Bibliography

• IDEAM, IGAC, IAvH, INVEMAR, I. SINCHOi e IIAP. 2007. Ecosistemas continentales, costeros y marinos de Colombia. Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales, Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi, Instituto de Investigación de Recursos Biológicos Alexander von Humboldt, Instituto de Investigaciones Ambientales del Pacífico Jhon von Neumann, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras José Benito Vives De Andréis e Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas Sinchi. Bogotá, D. C, 276 p. + 37 hojas cartográficas. Download full document in: http://www.invemar.org.co/noticias.jsp?id=3458
  
  
• IDEAM, INVEMAR, CORALINA, INS, CI. 2011. Presentación resultados del proyecto INAP (donación TF056350). Informe Final. Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras José Benito Vives De Andréis, Corporación para el Desarrollo Sostenible del Archipiélago de San Andrés, Providencia y Santa Catalina, Instituto Nacional de Salud, Conservación Internacional.  Bogotá, D. C, 122p http://bit.ly/1lCtwZm
  
  
• INVEMAR, 2011. Red de Información y Datos del Pacífico sudeste para el apoyo a la gestión integrada del Área Costera SPINCAM Colombia. Informe Técnico Final CPPS Fase I – Punto Focal Nacional Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible, Santa Marta, Editado por: Lozano-Rivera P., Arias-Alemán, L.J y Sierra-Correa, P. 39p.+ Anexos http://bit.ly/1orc9wy
  
  

West Coast Governors Alliance launches new website

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 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  

An on-line mapping tool for marine planning in Scotland

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.

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.

Figure 2: Layer Control box to show the
structure based on our vision for the seas,
with the Productive Seas section enlarged

Web Services for Coastal and Marine Atlases

Keiran Millard
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HydroView Now is a range of free to use web mapping services developed by SeaZone.  They have been developed for users building  and delivering coastal and marine atlases.  HydroView Now provides all the key base-mapping and reference features generally needed in developing marine and coastal atlases, allowing users to focus on their content and analysis.

Fully standards-based, the services work in web mapping applications as well as desktop clients such as ArcGIS and QGIS.  They comprise two services:  HydroView Now: Basemap and HydroView Now: Features.

HydroView Now : Basemap

A WMTS for global bathymetry.  This a cartographic product showing hill-shaded bathymetry alongside depth soundings derived from nautical charts.  It contains a transparent land-mask meaning it can be used alongside your choice of land mapping, e.g. OpenStreetMap or BingMaps

HydroView Now : Features

A WFS for global marine feature types.  This provides a definitive worldwide marine reference feature types derived from national hydrographic and other authoritative sources.  The content is processed to form a continuous vector layer dataset aligned to the draft IHO S-100 GML profile.

Both services are delivered through an authenticated web service interface, allowing users to consume the service via an application programming interface.  They are both deployed in the cloud delivering the performance and reliability that users are accustomed to with modern web mapping. 

View HydroViewNow at
http://seazone.viaeuropa.uk.com/viaeuropa/apps/szdemo/

SeaSpace – Providing Satellite Data as a Marine Web Atlas

Keiran Millard
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SeaSpace is a marine atlas part-funded by the UK Space Agency, and was set up to address a particular aspect faced by marine and coastal users, namely how to consume information from large data sets (typically from earth observation missions and numerical models) – without having to download and process large binary data files?

Users wanted a solution that was “like Google Maps” that provided a simple interface to communicate to them, in a meaningful way, what these large datasets contained.  What’s been delivered is not just a standalone atlas, but a standards-compliant WMTS with an API enabling others to use the service.

SeaSpace is not a scientific challenge – the technology pieces exist, it’s about taking what exists and tailoring  it to deliver the atlas—in particular large archives of marine data derived from earth observation missions, processing infrastructure for large datasets and standard web services that users are familiar with.  Formally three objectives were addressed in SeaSpace:

1. To exploit data across a range of different satellite missions observing the marine environment; advancing the uptake of existing missions and feeding back to the space community gaps in observing capability.
2. To help bridge the gaps between publically funded services for processing earth observation data (e.g. GMES1 / ESA Due2) and the consumption of this data at the community level; establishing a persistent relationship between these communities.
3. To introduce the Data as a Service (DaaS) concept and representation of earth observation data as explicit geographic Features Types, enabling the exploitation of existing data archives and ongoing missions.

From a technical point of view, the focus of the Sea Space project is about taking large and complex datasets and extracting specific information from them that conforms to definitions agreed within user communities. For the prototype SeaSpace atlas, the offshore renewable energy industry was adopted as a target user community.  This goes somewhat against how data services have traditionally been delivered which is to adopt a ‘lowest common denominator’ approach.  In SeaSpace we deliberately sought to process the data to maximize information available, irrespective about whether we were duplicating content.  So, if the user would like maximum, minimum and mean of ocean temperature we would generate these statistics and present them as separate information.  The parameters extracted for the trial atlas are shown in the table below:

This information service had to be developed in a way that could be deployed via a number of channels, including web services and direct ingestion into GIS software.  In order to deliver this information service, it was clear that a web map that allows users access to these features as a series of layers was the most appropriate.

SeaSpace adopted the Web Map Tile Service (WMTS) standard as it provided for good cartographic control of how the features were displayed, both on their own and in conjunction with other features.  In addition, it also offered the best option in terms of performance.  Given that user had reported finding existing  web map services for marine data very slow, we wanted to show this didn’t need to be the case.

Introducing the North Carolina Coastal Atlas

Michelle Covi
East Carolina University
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The North Carolina Coastal Atlas http://www.nccoastalatlas.org/ had its genesis when several East Carolina University researchers and state agency coastal managers came together to address some important coastal issues. Although North Carolina has a large amount of coastal resource data, it is located in many different agencies, universities and other organizations in a way that is not coordinated or integrated. The North Carolina Coastal Atlas provides users with a geospatial portal that will allow various data to be displayed, combined, analyzed and ultimately shared. With an emphasis on thematic maps which highlight data useful for specific user needs and a unique geo-referenced bibliographic search function, the North Carolina Coastal Atlas avoids duplication of services available on regional portals or through state agency services.

 

Thematic Maps

In 2012, the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management completed their first-ever continuous digital map of the estuarine shoreline in the state, mapping over 12,000 miles. The Estuarine and Ocean Shoreline thematic map located on the North Carolina Coastal Atlas provides access to this data with a custom viewer. Shorelines were delineated using heads-up digitizing from geo-referenced county-level aerial orthophotographs at a viewing extent of 1:300-1:500.  Shoreline-adjacent structures were also inventoried, digitized, and attributed and are available within the atlas, including boat ramps, docks, breakwaters, groins, sills, riprap, and bulkheads. Coastal managers identified a potential use for shoreline and associated data within the atlas as a way to facilitate the permit application and review processes for coastal property owners.  Users can identify their building site within the context of adjacent development and natural systems including wetlands and submerged aquatic vegetation. In the near future, the atlas user interface will allow the public to create a sketch of their building plan, showing all neighboring properties, water bodies, and required buffers. Once completed, sketches can be shared via URL or social networking sites.  The permitting process can thus be streamlined and made clearer when both those requesting permits and those reviewing permits have access to the same information. The North Carolina Coastal atlas promises to facilitate such important, spatially-referenced communication.

The Wetland, Habitats and Threats thematic map focuses on the wetland management use case.  The North Carolina coastal region has extensive and diverse wetland types given its low elevation lands with poor drainage and warm temperate climate. Wetlands play an important role in reducing water pollution, flood mitigation and habitat for wildlife, including nursery areas for important seafood species. Managers planning for wetlands protection or restoration need tools to help visualize both priority wetlands and potential threats to wetland stability or survival. The map uses the North Carolina Coastal Region Evaluation of Wetland Significance (NC-CREWS), a watershed-based wetlands functional assessment model, to categorize wetlands by significance. Threats visualized include coastal near-shore structures and the potential threat of sea-level rise, modeled using the Sea Level Rise Affecting Marshes Model (SLAMM) and the Marsh Equilibrium Model (MEMII). Future data layers will illustrate other potential threats to wetland habitat such as land use change and the locations of stream obstructions or water withdrawals.

The Flood Inundation Vulnerability map examines potential flooding of coastal communities and demonstrates the utility of maps to identify risk to coastal natural resources and selected municipal areas. In North Carolina, riverine flooding, urban flash floods, storm surges, and potential sea-level rise combine to increase flood hazard risk, especially in low elevation coastal flood zones. These maps combine flood zone data provided by North Carolina Emergency Management with local critical infrastructure data. Municipal water infrastructure such as fresh water intakes, municipal wells, pump and transfer stations, wastewater treatment plants and outfalls are frequently located at low elevation sites to use gravity to move water in the system whenever possible. Supply system infrastructure such as electric utilities, transportation and communication are critically important and also vulnerable to inundation in low elevation areas.

Bibliographic Reference Integration

The North Carolina Coastal Atlas integrates geotagged bibliographic information as a unique coastal atlas feature, which allows coastal researchers and managers to easily assemble geographically-limited literature reviews. The faceted search engine built upon Apache Solr allows type, time range, author and keyword searches. Bibliographic references are synchronized with Mendeley reference management software to assist users in organizing and sharing their custom bibliographies.

Collaboration

The North Carolina Coastal Atlas is produced by a team committed to sharing and promoting the use of coastal geospatial data and technology for education, broad public use and decision-making. The Atlas project is managed by a steering committee providing overall governance, standards and procedures, and data stewardship. The steering committee determines the design, data, and tools to offer end users, and is committed to the use of best practices for data management and accessibility for the public good. The Atlas is supported by grants and contracts from stakeholders and in-kind contributions from the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management (DCM), NOAA Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research (CSCOR) and Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites (CICS), North Carolina Sea Grant, ECU Center for Coastal Informatics and Modeling (C-SIM), ECU Academic Library Services, ECU Center for GIScience, and UNC Coastal Studies Institute.  Also participating in the collaboration are the Albemarle Pamlico National Estuary Partnership, North Carolina Division of Emergency Management, North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, and the North Carolina Center for Geographic Information and Analysis.

Adaptive Participatory Management

The North Carolina Coastal Atlas is taking an intentionally user-oriented approach to developing thematic maps and other content. Before developing content, a needs assessment was conducted with potential users including planners, resource managers, engineers and other interested coastal managers. Essential data categories and useful tools were identified and targeted for incorporation into the digital atlas. As these data and tools continue to be developed, usability and user needs will guide decisions and priority setting. One future direction is public participatory maps which integrate knowledge from both experts and other people living at the coast.  These maps can help create a better avenue of communication and may help decision-makers gather and organize information within a shared spatial context. Better data and maps tools may facilitate better coastal hazards and natural resource planning and management for a more sustainable and resilient coast.

Figure 3: The Data Catalog Search window for the North Carolina Coastal Atlas showing pie diagrams of
the most popular data searched for in the past 7 days and the past month

Introducing the IODE ICAN Project Steering Group

IODE ICAN Project Steering Group Co-chairs: Left: Ned Dwyer, Right: Marcia Berman
IODE ICAN Steering Group Members
Marcia Berman (Co-Chair)	Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William and Mary, USA
Ned Dwyer (Co-Chair)	Coastal Marine Research Centre, University College Cork, Ireland
Angora Aman	ODINAfrica
John Bemiasa	ODINAfrica
Fernando Felix	SPINCAM, South America
Alejandro Iglesias-Campos	International Oceanographic Commission
Kathrin Kopke	Coastal Marine Research Centre, University College Cork, Ireland
Roger Longhorn	EUCC, Belgium
Tony LaVoi	NOAA, USA
Adam Leadbetter	British Oceanographic Data Centre
Andrus Meiner	European Environment Agency
Liz O’Dea	State of Washington, Department of Ecology, USA
Ramon Roach	Coastal Management Unit, Barbados
Lucy Scott	Agulhas and Somali Current Large Marine Ecosystems Project, Africa
Andrew Sherin	Atlantic Coastal Zone Information Steering Committee, Canada
Dawn Wright	ESRI

ICAN at CoastGIS 2013

For the second time ICAN and CoastGIS were held in the same venue one meeting after the other. CoastGIS 2013, the 11th International Symposium for GIS and Computer Cartography for Coastal Zone Management was held immediately after ICAN 6 as ICAN 5 was held  before CoastGIS 2011 in Ostende, Belgium.

Many ICAN 6 participants stayed on in Victoria to contribute to the CoastGIS conference. Rosaline Canessa and Andrew Sherin, CoastGIS 2013 Co-chairs, were ICAN 6 participants. Andrew delivered three papers, and a poster and organized the workshop on “LiDAR Data Accessibility” at CoastGIS. As Adam mentioned in ICAN Technicalities, David Hart and Tanya Haddad presented a workshop entitled “Interoperable Web Services for Adaptive Coastal Management”

Dawn Wright, ICAN co-founder and Steering Group member, prepared a video keynote presentation for CoastGIS “Everyone Loves a Story, Even Policy Makers”  that is viewable on the CoastGIS website http://coinatlantic.ca/index.php/program/program

Dr. Rosaline Canessa, Department of Geography, University of Victoria and Co-Chair, CoastGIS 2013

Other ICAN 6 participants that presented at CoastGIS 2103 included Andy Lanier, Robert Branton, Caroline García Valencia, Andrus Meiner, William McClintock, Julian Pizarro, Kathrin Kopke, Lucy Scott, Tanya Haddad, Todd Hallenback, Liz O’Dea, Ned Dwyer, Yassine Lassoued, Simon Claus, and Silvia Sartor.

A session on Coastal Atlases at CoastGIS 2013 included presentations on the African Coastal and Marine Atlas, the Oregon Coastal Atlas, the Washington Coastal Atlas, Tools and Best Practices for Coastal Web Maps and SmartAtlas.

ICAN 7 will be held in conjunction with CoastGIS 2015 that is planned to be held in South Africa tentatively in April 2015.

Integrated Marine Data Repository for Macaronesia -REDMIC-

Juan Antonio Bermejo Domínguez,
Observatorio Ambiental Granadilla (OAG),
Edf. Puerto Ciudad, oficina 1ºB,Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain
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The aim of the Integrated Marine Data Repository for Macaronesia (REDMIC) is to provide a permanent system for systematic storage, custody and service of marine data of the Canary Islands and, by extension, the Macaronesian Region (Azores, Madeira, Cape Verde & Canary Islands). The repository is configured as an open system of integrated geographic information suitable for searching, viewing, downloading, and data analysis. REDMIC is presented as database capable of covering all areas. Data, whatever their nature, are bounded by the activity that generates them and grouped by type of activity, with total freedom to define them. Using a common data model (ArcMarine) allows to develop analytical functionalities based in any data hosted, no matter their origin. This achievement will serve the research community, interested citizens, marine user-groups, local planning and management authorities and it will support as well the policy actions derived from the Habitat Directive, Water Quality Directive and Marine Strategy Directive. The Macaronesian region in the NE-Atlantic, aims to be integrated in the Marine Data Infrastructure of Europe, and supports the provisions of Directive 2007/2/EC INSPIRE. Moreover, as pilot-project, it could become an attractive operational model that can be replicated in other marine regions (Pacific, Caribbean, etc.)

REDMIC is currently in second phase of development, centred on programming several modules  and feeding data in parallel. The specific objectives at present are the following:

• To develop the software to facilitate data handling (adding, editing, transfer, user –friendly interfaces, etc.)
• To incorporate basic administrative data (protected areas, institutions, etc.) and feeding marine data for the Canary Islands and Madeira Archipelago as a continuous process.
• To establish coordination protocols between Regions in order to share and work simultaneously with REDMIC, and train technicians to run the different modules.
• To disseminate the goals, scope, and usefulness of REDMIC.

REDMIC is conceived as a perpetual service provided by the Observatorio Ambiental Granadilla (OAG) and based at its Data Center in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. It aims to eventually become an official repository for public marine data.

Module development

The OAG has already made a significant effort acquiring hardware and standard software to support the Marine Data Repository. However, in order to run the Repository in an integrated manner according to the ArcMarine conceptual framework, there is a need for considerable programming, namely, the development of specific modules that allow user-friendly incorporation of data into the system, handling metadata (institutions, platforms, sensors, parameter descriptions, etc), quality assessment procedures, etc. The following is a summary of the modules to be developed:

• Administrative module (business tables):
• Chorologic module
• Biotic surveys module
• Tracking module
• Time series & instantaneous data management module
• Taxonomic module
• Reference management module

Data types

REDMIC is presented as a single database capable of covering all areas. Data, whatever their nature, is bound by the activity that generates them with total freedom to define them and are grouped by type of activity. Using a common data model allows the development of analytical functionalities with access to any data whatever activity has generated it. Data within the REDMIC can be of different natures, considering the multiple variables and environmental parameters interrelated in the marine ecosystem. A systemic analysis of data and metadata relevant to the repository is as follows:

a) Marine climatology
b) Physical oceanography
c) Chemical oceanography
d) Biodiversity
e) Archaeology
f) Environment
g) Political and administrative data
h) Infrastructure
i) Use of resources
j) Navigation and incidents
k) Images & remote sensing

ArcMarine Logical data model

REDMIC it is based on the ArcMarine  data model, and  client-server architecture in a distributed system, which consists of clients seeking services and a server responding to requests. To optimize the process of adding data to REDMIC, the OAG will develop an web interface software (several modules) using php and javascript. The application will works on the management system database PostgreSql and has integration with ArcGIS Server 10 for the management, analysis and maintenance of geo-referenced data. Integration with ArcGIS Server will be done through the framework developed by ESRI Web Dojo. The OAG has already developed some interface prototypes, like the chorologic module, which is ready to be used and tuned-up. We adopted web technology because it provides universal access to applications through predefined user roles, making the REDMIC ubiquitous.

The User Geoportal

REDMIC has a website (http://www.redmic.es) which is essential to fulfilling its objectives of public access to information and data, as well as the best way of making itself well-known. The user geoportal is the initial window of access to REDMIC, showing all the possibilities offered by this service. Most of them are not yet developed, but existing information has been included to test accessibility and disseminate REDMIC existence and goals. The user can choose the "Viewer", "Downloads" or "Analysis" entry buttons, as well as the “Catalog”. Simple and intuitive searching and selecting data is common to these modules. Within the window of "Products" the user can download the result of tests carried out or some finished work of general interest. The provision of basic or developed information can be as wide as the data stored in the REDMIC allow. It is logical to concentrate on that for which there is some demand, for example:

• Sea conditions (wind, waves, temperature)
• Species distribution
• Marine protected areas
• Concentration of pollutants in coastal areas
• Whale watching areas
• Fishery regulated areas
• Distribution of sea-grass meadows
• Bathing condition maps, etc.
  
  
  
  

NOAA’s Gulf of Mexico Data Atlas joins ICAN

ICAN is very pleased to welcome it's latest member, the Gulf of Mexico Data Atlas (http://gulfatlas.noaa.gov). From the atlas summary: "As plans to restore the Gulf of Mexico after recent disasters have progressed, federal and state agencies have turned to NOAA for data and information about all aspects of the Gulf of Mexico. One of the most requested resources for that data and information has been the "Gulf of Mexico Coastal and Ocean Zones Strategic Assessment Data Atlas" published by NOAA's National Ocean Service in 1985 as a large hardcopy tabletop book. The new Gulf of Mexico Data Atlas updates and expands that publication in an online, digital format."