Ocean InfoHub Project update

The Ocean InfoHub (OIH) Project aims to improve access to global oceans information, data and knowledge products for management and sustainable development. The OIH will link and anchor a network of regional and thematic nodes that will improve online access to, and synthesis of existing global, regional and national data, information and knowledge resources, including existing clearinghouse mechanisms. The project will not be establishing a new database, but will be supporting discovery and interoperability of existing information systems. The OIH Project is a three-year project funded by the Government of Flanders, Kingdom of Belgium, and implemented by the IODE Project Office of the IOC/UNESCO.

The Ocean InfoHub Project and ICAN, both being projects of the IOC/UNESCO IODE Project Office, have had a number of discussions over the past months to align their efforts for mutual benefit.

OIH attended one of the recent ICAN tech meetings, to present a general overview of the project as well as a presentation of the OIH technical approach, incorporating schema.org.

• ICAN joined the first OIH Steering Group meeting
• OIH has been joining regular ICAN SG meetings
• ICAN has joined the OIH Technical Working group platforms.
• Other ICAN members are invited to join, particularly on the spatial data and maps sub-theme.

OIH and the ICAN tech group are in ongoing communication about some potentially mutually beneficial activities for 2021.

For more information about the Ocean InfoHub Project please contact Lucy Scott: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

About Schema.org

Schema.org is a collaborative, community activity with a mission to create, maintain, and promote schemas for structured data on the Internet. In addition to people from the founding companies (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Yandex), there is substantial participation by the larger Web community, through public mailing lists such as This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and through GitHub.

Since April 2015, the W3C Schema.org Community Group is the main forum for schema collaboration, and provides the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. mailing list for discussions. Schema.org issues are tracked on GitHub.

The day to day operations of Schema.org, including decisions regarding the schema, are handled by a steering group, which includes representatives of the founding companies, a representative of the W3C and a small number of individuals who have contributed substantially to Schema.org. Discussions of the steering group are public.

Schema.org provides a collection of shared vocabularies webmasters can use to mark up their pages in ways that can be understood by the major search engines: Google, Microsoft, Yandex and Yahoo!
You use the schema.org vocabulary along with the Microdata, RDFa, or JSON-LD formats to add information to your Web content.

Some commonly used  item types from Schema.org:

• Event
• Organization
• Person
• Place
• Thing

A full list of all items types can be viewed at this link.

Data is Power

The Five Year (2015-2020) Report of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (https://www.data4sdgs.org/) has been released. The Global Partnership was created 2015 to put the power of data to change minds, policies and lives at the service of sustainable development.

Since 2015 the Global Partnership has learned:

1. Good data takes time: build relationships, change institutions, and learn together.
2. Progress depends upon people: understanding and trust are the keys to good partnerships.
3. Politics drive technical change; political support is critical to sustainable change at scale.
4. Values count: inclusivity and equity must underpin progress on data.
5. Systems not silos: interoperability and openness strengthen systems and increase impact.

A Message from the ICAN Co-chairs

Dear ICAN community,

We have arrived at the end of a difficult 2020, one that deviated wildly from anything we could have imagined a year ago. We hope that you are all well and safe. Despite the disappointment of deferred workshops and other challenges, it is heartening to read of all the good work that continues to be done. We hope you enjoy the news being shared by your colleagues and would love to hear from you and your projects at any time.  

The new year marks the start of the Ocean Decade, an effort that many ICAN community members will be contributing to. As these activities progress, we hope to hear from many of you about efforts that we all can learn from. While it was unfortunate that we were unable to convene in Lisbon in 2020, we are looking forward to partnering with the CoastGIS 2021 conference to continue the ICAN workshop tradition. The CoastGIS team at Raseborg, Finland has been most gracious, and expects to host a hybrid event in September 2021 that will have both in-person and online aspects. We look forward to the opportunity that this presents, and again welcome your ideas and contributions for a successful event.

Wishing you all a safe and healthy 2021,

Kathrin & Tanya

Fair winds, Roger!

As of the end of 2020, Roger Longhorn has retired from the ICAN Steering Group, the IHO Marine SDI WG, and the OGC Marine Domain WG. He is now looking forward to spending more time on his boat than on the computer :)

All the best to Roger on his new adventures!

Ireland’s Marine Atlas

by Adam Leadbetter, Team Leader for Data Management, Marine Institute

Ireland’s Marine Atlas (https://atlas.marine.ie) was initially developed as part of the national reporting for the European Commission’s Marine Strategy Framework Directive on the environmental status of the seas and oceans around the country. At its launch, Ireland’s Marine Atlas included content such as administrative boundaries, protected sites, oil and gas, ocean features, fisheries and aquaculture, marine monitoring, seabed habitats, tourism and leisure, transport, infrastructure, discharge point sources, International Maritime Organization protected areas and current/historical dump sites.

 Figure 1. A screenshot from Ireland's Marine Atlas showing: special areas of conservation) orange hashed); special protected areas (blue hatched); and the survey lines followed throughout the INFOMAR seabed mapping programme (black lines).

Ireland’s Marine Atlas has supported a number of “user stories”:

1.Legislative Reporting to the European Commission

​The Marine Strategy Framework Directive is European Union legislation that aims to protect the marine environment. It requires the application of an ecosystem-based approach to the management of human activities enabling sustainable use of marine goods and services.

Spatial data from Ireland's Marine Atlas has been used in Ireland's​ Marine Strategy Framework Report and Initial Assessment.

Ireland's Marine Atlas also supports the consultation processes making the public aware of Ireland's marine waters, the environmental status of those waters​, and the ongoing human activities in the marine environment.

2. Assessing the Cumulative Impact of Human Activity in the Irish Sea

Maritime Spatial Planning requires the assessment of cumulative impacts in both forward planning and project decision making. Globally, there is an array of existing ecosystem-based methods for cumulative pressure and impact assessment. However there is a general lack of clarity on how these methods can be incorporated into the spatial planning process.

As part of the European Commission’s SIMCelt project on Marine Spatial Planning in the Celtic Seas, the Marine Institute developed a framework for the assessment of cumulative impacts of human activities in the Irish Sea. The approach is to compile data on human activities, interpret the pressures, and use this information to improve our understanding of the cumulative pressures and the impacts.
Maps illustrating human activities in the Irish Sea were produced for this case study using data from Ireland's Marine Atlas.

3. Offshore Renewable Energy

Ireland's Marine Renewable Energy Portal has been developed by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and the Marine Institute in accordance with the requirements of the Offshore Renewable Energy Development Plan.

Open data from Ireland's Marine Atlas is used in the Renewable Energy Portal's "Maps" and "Data" sections. The maps section also uses a customised version of Ireland’s Marine Atlas specific to the requirements of the marine renewable energy sector and provides data on:

• Geology and sediments
• Petroleum energy
• Tidal energy resource
• Wave energy resource
• Wind energy resource

Data provided by Ireland's Marine Atlas supports spatial information, visualisation and increased understanding of the marine renewable energy resource.

In addition, it is consistent with the requirements of the Offshore Renewable Energy Development Plan by making data and information available to the public and potential developers.

4. Visualising Marine Landscapes

Mapping of visual impacts on marine landscapes typically relies on a combination of GIS and viewshed analysis-based methods.

Research in Queen's University Belfast, funded by the Marine Institute’s Cullen scholarship programme for post-graduate research, has investigated the potential visual impacts and the public attitudes regarding the deployment of offshore windfarms off the west coast of Ireland.

This research used data from Ireland's Marine Atlas and also incorporated data from Failte Ireland and NASA’s Digital Elevation Model.

In addition to these use cases, in 2019 the Marine Atlas content was completely refreshed in order to support the publication of Ireland’s draft National Marine Planning Framework documentation. Work is ongoing to continue the publication of data layers relevant to the Marine Spatial Planning activity in Ireland through Ireland’s Marine Atlas platform.

Technically, the map viewer used in Ireland’s Marine Atlas uses a Leaflet JavaScript mapping framework front-end to access Web Map Services and Web Feature Services from both proprietary (ESRI-based) and Open Source (GeoServer) back-ends.

Each layer in Ireland’s Marine Atlas is described by a full ISO19115 metadata record which is registered either in the Marine Institute’s data catalogue (http://data.marine.ie) or in the Irish Spatial Data Exchange (http://isde.ie). These records are made available to a more general audience through harvesting to Ireland’s Open Data Portal (https://data.gov.ie).

Future development of Ireland’s Marine Atlas will be targeted at closing the gap between the static map-based interface and the presentation of real-time and delayed-mode observational data through Ireland’s Digital Ocean platform (https://digitalocean.ie).

Ireland's Marine Atlas viewer has been part supported by the Irish Government and the European Maritime & Fisheries Fund (EMFF) as part of the EMFF Operational Programme for 2014-2020; the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine; and the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. Ireland's Marine Atlas is operated by the Marine Institute, the State agency responsible for marine research, technology development and innovation in Ireland. Development of the current version of the viewer was undertaken by Compass Informatics Limited.

A video showing the use of Ireland’s Marine Atlas can be seen at

_{[Editor’s Note: An article on the Irish Marine Atlas was last published in the ICAN Newsletter in the March 2012 issue.]}

CoastSnap – Citizen Science for Coastal Observation

By Roger Longhorn

CoastSnap is a global “Citizen Science” project devised to involve citizens in scientific research on the accretion and erosion of beaches. There are several methodologies using cameras and other remote sensing technologies to collect the needed information, but these typically require significant funding, ongoing maintenance, and technical knowledge. CoastSnap eliminates this by engaging the local community and tourists to capture the same images, using a simple installation comprising a holder for smartphones to ensure all pictures are taken from the same angle and position. The photos can be shared via social media (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) or email, noting the date and time of the photo. All photo authors will remain anonymous.

The project provides specially designed smartphone holders at fixed “CoastSnap stations” where anyone can place their smartphones to take apicture of the beach from a known, fixed location and orientation. All of these photos will be collected into one large set, to be used by researchers to map the growth or erosion of target beaches.

CoastSnap is a global project, originated by Dr Mitchell Harley of the University of Sydney, where the first CoastSnap station was installed in 2017. Since then, several other countries have joined the CoastSnap network, with currently about 44 stations active across the globe, from Madagascar to Brazil, Spain, Belgium, the UK and the United States. An international platform is under development on which all these stations can be gathered. The representatives of the different stations try to meet annually to exchange ideas and experiences.

The first “CoastSnap station” in Belgium is in Ostend. This location is fitting to start the project in Belgium, being on a well visited tourist location that is also much frequented by local citizens throughout the year. The target beach on this location is subject to many factors that affect accretion, and CoastSnap can contribute to a better understanding of how exactly the beach responds to all those influences. A second station is planned for the coastal community of Koksijde. To learn more about CoastSnap in Belgium visit https://www.kustportaal.be/en/coastsnap-belgium.

To those ICAN members across the globe, consider joining the CoastSnap project.

For more information on CoastSnap progress, contact the CoastSnap Team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit their website at:
https://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/research-and-publications/your-research/citizen-science/digital-projects/coastsnap
 

Some More Atlases for UN Sustainable Development Goals

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

Several on-line atlases have been developed that are relevant to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Three are highlighted here. Please send examples of other SDG relevant atlases to Andy at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for future articles.

Blue Justice for Small-Scale Fisheries' Commitment

Too Big To Ignore (TBTI) has been promoting the notion of ‘Blue Justice’ through various platforms. One of our most prominent efforts was the registration of Blue Justice for Small-Scale Fisheries as a voluntary commitment to the Ocean Conference to Support the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14 (SDG 14). Our pledge joins more than 1,400 other voluntary commitments to save our oceans, all registered on a UN platform. See TBTI Blue Justice full commitments at https://oceanconference.un.org/commitments/?id=29400

Figure 1: The Information System for Small Scale Fisheries (ISSF) is a global collaborative online database providing information on small-scale fisheries (SSF) to help enhance knowledge about this sector and their overall contributions. ISSF is available at https://issfcloud.toobigtoignore.net/

The commitment, which is part of our ongoing 'Blue Justice' campaign, calls attention to the current discourse about Blue Growth/Blue Economy, which poses potential risks to the rights of small-scale fisheries to the fishing livelihoods, which include access to fisheries resources, to coastal and ocean space, and to local, national and international markets. The campaign is urging for the social justice of small-scale fisheries be recognized not only as a basic right, but also an important condition for the realization of the UN Sustainable Goals and implementation of the SSF Guidelines.

 _{[Editor’s Note: TBTI  last appeared in the ICAN Newsletter in the September 2014 issue.]}

Interactive Database of the World’s River Basins

The Interactive Database of the World’s River Basins is one of the tools referenced by Inventory of Business Tools https://sdgcompass.org/business-tools/ . This inventory maps existing business tools against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Interactive Database of the World’s River Basins database provides a compilation of the world’s river basins developed specifically for corporate disclosure. It features a comprehensive list of river basins worldwide, including their names, boundaries, and other helpful information. http://riverbasins.wateractionhub.org/

Figure 3: Interactive Database of the World’s River Basins

Many companies provide location-specific information in their water reporting. However, they often don’t have a common reference point for the places they talk about. Because of this, they often refer to the same place by different names, or to different places using the same name. This database solves that problem by allowing you to Find Basins by Latitude / Longitude Points and Find Basins by Country.

Figure 4: River Basins from Western Europe mapped in the Interactive Database of the World’s River Basins.

Allan Coral Atlas

Arizona State University’s Center for Global Discovery and Conservation Science, the National Geographic Society, Planet, the University of Queensland, and Vulcan Inc. are working to expand the Allen Coral Atlas. With the Atlas, coral conservationists, reef managers and scientists have access to high quality information that has never before been available at this global scale.

The Allen Coral Atlas is built by a dedicated team of scientists, technologists, and conservationists, using one-of-a-kind methodologies, led and funded by Vulcan Inc.

It all starts with 3.7m satellite imagery. With this data in hand, distorting “noise” in the imagery is taken out. Algorithms then correct for the effects of the atmosphere and sun glint on the surface of the water, and then depth is calculated. Next, field data is used to calibrate rule sets before generating a habitat map with machine learning. The resulting map is then displayed on the Allen Coral Atlas website, and the Atlas Engagement team works with scientists, academics, policymakers, and protected area managers to facilitate use.

The Ocean InfoHub Project

By Lucy Scott

The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) Ocean InfoHub Project (OIH) is a new initiative to streamline access to ocean science data and information for management and sustainable development.

The OIH will establish and anchor a network of regional and thematic nodes that will improve online access to and synthesis of existing global, regional and national data, information and knowledge resources. The project will center on an openly accessible web platform designed to support interlinkages and interoperability between distributed resources including existing clearinghouse mechanisms. The OIH will first consolidate IOC-associated online resources - including OceanExpert, OceanDocs, the Ocean Best Practices System, the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), the World Ocean Database (WOD) and Ocean Data Portal (ODP) – extended by partnerships with EurOcean, Marinetraining.eu, EMODNET, and other sources in the IOC ODIS Catalogue of Sources (ODIScat).  The initial focus of OIH will thus be on (i) experts, (ii) institutions/organizations, (iii) research data and information infrastructures and their capabilities and services offered, (iv) projects, (v) research vessels, (vi) education and training opportunities, (vii) funding programs and other opportunities, (viii) documents and publications, (ix) manuals, guidelines, standards and best practices, (xi) metadata catalogue for specific variables and (xii) access to data sets and/or data products relevant to particular program priorities, including spatial data and maps (e.g. the SDGs and Essential Ocean Variables).

ICAN member atlases are invited to make contact with the OIH team, in the hope that one or more atlas projects could participate in a pilot interoperability test with the global OIH, and thus become part of a demonstration exchange of spatial data.

The project will benefit marine and coastal stakeholders across the globe, but its initial focus will be on responding to requests for data products and services from three regions: IOCAFRICA, LAC and the Pacific SIDS to meet their unique user community (thematic and language) requirements. The initial priorities for the Project will be to develop communities of practice for the three pilot regions, as well as to formalize partnerships with other UN agencies and key international partners. A global ODIS (Ocean Data and Information System) architecture will be developed to enable scalable development and interoperability with local, regional and thematic infrastructures. Through these actions, the OIH will enable a digital ecosystem where users, from any entry point, can discover content and services that they require, while also having opportunities to become content creators themselves.

Matchmaking services would be an additional function of the OIH, particularly in support of the IOC Capacity Development strategy. Services would allow study and training or vessel survey opportunities to be identified, a peer-to-peer service would support scientific collaboration, and an automated/self-serve service would allow the search for specific human or institutional expertise. The project will also focus on the transfer of local knowledge, on supporting early career scientists, and on remedying gender disparity by increasing access to information, technologies and opportunities, in line with the IOC’s Capacity Development strategy.

Ultimately, the OIH intends to meet the knowledge needs of national and regional requirements for sourcing marine data and information, as well as to assist countries in their reporting requirements for the Sustainable Development Goals (particularly goals 4,9, 14 and 17), contribute to key aims of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for disaster Risk Reduction and Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction. The OIH will also assist IOC member states to report on ocean science capacities through the Global Ocean Science Report (GOSR).

Funded by the Government of Flanders (Kingdom of Belgium), the project started in April 2020 and will run for three years. The OIH is coordinated by the IOC Project Office for IODE (Oostende, Belgium), building on its 59-year history of supporting member states in the exchange and management of marine data and information.

For more information:

• Ocean InfoHub Project: https://www.iode.org/oih
• ODIScat: https://catalogue.odis.org/

Email Lucy Scott, UNESCO/IOC Project Office for IODE, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Caribbean Marine Atlas: supporting integrated coastal management and governance of the Caribbean region

By Carolina García-Valencia, Leonardo Arias-Alemán, Paula C. Sierra-Correa y Francisco Arias
Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras “José Benito Vives De Andréis” – INVEMAR

https://www.caribbeanmarineatlas.net/

The Caribbean Marine Atlas (CMA) project on its second phase (2016-2020) faces the challenge of transitioning into an electronic repository for quality technical and scientific information of the Caribbean Basin, with the purpose of being a tool for decision-making in the entire region.

The Platform offers data and information on different issues related to Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM), Ecosystem-based Management (EbM), and regional governance at several spatial scales, from the management of user administrators assigned to information/data providers and remote geospatial information services of interest to the region. Through the involvement of participating countries, CMA seeks to support decision-makers, and society in general, so everyone who has any need for information from the Caribbean is able to consult this information free, online, and automatically. At present, the platform offers 1134 layers, 145 maps, 154 documents, 93 linked external information sources, and 24 remote services (WMS/WFS). In addition, due to special interest from partner countries, a report of a set of indicators was generated, which has led to an opportunity to publish ten indicators that identify corresponding gaps in information for the major problems and challenges of the Caribbean region and seeking to use national data from country partners regarding environmental/economic information.

The ten indicators are:

• Coastal population density change (municipalities),
• Coral Health –assessment of reef biota (% cover) (Healthy Reefs Initiative),
• Marine Protected Areas,
• Ecosystems Representativeness (The spatial extent of ecosystems in marine and coastal protected areas as a proportion of the total
• ecosystem extent in the country - mangroves, seagrasses, coral reef, and beaches),
• Coastal economic activities (% GDP by economic activity by political-administrative division of the 1st level),
• Threatened Species (National data / OBIS),
• Invasive Species (National data / OBIS),
• Extreme events (Effects for nine natural hazards: losses of human lives, and frequency of events: tsunamis, storm surges, wind, earthquakes, volcanic eruption, landslides, floods, drought and, hurricanes),
• Sea Level trend (NOAA data and sea level national stations) and
• Global Capture Production (marine capture production by country - FAO data).

Several of these indicators were defined to contribute as a voluntary report for some United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 14 (https://www.caribbeanmarineatlas.net/indicatorscma2).

Caribbean Marine Atlas

CMA is based on a collaborative approach to strengthening national capabilities from existing national, regional and international marine data and information management programs, projects or strategies of International Ocean Data and Information Exchange (IODE) (cooperation exchange and expertise, strategic synergies, opportunities and tools). The technological tool allows countries self-management over information, which enhances its capability on spatial information management as well as display and publishing opportunities (GIS expert trained/country). Information management involves metadata and standards use, information policy (IODE information Policy www.iode.org/policy), protocols to upload products and quality control. Among the main tools the platform offers is a large repository for geospatial information (layers, maps, documents), a geospatial viewer to freely consult/create/download of maps and layers (shapefile, raster, WMS), display of indicators (graphs and tables), links to other online data sources and a news module.

The adaptation of the platform from the functionality of its graphical user interface offers a repository of geospatial data and information that can be retrieved, stored, periodically updated and made available for particular purposes of a project, agency or initiative. With the technical assistance carried out by the platform administration (INVEMAR), its operation based on GeoNode technology is guaranteed, as well as interoperability with other systems. Linkages with the CaribbeanLarge Marine Ecosystems CLME + project have shown that the visualization of information hosted in the Atlas is possible through graphs and maps for specific purposes allowing the improvement of its services, the activation of its interoperability and the articulation with other initiatives to achieve a technological synergy that links it to other websites dynamically through the GeoNode infrastructure and the caribbeanmarineatlas.net domain. This enhancement of interaction with other regional projects/initiatives or interested countries is increasing the amount of information and the spectrum of topics for the Caribbean region. The CMA landing page was updated to make a visible supporting role in the regional Strategic Action Programme Monitoring & Evaluation (SAP) and  State of the Marine Environment and associated Economies (SOMEE) reporting efforts. Currently, it provides relevant background upfront, as well as a shortcut to access information that specifically relates to certain aspects of the CLME+ SAP (and thus the SOMEE report, whose structure is based on the SAP), hyperlinks to various pages on the CLME+ HUB, acknowledgments and regional ocean governance contacts. At the same time, the CLME+ HUB also links back to the CMA GeoNode (https://clmeplus.org/ ).

The creation of custom layer-based visualizations contributes to the strategic positioning of GeoNode technology, and in particular, its practical expression in the form of the CMA platform with information workflows associated with decision-making processes. In this sense, the Caribbean Marine Atlas can be the tool that marks the beginning of a new chapter for the use of GeoNode in the management of geospatial platforms and Spatial Data Infrastructures in the Caribbean region, and for its effective and long-term use to support the management of marine resources, governance and even management at the transboundary level.

Since 2020 CMA moves forward toward a new phase, in which in addition to initial objectives as a project on the region, the platform will be part of the catalog of the set of sources/systems for geospatial products (maps and atlases) of the Ocean Info Hub project (see article below). This last project is currently being developed by IODE of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission IOC (UNESCO). It is a new initiative to streamline access to ocean science data and information for management and sustainable development that will center on an openly accessible web platform designed to support interlinkages and interoperability between distributed resources including existing clearinghouse mechanisms within the framework of United Nations Decade for Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

_{[Editor’s Note: The CMA last appeared in the ICAN Newsletter in the November 2016 Edition.]}

Update from the West Coast Ocean Data Portal

The West Coast Ocean Data Portal (WCODP) began in 2014 as a project of the West Coast Governors Alliance on Ocean Health (WCGA). It was launched with the intention of increasing access to and discovery of critical ocean and coastal data for resource managers and policymakers on the West Coast of the United States, and parallels the efforts of other regional data portals around the U.S. The WCGA is no longer active, but the WCODP maintains its original purpose and now works in close coordination with the West Coast Ocean Alliance (WCOA), taking guidance from the WCOA on the development of data products. The WCOA is a Regional Ocean Partnership formed in 2018 from the legacy of the former WCGA and West Coast Regional Planning Body, and is composed of state, tribal, and federal representatives involved in coastal and ocean management on the West Coast.

Technical Enhancements

At the end of 2019, the portal received several technical upgrades. These included an update of the content management system to Wagtail, to allow for easy maintenance of the front end, and an update of the portal visualization tool to Open Layers 5. The move to Open Layers 5 has allowed support for time-enabled web services and for vector tiles; coupled with the new content management system, this simplifies the creation and publication of story maps that highlight resources available through the portal.

This year, the WCODP is continuing to build on these upgrades, and work is being done on the portal to update the geoportal software, rewrite the application program interface (API) and front-end for the portal’s catalog browser, and integrate the catalog and portal functions. When completed, these upgrades will not only improve the overall functionality, query and visualization abilities of the portal, but will also improve efficiency of portal maintenance. In the current iteration of the portal technology, the catalog and visualization tool are not connected, and must be updated individually to make sure that visible layers can be found in the catalog. Portal staff envision that integrating these components will reduce required maintenance effort, and free up time that can be spent improving other aspects of the portal.

Data Projects

In addition to these technical enhancements, the WCODP is focusing on the creation of a number of other data improvement projects to be hosted on the portal, that will improve access to information and be helpful for planning and communication purposes for our users.

West Coast Ocean Health Tool

In 2019, at the request of WCOA members, the WCODP began preliminary work on the creation of a West Coast ocean health scorecard tool, in order to define standards and critical thresholds concerning priority ocean health issues across the region. Thus far, this process has involved a review of existing ocean health tools, including scorecard products and frameworks, and the selection of three priority indicators to be developed by the end of 2020: ocean acidification, beach water quality, and macroalgae. Altogether, the anticipated timeline for this project is three to five years, and as indicator development with partner entities continues, the WCODP will work with WCOA members to determine the best way for users to interact with indicators via the portal interface.

Spatial Coordination Framework

WCOA members have also asked for a tool to facilitate communication and identify key contacts as they relate to ocean and coastal projects developing on the West Coast. The COVID-19 pandemic has eliminated many opportunities for in-person communication on this subject, and the WCODP plans to develop this tool throughout the rest of 2020. The tool will be founded on a spatially enabled database of contacts, ocean management topics, and general ocean geographies for coordination. The preliminary geographic extents pictured below (Figure 2)  create a generalized way for state, tribal and federal staff members to self-identify their interest in ocean management topics in a particular geographic region. By choosing a geographic area or topic to search by, members can then identify all related entities and staff members that would like to be notified or have expertise for that topic / area. Example topics include, but are not limited to, subjects such as aquaculture, energy, submarine cables, fisheries and sediment management. The tool will not replace regulatory or organizational responsibilities, such as required Government-to-Government consultations with West Coast tribes.

Oregon Offshore Wind Planner

In 2019, renewed interest in offshore wind development off the coast of Oregon led to the revival of the Oregon and Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management (BOEM) Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force. This Task Force consists of representatives from federally recognized tribes, federal agencies, states, and local governments, and serves as a forum to coordinate planning and engagement around the development of offshore renewable energy resources, specifically wind. In the Task Force’s recently released Data Gathering and Engagement Plan, the WCODP is identified as the portal that will display all data related to offshore wind planning off the coast of Oregon, for government and stakeholder use. In addition to the relevant spatial datasets listed in the existing catalog, the WCODP is developing a standalone data visualization tool for this purpose over the course of the next year. This Oregon Offshore Wind Planner will offer a curated selection of the most up-to-date layers relevant to offshore wind planning in the area, along with other products such as pre-made maps according to different subject areas.

Get Involved

Altogether, this year is an exciting one for the West Coast Ocean Data Portal as we look forward to completing technical upgrades and unveiling new content and projects. These projects and regular portal maintenance are currently supported by a combination of funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

To learn more about the West Coast Ocean Data Portal, visit https://portal.westcoastoceans.org or
contact Marisa Nixon, West Coast Ocean Fellow, at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

[Editor’s Note: An article on the West Coast Ocean Data Portal was last published in the March 2014 issue of the ICAN Newsletter.]