Report from North Atlantic Regional Meeting for the UN Decade of Ocean Science

ICAN was represented at the North Atlantic Regional Meeting for the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development held from January 6-10, 2020 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. This meeting was hosted by the Canadian research network the Ocean Frontier Institute (https://oceanfrontierinstitute.com) and sponsored by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans and one of several regional meetings for each ocean basin (visit https://oceandecade.org/activities for details on other regional meetings). The purpose of the meetings was to help “shape the decade” facilitated by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO.

Attendees

One hundred and thirty six delegates from Europe and North America (see Figure 1) participated in working groups organized by the Decade’s societal outcomes, A Clean Ocean, A Safe Ocean, A Healthy and Resilient Ocean, A Sustainable Productive Ocean, A Predicted Ocean and A Transparent and Accessible Ocean.

The meeting began with greetings and prayer by Dorene Bernard, Mi’kmaq Grassroots Grandmother and Water Protector. The meeting was gathered on the traditional and unceded territories of the Mi’kmaw indigenous nations. Elder Bernard led a water ceremony honouring the value of water to the physical and spiritual health of humanity and creation.

Presentations

Plenary presentations were made by members of the Executive Planning Committee and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission. These presentations can be found on the meeting’s website at https://oceanfrontierinstitute.com/un-decade-2020. The meeting had the advantage of the participation of several All-Atlantic Ocean Youth Ambassadors, student note takers from Dalhousie University Masters of Marine Management Program and a graphical facilitator. The final graphic produced by the facilitator is shown in Figure 2.

The ICAN representative had the opportunity to participate in two working groups, A Transparent and Accessible Ocean and A Healthy and Resilient Ocean.

Transparent and Accessible Ocean Working Group

The final reporting from the Transparent and Accessible Ocean focused on three themes:

1. Building a “digital twin” ocean called Atlantic Ocean 5D encompassing data, observations and information;
   1. Ocean 5D will provide “Rapid, standardized, and credited sharing of data, information and knowledge through a distributed digital commons where material is findable, accessible, interoperable, and reuseable i.e. FAIR.”
2. Capacity Building Exchange they called Atlantic Ocean Connect;
   1. Need for a clearing house for capacity exchange activities;
   2. Need for institutional recognition of capacity exchange;
   3. Need to highlight the benefits and best practices for capacity exchange; and
   4. Need for mutual two-way (developed <> developing)
   5. Key words “respect and listening”
3. Ocean literacy they called Atlantic Ocean Knowledge.
   1. Do the present ocean literacy initiatives work? Need for research to answer this question;
   2. Need to professionalize ocean literacy practitioners;
   3. Need for better partnering with educators; and
   4. Need for boundary organizations to transform science to policy

During the first working group session on this theme, the role of Official Development Assistance in enabling capacity exchange between a well-resourced North Atlantic region with other less well-off ocean regions was suggested.

Healthy and Resilient Ocean Working Group

The final reporting from the Healthy and Resilient Ocean working group suggested the following vision for the end of the Decade in 2030:

“By 2030, we seek to have implemented science-based, effective Marine Spatial Planning and Ecosystem Based Management systems and tools to maintain / restore / strengthen ecosystem resilience in the face of competing ocean uses.”

Other priorities identified by the working group included:

1. Evaluating ecosystem resilience;
2. Understanding ocean structure and function (and lose);
3. Quantifying socio-ecological trade-offs of human activities; and
4. Consider governance, policy and engagement.

Other working group reports were:

Clean Ocean Working Group

The Clean Ocean working group categorized pollution issues and sectors by importance and trends. The most important included CO2 and fossil fuels, species transfer, underwater noise and shipping, underwater noise and extraction industries, chemical pollution, plastic and wastewater and plastic and fisheries.

Safe Ocean Working Group

The Safe Ocean working group recommended the development of a North Atlantic Risk Map.

Sustainable Productive Ocean Working Group

A Sustainable Productive Ocean working group recommended the objective of an evidence-based sustainable productive ocean economy in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressure and identified the following research gaps and transformative practices:

1. Governance science and communication;
2. Integration of different knowledge systems;
3. Development of inclusive integrated ecosystem assessments; and
4. Marine spatial planning.

Cross-cutting Themes

Other features of the meeting were reports from participants tasked with looking at cross cutting themes:

1. Capacity building exchange and technology transfer
   1. Delegates were warned to use the language of exchange rather than building and transfer since in every relationship the exchange of capacity and technology is mutual.
2. Partnerships and financing
   1. The OECD report on the Ocean Economy in 2030 was mentioned.
3. Access to information, data, and knowledge
   1. Need for data and knowledge and systems for access need to be “fit for propose”.
4. Awareness raising and inclusivity
   1. Inclusivity is based on respectful relationships and inclusion in the whole process. Too often indigenous communities have been approached for research and data collection but the researchers are never to be heard from again.
5. Transdisciplinarity
   1. There is a need to increase the range of disciplines including historians, ethicists, and planners. The final graphic suggested transformation as the objective transdisciplinarity but it should be considered aspirational. How do we transition through intermediate steps? The process is more important than outcomes.
   2. How do we reconcile when knowledge systems come to different conclusions?

Comments heard during the meeting on several occasions were the need to include other UN agencies with a role in oceans e.g. IMO, WMO, FAO, UNEP and equitable partnership with social scientists.

Summary Graphic

 A wonderful summary infographic captured the major themes and findings of the meeting:

Next Steps

The results of the regional meetings will be presented to the Second Global Planning Meeting for the Decade to be held in Paris in March. The Decade implementation plan will be presented to the United Nations Ocean Conference to be held in Lisbon in June. The kick off for the Decade will take place in Germany in May 2021.

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ICAN 9 - Save the Date!

ICAN has a New Look!

Thanks to the wonderful talents of Amy Dozier, Research Assistant at MaREI Centre, University College Cork, ICAN has both an updated logo and color scheme, and the new look has been applied throughout the web site at: https://ican.iode.org. Thank you Amy!

To celebrate the new look, we’ve also moved a wealth of articles from the Newsletter archives onto the website, and we are working on linking these to the searchable directory of Atlases that is currently in progress.

If you have an old ICAN logo on your Atlas, we appreciate the support, and are ready to supply updated versions depending on your needs. Both horizontal and vertical versions are available, as well as a version that works side-by-side with the IDOE logo. The two most common versions are available at:

https://ican.iode.org/download/ican_member_logos.zip

Please let us know if you need other versions or sizes!

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ICAN Tweets @ICANAtlas

ICAN is active on Twitter since August 2018  and has since gained 337 followers and while activity on social media varies and strongly relates to ICAN members taking part in events; ICAN gains on average 20 new followers and receives about 44 profile visits per month. The account reaches on average 4115 monthly tweet impressions, which refers to the number of times a tweet shows up in a twitter users timeline.

Themes

Numerous ICAN tweets to date are relevant to the UN Decade of Ocean Science and support associated dissemination of information and engagement with relevant topics. ICAN twitter audiences are gender balanced with 59% of the ICAN audience identifying as female according to Twitter analytics from June 2019.

Engagement

In May 2019, in support of the 1st Global Planning Meeting of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development in Copenhagen ICAN generated 20 organic tweets with 17 specifically using the hashtag #OceanScience or #OceanDecade to encourage and disseminate event specific information in addition to relevant retweets from event participants that use twitter. ICAN in that month reached nearly 8000 tweet impressions, which refers to the number of times a tweet shows up in a twitter users timeline. In return the networks twitter account received 100 profile visits demonstrating interest of attendees in finding out more about the network.

Next Steps

ICAN commits to the continued retweeting of relevant content related to the Decade as well as tweeting original content accompanied by Decade Tags where appropriate.

Follow us @ICANAtlas

 

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University of Wisconsin initiates two phase study of coastal web atlases

David Hart
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The University of Wisconsin’s Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute and the Cartography Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are conducting a two-phase evaluation to identify best practices and future directions for the design and use of coastal web atlases. Preliminary results of this research will be presented at the Social Coast Forum in Charleston, South Carolina in February 2020.

Phase I

The first phase involves a comparative analysis of coastal web atlases in the United States Atlases from Indiana, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin will be reviewed by their interface design, usability, map representations and data services. The analysis is organized by the broad categories of maps, tools, catalog and learning resources, where:

• Maps are defined as: “Web maps which allow users to view coastal topics as presentational items and lack advanced analysis through exploration.”
• Tools are defined as: “Web maps and other tools which have advanced analysis and/or exploration features to guide decisions about coastal management.”
• Catalogs are defined as “Collections of data and/or media which is often accessed through an exploratory interface.”
• Learning resources are defined as: “Mostly textual information and/or story maps about a particular coastal topic which aim to educate the user on the topic.”

The only maps, tools, catalogs and learning resources included for review are those linked from the home page or other affiliated pages of the state coastal web atlases.

Phase II

The second phase is a survey that will be sent to representative users of the same 10 state coastal web atlases beginning in November 2019. The survey will track the same four broad categories of the comparative analysis (maps, tools, catalog and learning resources) and will ask questions about user experiences, values, and opinions regarding these resources.

Insights from both the comparative analysis and user survey will be used to improve the design of the Wisconsin Coastal Atlas. Results should be relevant to developers of other coastal web atlases and could be used more broadly to guide the design and use of geospatial information and maps for coastal management. For more information about this study, contact David Hart with Wisconsin Sea Grant at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Resources

• Cartography Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: https://geography.wisc.edu/cartography/
• Sea Grant, University of Wisconsin: https://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/

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New York State Gateway Survey Results Summary

Jeff Herter
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New Yorkers rely on the New York Department of State Office of Planning, Development and Community Infrastructure’s Geographic Information Gateway (Gateway) every day to answer important questions. The Gateway provides answers to questions on habitats and environments, specific regulatory boundaries, coastal risk areas, and planning changes to local communities. All programs within the Office use the Gateway in their day to day operations from locating projects in relation to the State’s Coastal Area Boundary and significant coastal fish and wildlife habitat areas by Consistency staff to Brownfield Opportunity and Downtown Revitalization Initiative areas and Local Waterfront Revitalization planning efforts.The federally mandated Coastal Atlas is built on the Gateway and is used by homeowners and marine contractors alike as they prepare project submissions for consistency review. For those in local government or sister state agencies, the Gateway facilitates important decision-making by presenting relevant jurisdictional boundaries, providing information on grants possibilities, delineating areas of significant coastal fish and wildlife habitat, and illustrating climate change issues.

 

Figure 1: Example of a Coastal Map of Long Island, NY from the Gateway

 

Survey

In September the Gateway team developed and conducted a short survey to get a sense of who is using the Gateway and glean some stories about how they are using it. Here is some of what we found out:  68 % of respondents worked for state government and 12% for local governments, counties, cities, towns and villages.  Non-governmental organizations and those identifying as academic users each represented 5% of respondents and the general public only made up for 2%.  This result really helped us understand that we had some real outreach work to do with regard to our target audience, local government and the general public.   Users showed pretty broad interest regionally, with two data areas really standing out Great Lakes and Local Waterfront Revitalization Program data. All other data areas, Atlantic Ocean, Long Island Sound, Long Island South Shore Estuary Reserve and the Mohawk River Watershed had at least 25% of respondents showing interest.  Over 1/3rd of respondents use the Gateway between 1 – 10 times a month and 41% use it a few times a year.  And a few more numbers: Over half of the respondents feel the Gateway provides an easy intuitive experience; 61% said they would recommend the Gateway to their peers and co-workers; over 2/3rds, 68%, felt the Gateway provides information specific to their geographic area of interest, and finally, the average of respondents value for the Gateway was about $4000 per year (it’s free and will stay that way!)

 

 Stories

Some of the stories we heard about how folks are using the Gateway:

• The Gateway is being used to access the New York Department of State risk areas for resilience planning and by State contractors and Lake Ontario communities engaged in the Lake Ontario Resiliency and Economic Development Initiative (REDI) through a REDI Mapper.
  
  
• Agencies and stakeholders involved in the Governor’s Office’s Environmental Justice and Just Change Working Group use a saved bookmark of the Gateway viewer to visualize potential Environmental Justice indicators.
  
  
• Educators and academics use the Gateway regularly as an in-depth learning opportunity and endless data source for a variety of topics, from high school geology students learning about deep-sea bathymetry to graduate-level marine biology researchers investigating fish and bird migration patterns.
  
  
• We heard from one private sector user, who provides software to State election boards, that relies on the Gateway for resolving redistricting disputes and would have to pay a corporate entity for data if the Gateway was not available.
  
  
• Other private sector businesses have told us that the Gateway offers an invaluable tool for revealing coastal zone management reviews, performing GIS analysis for clients, and providing mapping reference for geocoding projects.

 

Figure 2: Example from Resiliency and Economic Development Initiative (REDI) mapper for Lake Ontario near Rochester, NY

 

Across the state, individuals access the Gateway when their need for information cannot wait. The Gateway’s availability as a real-time resource for latest conditions on tides, currents and recreational hotspots is integral to decision making for hundreds of visitors, from New York and all over the world. The Gateway’s “Story-Mapping” feature facilitates engagement with the Atlantic Ocean and climate change topics, providing stories of resilience and mitigation and highlighting the important work of the DOS Office of Planning and Development.

Figure 3: Example from the Environmental Justice visualization

 

The latest iteration of the Gateway has been met with consistent praise. The experience of browsing today’s Gateway is easy and intuitive, a unique feature for a deeply data-rich interface. The value of this ease of use cannot be understated, as a tool that is highly effective but difficult to use for much of its audience becomes immaterial. As the Gateway improves and grows, it continues to replace older and less engaging data sources, builds on ease of use and expands functionality. The Gateway is a platform for all New Yorkers and beyond, from every corner of the state, every professional sector and every background.

Traffic

Over the past 4 years we’ve had visitors from 105 countries outside the U.S., 54% of the countries in the world today. All 50 states and 3 U.S. territories have visited the Gateway and on average we get visits from 28 states outside of New York and 14 countries every month. The Gateway has exceeded 60,000 unique visitors since its launch. There have been over a quarter million pageviews, over three quarters of a million actions, and over 300,000 minutes or 5100 hours spent on the Gateway. On average we receive over 1220 visits and just over 5300 pages views a month. As the Gateway grows and improves, it will become more and more integral to planning efforts, day to day work flows and information dissemination.

Resources

• Access the New York Geographic Information Gateway at http://opdgig.dos.ny.gov/index.html#/home

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Examples of Atlases for UN Sustainable Development Goals

Andy Sherin
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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.

Protected Planet

Protected Planet is a publically available online platform where users can discover terrestrial and marine protected areas, access related statistics and download data from the World Database on Protected Areas. It is updated monthly and is managed by the United Nations Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre with support from IUCN and its World Commission on Protected Areas.

Protected Planet provides data in several formats, supports an API and an ESRI Map Service.

Figure 1: Sample map showing marine protected areas and statistics from the protectedplanet.net website

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World Bank Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals

The 2018 World Bank Atlas of  Sustainable Development Goals has over 180 maps and charts showing the progress societies are making towards the 17 SDGs. The Atlas has annotated data visualizations, which can be reproducibly built form source code and data. The Atlas can be viewed online, download the PDF publication, and access the data and source code behind the figures.

Figure 2: Maps of the impact of ocean acidification on organisms in 2018 and projected for 2100
in a high emission scenario from the 2018 World Bank Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals

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Canadian Climate Atlas

Environment and Climate Change Canada  has released the climateatlas.ca that allows the user to interactively compare present conditions to future conditions for several significant climate parameters. The atlas doesn`t yet show ocean related  parameters. Hopefully that will change in the near future. Shown in Figure 3 are two maps showing the present day frequency of very hot days (> 30 ° ) in Canada compared to predictions for the period 2051-2080 for a high GHG emissions scenario.

 

Figure3: Example map from Canada’s Climate Atlas website showing predicted differences between present day frequency of very hot days (top) and the frequency of very hot days in the period 2051-2080 assuming a high GHG emission scenario

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ICAN contributes to planning for UN Decade of Ocean Science

ICAN was represented by Steering Group Member Ned Dwyer at the recent 1st Global Planning Meeting for the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, held in Copenhagen, Denmark from 13-15 May 2019.

As was mentioned more than once  during the meeting the UN Decade offers the ocean community a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to join efforts, mobilise resources, create partnerships and engage governments and other stakeholders in moving towards “the Ocean We Need for the Future We Want”.

Read more ...

Marine component of the Unique System of Environmental Information (SUIA) - Ecuador

Ecuador is the first country in the world to recognize the rights of nature and implement Good Living (Buen Vivir – in Spanish) as an alternative to the traditional concept of development, - the search for a new balance between the human being, society and nature; a model where the best strategy to eradicate poverty is through the elimination of social, economic, environmental and cultural asymmetries, objectives clearly reflected in our National Plan of Development "Whole Life" that observes the Sustainable Development Goals as a set of minimum that our collective action must order.

The efficient management of data has allowed the Ministry of the Environment (MAE - by its initials in Spanish), to provide reliable and timely environmental information to the user of any field or sector attending to any type of requirement, allowing to adopt and apply timely measures in decision-making.

In this institutional framework, the Ministry of the Environment, the governing entity, coordinator and regulator of Environmental Management in Ecuador, has been working since 2010 on the project "Unique System of Environmental Information (SUIA - by its initials in Spanish)", as a management and dissemination tool of environmental information, which has allowed the country to know the state and the changes suffered by natural resources and the environment in general; covering different areas, ranging from research, education, statistics, consolidation, validation of geographic data, to the systematization of the institutional processes of the MAE.

It should be noted that based on the available environmental information, within the statistical and geospatial scope, the MAE has built an updated information base, in which the statistics, environmental indicators, layers and maps of the strategic resources are displayed, which serve as tool for the evaluation and validation of the progress of the goals outlined in the environmental field and the relationships between it.

Highlight that these processes of environmental information production, allow visualizing the contribution of the Ministry of the Environment to the fulfillment of the goals of the National Development Plan, the National Environmental Policy, Institutional Management and International Multilateral Agreements, contributing to global sustainable development.

The country being an active member of the Project "Information and Data Network of the South Pacific for the Support of the Integrated Management of the Coastal Area - SPINCAM", through this State Portfolio, fulfills the commitment to visualize the information generated at the country level in the International Atlas of Marine Networks - ICAN, and under the premise of integrating environmental information in the SUIA platform, provides statistical and spatial information in the National System of Environmental and Sustainability Indicators - SINIAS, and Interactive Map Environmental.

On the latter, it is a Geovisor through which users can access, view and, depending on the level of sensitivity of it, download information regarding the national environmental theme, which includes the coastal marine around the project.

Finally, highlight that Ecuador through its environmental information processes seeks to strengthen the management it provides, promoting the cross-cutting use of the products and services generated through the generation of environmental and geographic data, guaranteeing the availability and integrity of it, through the implementation of new technologies; with the purpose of having statistical products that allow to measure the contribution not only of this state portfolio, but also of the Entities competent in the monitoring and conservation of the natural heritage, especially in the coastal zones, allowing the decision making towards compliance with the objectives that society wants to achieve, in search of sustainable development, good living and the rights of nature as established in our Constitution.

HELCOM map and data service updated – enhanced system for making available assessment data products and underlying data

Joni Kaitaranta and Andžej Miloš, HELCOM Secretariat

Introduction

HELCOM (Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission - Helsinki Commission) is the governing body of the Convention on the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area, known as the Helsinki Convention. The Contracting Parties are Denmark, Estonia, the European Union, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Sweden. HELCOM works to protect the Baltic Sea from all sources of pollutions through intergovernmental cooperation. HELCOM is a regional sea convention (RSC) for the Baltic Sea and policy maker for the Baltic Sea area by developing common environmental objectives and actions. One of HELCOM’s task is to act as an environmental focal point providing information which requires GIS web mapping tool for providing information and data used in assessment carried out by HELCOM.

HELCOM Map and Data service (HELCOM MADS) was designed to fulfill that requirement and first version was developed in 2010. During 2016 a project was launched where resources were made available to completely renew and update the tool that was reaching the end of its life-span. 

Requirements and use cases

Fundamental requirement for tools used in making available data stems from HELCOM Monitoring and Assessment Strategy, which contains attachment of Data and Information Strategy. The strategy sets out following guiding principle: The HELCOM data and information activities should facilitate access of the general public to environmental information. This includes requirements for various thematic datasets ranging from in-situ monitoring of eutrophication, biodiversity and hazardous substances related data to more aggregated data products on status of marine environment, nutrient loading and trends and overview of maritime traffic related activities.

HELCOM Contracting Parties that are also EU Member State have obligation stemming from Marine Strategy Frame Work Directive (MSFD). The Directive requires coherence and coordination within regions and makes possible reference to assessments/data that is done by Regional Sea Conventions. This sets requirements in relation to data products being made available on regional level and according to INSPIRE Directive.

Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) requires also regional coordination and coherence of plans across the region and between neighboring countries. According to the MSP Directive, plans should be harmonized across the region and this requires regional level work and agreement on data harmonization. Spatial data should be also spatially very accurate and up-to-date to be useful in the planning process.

According to HELCOM data and information strategy, the target group for information and data products should be also general public / decision makers. This sets a requirement on complexity of information and terms used for displaying results. This purpose sets a requirement to be able to pinpoint to a specific aggregated and simplified map product in the service.

Technical solutions

HELCOM MADS is based on two user interfaces, which are seamlessly interlinked:

• Map and Data service map viewer part (ESRI ArcGIS Server and ArcGIS API for Javascript) http://maps.helcom.fi/website/mapservice/index.html
  • Viewing a dataset and feaure attributes on map viewer;
  • Searching dataset in table of contents;
  • Viewing external datasets (WMS);
  • Data service addresses (ArcGIS Rest / OGC WMS);
  • Accessing datasets and features by URL parameters
    
    
    
• Metadata catalogue part (Geonetwork) http://metadata.helcom.fi/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/home
  • Viewing, downloading and searching metadata records (INSPIRE compliant).

Each dataset has a unique ID, which is used to link a record in the metadata catalogue with a dataset in the map viewer. Linkage is done by including ID in the map viewer and metadata catalogue URL. At anytime user can switch between two systems: to view dataset in the map viewer or read metadata and download dataset in the metadata catalogue (Fig. 1).

Map and Data service viewer is based on datasets stored in file Geodatabases and published in ArcGIS Server (10.6.1). The Map viewer user interface is developed by HELCOM Secretariat using ArcGIS API for Javascript. The source code for the map viewer part can be found at GitHub under GNU General Public License v3.0: https://github.com/helcomsecretariat/MADS. 

The main features of map viewer (Figure 2) are:

• Searchable table of contents
• Linkage between to metadata catalogue, accessing datasets and features via URL
• feature identification
• Attribute table widget
• Widget to add WMS services (from predefined list and custom)
• Ability to query features with URL parameters

HELCOM Metadata catalogue is an application of Geonetwork and utilizing INSPIRE compatible metadata template with GEMET thesauri. The metadata catalogue contains following features:

• Search feature for metadata records titles and content
• Downloadable content of each metadata record