ICAN - Best Practice Guide to Engage your Coastal Web Atlas User Community

ICAN have compiled this best practice user interaction guide because successful interactions with potential Coastal Web Atlas (CWA) users during the development of any CWA are as vital for the success of the resource as the continued interaction with existing audiences to ensure longevity and continued use. This hand book is conceived as a practical “cookbook” and was compiled by gathering information from ten atlas developers as well as extracting relevant information from ICAN workshop reports. The information has been summarised and analysed leading to two sets of recommendations, one focused on the development of new atlases and the other focused on how to maintain interactions with audiences of already developed atlases. We hope that the handbook will allow both new and established CWA developers and hosts to benefit from best practice examples as well as learn from experienced challenges, in order to increase capacity to successfully interact with user communities and target audiences, while managing coastal and marine data and information in a user friendly way. The final product is a resource that hopes to complement and link to a variety of OceanTeacher activities, support IODE training in courses, thereby being of value to all who manage and present marine data and information.

Now available as IOC Manuals and Guides No. 75:

http://www.oceandocs.org/handle/1834/9579

COINAtlantic Announces the Sydney Harbour Atlas

COINAtlantic has released  version 1 of an Atlas for the harbour of Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada. The Atlas is built on a customized version of COINAtlantic’s Search Utility and displays map layers served from several OGC compliant web mapping services including COINAtlantic’s own WMS service of the data stored in the OBIS Canada Information  Publication Tool, and other web mapping services provided by the Province of Nova Scotia and the Government of Canada. The Atlas is intended to display spatial data relevant to an urbanized coastal ecosystem.

The Atlas can viewed at:
http://coinatlantic.tools/csu/?mapset=sydney_harbour

Sample map from the Sydney Harbour Atlas with a partial legend

State of New York Gateway: Focus on Data

Gateway Team, Division of Community Resilience and Regional Programs
Office of Planning & Development, New York Department of State
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Focus on Data!

Great Lakes folks, and specifically those in the Lake Erie and Niagara River Watershed, will be pleased to hear that, in partnership with Erie County Environment & Planning, we’ve started adding information from a watershed Atlas they have developed.  There are now 14 new datasets related to their mapping effort available on the Gateway with another batch coming soon.  These are state-wide and in some instances region–wide datasets that Erie County used in developing their Atlas.  You can find the information by simply searching on “Lake Erie”, here is a link to the map viewer with all of the new datasets added to the view: Lake Erie & Niagara River Watershed.

In addition to more Lake Erie & Niagara Watershed data, Long Island Sound-Centric folks should stay tuned for the next Gateway Update…

As always we appreciate suggestions regarding additional geospatial information that you would help you in your work or to understand your world around you.

Download Away!

About two weeks ago some astute users notified us that there were issues with downloading some of the datasets.  We identified the issue and it was in effect a “switch” that hadn’t been turned on for datasets that we’ve added since the beginning of the year.  This has been rectified and all datasets that are indicated as available for download are now telling the truth!  A big Thank You to those who provided us feedback on the bug, keep up the great work! 

The Numbers

We had a BIG month in April with some major milestones achieved and surpassed. On Thursday, 27 April, the Gateway exceeded 100,000 pageviews and surpassed 18,000 visits since its launch on 29 September  2015.  April 2017 experienced the third highest monthly visitor count out of the 19 months the site has been publicly available, the two higher months were October 2015 (essentially the month of its launch) and June 2016 (when we first sent an eblast about the Gateway out to the local government listserv with over 13,000 recipients).

Social Media

The facebook and Twitter icons at the bottom of Gateway pages link directly to our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/informationgateway/ and twitter account https://twitter.com/NYGateway You can stay up to date on facebook and/or by following our twitter feed. Please like us and share us on fb and retweet! As always, please don’t hesitate to provide feedback on your visit to the Gateway so that we may continue to improve on it’s usefulness and your experience.

Project SPINCAM and its integration into Chile's National Environmental Information System (SINIA)

Marcos Serrano Ulloa, Jefe Depto. de Estadísticas e Informacíon ambiental
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In Chile, the second phase of the international cooperation project “South Pacific Information and Data Network to support Integrated Coastal Area Management” (SPINCAM), directed by the International Oceanographic Commission COI-UNESCO and the Permanent Commission of the South Pacific (CPPS), began in 2012. It had as the lead agency the National Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as the technical lead agency the Ministry of Environment, the institution responsible by the storing and maintaining data collections.

In 2012, the Ministry of Environment, through of exempt resolution N° 0179 created the Inter-Institutional Committee for Environmental Information in order to coordinate public environmental information. Also, under this committee was created in 2014 the Subcommittee of Coastal and Marine Information, with the target to provide and validate specific information for the coastal and marine area, which would be key in coordinating and managing SPINCAM project activities at the national level.

This subcommittee is made up for representatives of the various institutions and / or public services that have a direct relationship with the administration and management of the coastal and marine borders, such as the Undersecretary of Fisheries and Aquaculture (SUBPESCA in Spanish), which is mainly responsible for the regulations and regulatory framework for the fishing and aquaculture activities of the country; the Institute for Fisheries Promotion (IFOP in Spanish) dedicated to research; The National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service (SERNAPESCA in Spanish), the service with inspection powers and sanitary management in relation to fishing activities and extraction of resources; the Undersecretary for the Armed Forces (SSFFAA), the institution directly related to  use of the coastal border; and finally, the managing body of maritime activity at the National level, the General Directorate of Maritime Territory and Merchant Marine (DIRECTEMAR in Spanish).

During 2015, an analysis of the information and data available in the institutions that make up the Subcommittee was made, in order to build a set of indicators that contribute to integrated management of the Coastal and Marine borders. Based on the data provided by these agencies, it was possible to create indicators that account for pressures on coastal and marine ecosystems. (e.g.: the number of aquaculture and maritime concessions at national level, catch and landing quotas of the main commercial species, environmental emergencies occurring in marine areas, either anthropogenic (oil spills) or natural (red tide). The later is measured through the relative abundance of some micro algae carrying poisons or harmful algal blooms (FAN).

Also, indicators related to the state of biodiversity were constructed based on sea lions censuses, cetacean sightings, and evolution of resources exploited in Benthic Resource Management Areas (AMERB in Spanish).

In addition, response indicators were considered that account for the inspection effort at the fisheries level through the inspections carried out by SERNAPESCA.

SPINCAM’s Pilot Case Algarrobo, El Quisco and El Tabo

In SPINCAM II‘s framework a local experimental area was considered at the local level located at Algarrobo, El Quisco and El Tabo, in the province San Antonio, in the Valparaíso Region.

The area has several Nature Sanctuaries and places of tourist interest, making it a potential tourist resort, especially in summer. In the Figure 2, are represented 3 Nature Sanctuaries located within the Pilot Project area.

In this pilot zone (Figure 1), a joint effort between the Ministry of Environment, the Municipalities of Algarrobo, El Quisco and El Tabo, and the main local actors, built a set of indicators that were included in the publication “Indicators for Integrated Coastal Zone Management: Pilot Case SPINCAM of local level  Algarrobo, El Quisco and El Tabo”. The document (Figure 3), describes the environmental management developed in each local level and included a total of 26 indicators that account for the strong tourist and real estate pressures, of the state of the study area and the social and / or governmental responses to these pressures, including topics such as:

• Transient Population
• Generation of Waste at the Communal Level
• Sales by Economic Sector
• Fish Landings
• Recycling Activities
• Projects with Environmental Protection Funds
• Water Quality for Recreational Use
• Biodiversity indicators such as the census of birds in the lagoon El Peral and a census framed in the Islet Pájaro Niño.

National Environmental Information System (SINIA)

The Ministry of Environment (MMA) administers the National Environmental Information System (SINIA in Spanish), which is the main gateway to environmental information available to the public in Chile. The functions of SINIA, defined by the Department of Environmental Information of the Ministry of Environment, articulate the environmental information of the country and make it easy and timely for citizens to access.

The dissemination mechanism protects the right of access to the environmental information to any person (Law N°19.300, 1994), in order to facilitate accessibility and exchange of information. In 2013, an improvement to SINIA was developed under international standards (Dublin Core and ISO 19.115) through a Metadata Catalog, which allows organizing the information and accessibility by citizens. The Dublin Core standard is used for the description of documentary information, indicators and databases, while the ISO 19.115 standard, describes geospatial information like a vector, images or data in raster format.

As shown in Figure 4, two other elements included in this redesign are: Spatial Data Infrastructure (IDE in Spanish) which allows the spatial visualization of environmental information and the Environmental Information Integrator System (SIIA) focused on statistical information and indicators.

Figure 3. Cover of the publication Project SPINCAM’s Pilot Case

Considering that one of the objectives pursued in the second part of the SPINCAM project was to generate information systems that support the development of indicators and their spatial representation, it was necessary to migrate and integrate the information and data related to the SPINCAM project with the National Environmental Information System and the Spatial Data Infrastructure of Ministry of the Environment, to support the need to visualize the data and coastal-marine information through these systems, supporting decision making.

Some indicators was constructed with the information contained in the institutions1 that were included in the information analysis.

The following were considered within the section of SPINCAM that was incorporated within the SINIA:

• Indicators: You can view the indicators constructed on the analysis of information, and data available at institutional level.
• Maps: The SDI SPINCAM services are presented as:
  • Migration 2002 Coastal Communes.
  • Fishing Coves.
  • Number of fishermen per cover.
  • Landing per cover.
• Publications: There are about 100 documents and publications of the country,  inside the platform Ocean Docs2, corresponding to reports of research and coastal and marine information, that considered studies related to the flora, fauna, oceanographic and socioeconomic variables located in the Coastal Marine Areas of Multiple Uses in our country,  technical reports prepared by the Undersecretary of Fisheries and Aquaculture in relation to the plans of monitoring of the Areas of Management of Benthic Resources (AMERB) and studies related to marine protected species in Chile, such as cetaceans, sea lions, Humboldt penguin and other species representative of coastal protected areas, which will serve as a base line for upcoming scientific studies on the coasts Chilean.

In the next stages of SPINCAM, we expect to have the data related to the Coastal Environmental Observation Program (POAL in Spanish) that constitutes DIRECTEMAR. This program will allow the capture data of marine and freshwater environmental quality measured in different bodies of water, distributed throughout national jurisdiction, including Antarctica and Easter Island. These measurements are performed in different water bodies of jurisdiction of the Maritime Authority, and are geolocated in the SDI.

References

1. Undersecretary of Fisheries and Aquaculture (SUBPESCA) and National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service (SERNAPESCA)
2. OceanDocs - http://www.oceandocs.org/handle/1834/5392

ICAN at IODE-XXIV

The IOC Committee on International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange held its Twenty-fourth Session (IODE-XXIV) at the Renaissance Hotel Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia between 28 and 31 March 2018.  The IODE Session was attended by 67 participants from 31 IOC Member States and 5 Organizations.  Each IODE project reported progress over the last inter-sessional period. 
 

ICAN co-chair Marcia Berman reported progress and highlights on behalf of ICAN.  Most notable was the final transition of the website to the IODE platform (http://ican.iode.org/), the publication of two newsletters, presentations at 10 scientific and international meetings by ICAN members, and the publication of the ICAN-Best Practice Guide to Engage Your CWA User Community (Kopke K. & Dwyer N. (Eds.).(2017). Paris. Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC Manuals and Guides 75) 28 pp. (English) (IOC/2016/MG/75)];(OceanDocs: http://hdl.handle.net/1834/9579). 

The Committee welcomed the work achieved by ICAN and the growth of the network; urging relevant organizations and projects to join the ICAN community.  In addition, the Committee reviews requests from all projects for funding for the next intersessional period.  ICAN requested a total of $33,500 USD to support continued web development, expert travel, the development of a searchable coastal web atlas catalogue, and the organisation and execution of ICAN-8 and the biennial face to face ICAN Steering Group Meeting.  The Committee appropriated $24,250 over the next two year cycle; acknowledging the importance of all items identified in the proposed work plan.   

ICAN CWA User Interaction Guide

ICAN is very pleased to announce that "ICAN - Best Practice Guide to Engage your Coastal Web Atlas User Community" is now available as IOC Manuals and Guides No. 75

We have compiled this best practice user interaction guide because successful interactions with potential Coastal Web Atlas (CWA) users during the development of any CWA are as vital for the success of the resource as the continued interaction with existing audiences to ensure longevity and continued use. This hand book is conceived as a practical “cookbook” and was compiled by gathering information from ten atlas developers as well as extracting relevant information from ICAN workshop reports. The information has been summarised and analysed leading to two sets of recommendations, one focused on the development of new atlases and the other focused on how to maintain interactions with audiences of already developed atlases. We hope that the handbook will therefore allow both new and established CWA developers and hosts to benefit from best practice examples as well as learn from experienced challenges, in order to increase capacity to successfully interact with user communities and target audiences, while managing coastal and marine data and information in a user friendly way. The final product is a resource that hopes to complement and link to a variety of OceanTeacher activities, support IODE training in courses, thereby being of value to all who manage and present marine data and information.

National Coastal and Marine Atlas for the South Pacific Zone of Panama

Luz Guerrero Robles
Aquatic Resources Authority of Panama
Ricardo de Ycaza
Ministry of Environment of Panama

The Panamanian Aquatic Resources Authority (ARAP) and the Ministry of Environment of Panama have been involved in the SPINCAM project since 2009 and worked on the basis of measurable indicators over time.

The National Coastal and Marine Atlas for the South Pacific Zone of Panama was generated as a technical and integral information repository, which serves as an instrument to support marine-coastal management and planning initiatives. It was designed under the National Cartographic Base rules at a scale of 1:250,000 whose information is stored in geographic coordinates (WGS 84 Reference System).

The National Coastal and Marine Atlas for the South Pacific Zone of Panama is a basic tool accessible by public managers for the diagnosis, detection of threats, hazards, vulnerability and risks focus towards coastal and marine management and planning. This analysis tool will help to identify the feasible zones of the country for conservation and protection according to technical, environmental and social criteria.

The National Atlas contains a number of coastal indicators related to coastal economy, population density, marine protected areas, coastal concession, population dynamics, water quality, fisheries, coastal ecosystems, all fully sustainable and measurable.

The fisheries indicator, for example, has served as an operational tool in fisheries management for national authorities.

It integrates information on catches, landing and fishing effort to determine the area with the highest concentration of marine coastal species in order to design fishing management strategies based on this indicator.

On the other hand, the national atlas also includes a detailed indicator on coastal population density. The distribution of coastal human population indicates that the concentration of almost half of the country’s population inhabits the coastal zones of Panama. This shows the increasing pressures on coastal ecosystems and services which has an amplified effect due to the disordered occupation of the land, therefore, increasing the risk of coastal degradation.

The National Atlas also includes a local pilot project called “The Coastal and Marine Atlas for the Archipelago of Las Perlas”. The Special Management Zone (ZEM) of the Las Perlas Archipelago, located in the district of Balboa, province of Panama, was created with the purpose to protect marine-coastal resources, increase productivity and maintain the biodiversity of their ecosystems, in the neighboring area of the Panama Canal.

Thirteen (13) indicators were defined and integrated in the Coastal and Marine Atlas for Las Perlas which will be used to guide local decision makers, communities and other regions of Panama.

Finally, the increasing alteration and degradation towards coastal and marine resources is leading to revaluate community agreements, laws and regulatory framework in order to protect the ecosystems, implementing  the use of the fishing and marine resources considering their limitations, and to work on the concept of Marine spatial planning.

New York Geographic Information Gateway - New Fresh Face!

Jeffrey L. Herter
Division of Community Resilience and Regional Programs
Office of Planning & Development
New York Department of State
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The Gateway has a new look, come check it out: http://opdgig.dos.ny.gov/index.html#/home The NY Department of State Office of Planning & Development updated the home page of the Geographic Information Gateway (Gateway) to a scrolling format which is more mobile device-friendly. The clean, easy to access interface has all the original functionality of the Gateway, with access to four focus areas on the Great Lakes, Waterfront Revitalization, Atlantic Ocean and Climate Change and Resilience and four developed stories on Submarine Canyons, Offshore Energy, DOS Risk Areas and Living Shorelines.

New Inter-Site Connectivity

A new functionality has been added to some of the mappers within the Submarine Canyon Story http://opdgig.dos.ny.gov/#/storyTemplate/4/1/1 You can now open the data layer(s) being displayed in the story mapper in the Gateway’s main map viewer to allow you to explore other information in relation to the data set being used to illustrate the story.  How can you tell if you can use this functionality?  Just look for a little globe icon in the upper right corner of the interactive mapper…if it’s there you can click on that icon and all the information in the story mapper will be loaded in the main map viewer which will then allow you to add other layers.  It works the other way too!  If you’re in the Gateway’s main map viewer and have a data layer added to the viewer and you see an open book icon in the legend for that data layer, e.g. Main map viewer with Summer Flounder  you can click on the icon and the story mapper where that data is being used as an example will open and allow you to explore the story further.  We will be building this inter-site connectivity into all our stories, so stay tuned for those updates!

Back on Social Media

After a brief hiatus and a little “now you see me now you don’t” action, we have reactivated the Gateway facebook page https://www.facebook.com/informationgateway/ and Twitter account https://twitter.com/NYGateway You can stay up to date with its progress on Facebook and/or by following our Twitter feed. Please like us and share us on fb and retweet!

The Numbers

Sometime during the day on 15 November 2016 visitors exceeded over 1000 hours spent using the Gateway and on 23 November 2016 the Gateway received its first visit from Tunisia bringing the total number of countries to visit from outside the United States to 76.  Notably, the Gateway continues to show steady increases in the quality of visits indicated by increased # of pageviews/month, actions/visit and duration of visits, while the “bounce rate percentage” (folks leaving the site after one action) continues to be in the single digits.

We’ve got more big changes (teaser: like a big data slug for Long Island Sound, increased inter-site connectivity and more focus areas) coming in the next month or so, so stay tuned!

Indigeo: An SDI dedicated to scientific research and observation of the coastal environment

Rouan Mathias, Gourmelon Françoise
CNRS UMR LETG, Institut Universitaire Européen de la Mer, rue Dumont d’Urville, 29280 Plouzané cedex, France
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Origin and context

The LETG (http://letg.cnrs.fr) research lab holds a unique position in the scientific landscape of Western France. Not only is it involved in three Earth Science and Astronomy Observatories (in Brest (http://www-iuem.univ-brest.fr/observatoire), Rennes (https://osur.univ-rennes1.fr/) and Nantes (http://www.osuna.univ-nantes.fr/), but also in several national systems for observing the environment (the Zones Ateliers network coordinated by the CNRS; (http://www-iuem.univ-brest.fr/zabri/fr) and Dynalit (http://www.dynalit.fr/fr), the national coastline dynamics observation system). LETG is an environmental geography laboratory that has been developing geomatics expertise for several years now. Right from the early 2000s, it promoted a knowledge engineering approach resulting in the creation of several data catalogues dedicated to the coastal environment. Drawing on this experience, in 2011, the lab designed a joint SDI with the observatories falling within the scope of the project. The aim was to meet the needs of both the laboratory and the Earth Science and Astronomy Observatories in terms of storage, documentation and readily-available data, (primarily geographic and time series) from coastal environment observation.

Services and Technologies

A website (http://indigeo.fr) provides users with a single point of access to Indigeo and the different services offered (metadata catalogue, viewer and OGC web services, Open Geospatial Consortium: http://www.opengeospatial.org/) along with a data entry and publishing guide. The software solution used is geOrchestra (http://www.georchestra.org/). This is an open, interoperable and modular software suite created in 2009 in response to the INSPIRE directive. The success of this solution can be measured by its use. Around twenty different general SDIs use it on a varying scale ranging from national (http://geo.gob.bo/) to local (http://www.data.rennes-metropole.fr/les-donnees/catalogue/). This software suite consists of independent and interoperable modules used to build a customised infrastructure. Three geOrchestra 14.01 modules were installed for Indigeo: a metadata catalogue (geoNetwork), a geo-referenced data server (geoServer) and an advanced map viewer (mapfishapp). Several additional services and tools were developed to meet the needs expressed by scientists. These concern centralised authentication (geoAuth), the generation of dynamic graphics and an intuitive and scalable viewer (geoCMS) enabling, among other aspects, the temporal dimension of certain data to be taken into account. CMS or Content Management System is a term generally used to describe systems used to update websites dynamically.

The metadata catalogue (geoNetwork). Metadata is managed using geoNetwork, a web application developed and updated by an active community which ensures the metadata is made available in standardised and interoperable format. A training session on producing metadata involving fifteen or so geographers and using a test version of Indigeo revealed the complexity of the standard. This led to the creation of simplified metadata models adapted to the main types of geographic information and a data entry guide.

The geo-referenced data server (geoServer). The managed data consists mainly of layers of geographical information in vector format and remote sensing images. The geoServer application enables this data to be stored and shared across data warehouses. Users access data via standardised and interoperable web services that enable available information to be displayed and/or downloaded directly via Indigeo and/or a GIS client (QGIS, ArcGIS®ESRI). geoServer can not only be used to manage access rights to each data warehouse to respect the private or public nature of data, but also to integrate spatial reference databases such as PostGIS, which is highly useful for providing dynamic access to spatio-temporal datasets.

The advanced map viewer (Mapfishapp), supplied with the geOrchestra suite, is similar to a GIS-type application accessed via a web browser. In terms of user-friendliness, it is suited to expert users and offers functions such as the ability to view information layers (OGC flow or files), modify the symbology, submit attribute or spatial queries, export results, edit data and analyse it by incorporating additional modules, and also create maps.

The ‘discover and use’ viewer (geoCMS). This viewer is based on relatively recent technologies (Ruby on Rails, AngularJS and the Leaflet.js library) which improve user-friendliness and offer the possibility of finding and using spatial data (spatio-temporal browsing, graphics viewing and a project approach). On the one hand, this viewer enables information layers to be organised into a catalogue that is managed via an interface reserved for portal administrators (the back end) and, on the other hand, it also allows the content of the data (attribute table or value) to be presented in a customised tooltip displayed when a layer is queried. This customisation is managed using a WYSIWYG editor in the management interface. It enables information to be made accessible to all by adding formatted texts, images, documents or web applications (e.g. dynamic graphics, Fig. 1). geoCMS also automatically identifies spatio-temporal datasets and enables users to browse through this type of dataset by generating a cursor adapted to the time frame (Fig. 2). Lastly, geoCMS has a function enabling users to save maps in folders and organise information layers into coherent groups according to different criteria (e.g. by scientific project or plan) (Fig. 3). Users can easily add these maps into web pages (websites, online articles, blogs, etc.).

Standards

Indigeo adheres to several standards:

• For describing and searching for metadata (INSPIRE Discovery Services), the international ISO 19115 standard on defining metadata for geographic information as well as the ISO 19110 standard on feature cataloguing (attribute tables) and the ISO 19139 standard on describing XML implementation schemas.
  
  
• For querying and harvesting metadata, the Catalogue Service for the Web (CSW) standard.
  
  
• For viewing data (INSPIRE View Service), the OGC standard, but also, and above all, the Web Map Service (WMS) standard.
  
  
• For downloading data (INSPIRE Download Service), the OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) standard for vector data and the Web Coverage Service (WCS) standard for raster data.
  
  

 

Human resources and communities

In terms of human resources, Indigeo is currently supported by a local technical team (five cartographers, three data administrators, two system administrators and the service provider) which is in contact with other technical teams involved in setting up scientific SDIs in Western France. Indigeo users include producers of spatial information (42 producers from 13 environmental science laboratories), and other users who, in some cases, may also be producers. A total of 5,500 visits to the http://indigeo.fr website was recorded between June 2013 and 6 April 2016. This website provides users with a single point of access to the SDI’s tools, viewers, catalogue and web services.

Spatial information

Indigeo currently provides access to 534 metadata files, 551 information layers (vector and raster) and seven time series sourced from databases (Table 1). All catalogued data is open access and 83% of the information content comes from one laboratory (LETG). The rest is produced by other laboratories related to different observatories.

In addition to the data stored in it, Indigeo provides viewing access to more than 6,500 information layers thanks to the harvesting of fifteen or so French thematic or general SDIs.

Development perspectives

In terms of development, several projects are currently underway including the desire to further improve interoperability with the OGC standardisation of time series and sensor data (Sensor Observation Service) as well as online data processing (Web Processing Service).

Additionally, to make accessing the different services offered by the SDI easier, authentication via the RENATER education-research identity federation is about to go into service. Lastly, the option of adding trackers to collect statistics about visits to the website is currently under consideration.

Conclusion

Indigeo has been up and running since 2013. The first version benefited from the geOrchestra software suite and geoCMS’s advanced functions. The iterative approach taken led to a platform that offered a broad range of services, but was not necessarily very user friendly (in terms of viewing or entering data into the catalogue). For example, thematic portals generated by geoCMS made both browsing through and managing data more complicated. This function was subsequently removed in the second version of Indigeo which put an emphasis on simplicity and took a user-centric approach to browsing. The aim was to encourage consumers of spatial information to move towards becoming ‘producers’ (Budhathoki et al 2008). However, the profile of Indigeo contributors has been relatively consistent since the beginning. Users adding to the catalogue have mainly consisted of a small group of geographers with knowledge in the field of GIS. Nevertheless, generating standardised metadata is still regarded as too complex, even for this well-informed public. This largely explains why there is such a low number of producers from other disciplines who are unfamiliar with the field. This small number is also probably due to the tool’s ‘laboratory’ origins. For reasons linked to presenting and exploiting data, it seems logical that developing interoperable SDIs at different academic levels would be the right solution. It would encourage the public concerned to appropriate SDIs and break down some of the power-based barriers within the scientific realm.

References

• Budhathoki N., Bruce B., Nedovic-Budic Z., 2008. Reconceptualizing the role of the user of spatial data infrastucture. GeoJournal, 72(3), p. 149-160
   

The Marine Analyst - An aid to the monitoring and management of marine areas, including marine protected areas

Nicolas Hoepffner¹, Pascal Derycke¹, Laurent Dubroca²
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
1- European Commission – Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Sustainable Resources,
D.2 Water and Marine Resources Unit, via Fermi 2479, I-21027 Ispra (Va), Italy
2- Laboratoire Ressources Halieutiques, Ifremer, Avenue du general de Gaulle, BP 32, 14520 Port-en-Bessin, France

Through the analysis of satellite data and modeling outputs, the Environmental Marine Information System (EMIS) of the European Commission – Joint Research Centre aims at an effective and long-lasting marine and coastal stewardship by providing scientific and technical value-added products to assist in monitoring and assessing water quality, biodiversity, ecosystem health status in Europe and globally. The EMIS spatial data infrastructure and web-GIS viewer (http://mcc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/emis/) allows discovery, navigation and browsing through the data in different ways, according to spatial resolution, the variable to be analysed, and the time period. Another set of applications has been developed to query the data and perform statistical analysis on the region of interest. Additional functions enable the users to download datasets in different formats (netCDF, GeoTIFF), to print maps and to download results directly on ready-to-use PDF files.

EMIS offers web services as Web Map Service (WMS) and time Web Coverage Service (WCS-t) in accordance with the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) specifications and EU INSPIRE standards to ensure full interoperability. The EMIS web services are associated to R-written functions allowing the online processing of the data, their analysis and reporting.

Recently launched, the EMIS Marine Analyst provides simple methods to explore any pre-defined areas of the European seas and global ocean and assess the pressures to which they are exposed. For example, it assists in the management of Marine Protected Areas (MPA) and is conceived as a tool to support the implementation of environmental directives, e.g. the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), through communicating environmental information/indicators of relevance to various policy descriptors. Following the user's election of e.g. a given MPA (MPA list as derived from the UNEP-WCMC World Database on protected areas), the Marine Analyst is evaluating in real time the environmental status of the MPA taking into consideration the EMIS database. The final outcome is given in a format of a report including geographical and bathymetry mapping of the MPA, a range of statistical analysis and time-series plots of the different variables, and the full series of monthly satellite views of each of the variables.

Applying the Marine Analyst around the Balearic Las Salinas Marine Park (all figures are extracted from the marine analyst report):

The marine park of Las Salinas in the western part of the Mediterranean Sea is a protected area located between southeast Ibiza island and the northern tip of Formentera Island. It covers a marine area of ca. 14,000 ha classified in the Natura 2000 Network, as well as being a site of Community Interest and an Area of Special Protection for Birds since 2006.

The marine Analyst report includes 2-D (not shown) and 3-D bathymetry maps of the area, created from the last release (2016) of EMODnet DTM product (http://www.emodnet-hydrography.eu) covering European seas at ca. 230 m grid resolution. The 3-D maps are given in 4 different perspectives, enabling a better vision of the topography on either side of the MPA.

The report also provides EUNIS-compliant information on seabed habitats complemented with geospatial information from the UNEP’s Global Seafloor Geomorphic Features Map (GSGFM), following a methodology described in Tempera (2015). The marine Park and surrounding waters are characterized a large variety of seabed structures profitable to different ecosystems. Posidonia beds extend in shallow waters along the strait between both islands, lying on fine sand. On either side of the strait, the ecosystem progressively shifts from coastal to shelf-edge detritic bottoms.

Together with such structural aspects of the area, the marine analyst reports on a series of environmental variables, with associated maps and statistics, that are relevant to monitor potential changes in the state of the ecosystems, biodiversity and water quality. The variables are either satellite-derived (e.g. sea surface temperature, chlorophyll concentration) or model-derived (e.g. mixed layer depth, bottom temperature and salinity). For example, maps of monthly SST from the satellite-based MODIS-Terra radiometer show the variability of sea surface temperature over a decade within the MPA and surrounding waters.

The associated anomaly maps, calculated from the difference between monthly observation and 10-year monthly climatology, permit the identification of substantial deviations of the environment around the MPA from natural variability. For example, a significant negative anomaly in SST can be observed in May-June 2013 concurring with the local weather forecast that had identified the largest number of cooler days during that period.

Similar maps are provided for time-series of phytoplankton biomass (i.e. chlorophyll concentration) and water transparency (diffuse attenuation coefficient) using data from the MODIS-Aqua sensor. All statistics associated to these variables are provided for the MPA area with the possibility to download the data for further analysis.

In addition to the mean values and standard deviations, trends for each variable are calculated over the time series according to Vantrepotte and Mélin (2009) where the time-series of the variable is decomposed into a seasonal signal, a trend, and a residual component.

Figure 5: Monthly maps of sea surface temperature anomalies

The analysis of the surface variables observed from satellite are complemented with outcomes of 3D hydrodynamic model describing the water column and bottom physics. For example, climatological values (monthly) of the bottom salinity are estimated over a decade period using the freely available General Estuarine Transport Model (GETM; http://www.getm.eu). The variability of these physical parameters are important to evaluate the status of benthic ecosystems within the protected area. 

Lastly, the EMIS marine analyst is reporting on habitats of important commercial fishes and occurrence of alien species. Bluefin tuna feeding and spawning habitats (not shown here) are implemented in the system according to Druon et al. (2016) at spatial and temporal resolution suitable for dynamic management of fisheries. Furthermore, alien species occurring in the area are extracted from the European Alien Species Information network (EASIN; http://easin.jrc.ec.europa.eu) which maintain an inventory of all known alien and cryptogenic species in Europe as required by the Convention on Biological Diversity and EU Regulation on the prevention and management of the introduction and spread of invasive alien species. A range number of alien species is given on a 10x10 km grid, with the species names possibly occurring in the studied area (Asterionellopsis glacialis, Atherina boyeri, Calyptraea chinensis, Colpomenia sinuosa, Fusinus rostratus, Gibbula adansonii, G. albida, Haliotis tuberculata, Hexaplex trunculus, Paracaprella pusilla, Percnon gibbesi, Sabella spallanzanii).

As shown (partially) in this example of a local analysis, the Marine Analyst tool of the Environmental Marine Information System (EMIS) has features and components that are specifically dedicated to assisting in the management of marine and coastal waters in Europe and globally. The tool is derived from an EMIS-R package and implemented at the core of the EMIS server.  It provides an interoperable spatial data infrastructure platform enable to integrate and communicate different spatial and referenced datasets and services in a standardized way.

The marine Analyst has been integrated into the Marine Strategy Framework Directive Competence Centre (MCC; http://mcc.jrc.ec.europa.eu) established by the Joint Research Centre to share marine policy information, and provide up-to-date scientific knowledge related to MSFD.

References

• Druon JN., Fromentin JM, Hanke A, Arrizabalaga H, Damalas D, et al. 2016. Habitat suitability of the Atlantic Bluefin tuna by size class: an ecological niche approach. Progress in Oceanography, 130: 188-204.
  
  
• Tempera F, 2015. Bringing together harmonized EUNIS seabed habitat geospatial information for the European seas. EUR – Scientific and Technical Research Reports, Publication Office of the European Union, EUR 27237.
  
  
• Vantrepotte V, Mélin F, 2009. Temporal variability of 10-year global SeaWiFS time series of phytoplankton chlorophyll a concentration. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 1547-1556.