Projects, undertaken by NODC
The members of the National Oceanographic Data Committee (NODC) of the Netherlands are involved on an individual basis in many projects. As a collective, the NODC is involved in the development of the following projects:
- NODCi - National Infrastructure for access to Oceanographic and Marine Data and Information
The Ruimte voor Geo-Informatie (Space for Geo-Information, RGI) innovation programme is investing 20 million euros as an incentive to projects that bring geo specialists and geo users together. RGI's mission is: ‘the improvement and innovation of the National Geo-Information Infrastructure and the geo field of knowledge in the Netherlands for satisfactory and efficient administration and powerful industry’. NODC-i (RGI014) is one of the projects in the RGI programme and comprises the implementation of a National infrastructure for access to oceanographic and marine data and information, that is interoperable with international networks and developments.
In phase 1 (May 2005 – April 2006) a definition study was performed, including an analysis of the data management systems of each of the partners and the options for interconnecting these in a common model. This has resulted in an agreed and feasible concept for the NODC-i infrastructure, that has been discussed and tuned with a wide range of potential users from the maritime, shipbuilding, offshore, dredging and survey industry sectors, scientific research sector, and from the NODC-i partner organisations.
In April 2009 phase 2 has been concluded, which comprises the implementation and operation of the NODC-i infrastructure. This includes the development of the NODC-i portal (www.nodc.nl), the implementation and population of metadata systems, and interconnecting the data management systems of each of the NODC members to the NODC portal to provide a harmonised and transparent overview and access to the data sets, managed by each of the NODC members. These services are now operational. The NODC-i project takes place in close communication and tuning with the SeaDataNet project, because the NODC-i infrastructure is the Dutch node in SeaDataNet.
- SeaDataNet - Pan-European Infrastructure for Oceanographic and Marine Data Management
SeaDataNet is the leading initiative in Europe, actively operating and further developing a Pan-European infrastructure for managing, indexing and providing access to ocean and marine data sets and data products, acquired via research cruises and other observational activities. SeaDataNet is coordinated by the National Oceanographic Data Centre’s from 35 countries around European seas. This is done as an EU Research Infrastructures I3 project, which was awarded in the FP6 programme and began in early 2006. It focuses on interconnecting the data centres to provide integrated on-line access to the most comprehensive sets of multi-disciplinary in-situ and remote sensing marine data, meta-data and products.
- EMODNET Pilots - Chemical Lot
The EU's Maritime Policy Blue Book, welcomed by the European Council in December 2007, undertook to take steps towards a European Marine Observation and Data Network (EMODNET) that would improve availability of high quality data. As part of the roadmap and analysis for the future EMODNET the EU launched in July 2008 a call for tenders for creating pilot components of EMODNET. The overall objective is to migrate fragmented and inaccessible data into interoperable, continuous and publicly available data streams for complete maritime basins. The results will help to define processes, best technology and approximate costs of a final operational European Marine Observation and Data Network. It will also provide the first components for a final system which will in themselves be useful to the marine science community.
The call for tenders comprised 4 lots:
1. hydrographic data
2. marine geological data
3. chemical data
4. biological data
The SeaDataNet consortium successfully applied for implementing the EMODNET Chemical portal by using the SeaDataNet network of national data centres and its new V1 infrastructure, thereby demonstrating its abilities for handling and giving users access to the requested chemical data sets and products in combination with other multi-disciplinary data sets. In the coming year the first release of the Chemical pilot will be prepared. The Regional Conventions (OSPAR HELCOM, Black Sea Commission) have agreed to contribute to this process. The NODC will work and contribute for the Netherlands concerning data input and the overall developments. The EMODNET pilot will make use of the underlying data infrastructure, but moreover will add considerable value by producing and providing aggegated data products of chemicals by means of OGC compliant maps and viewing services.
SeaDataNet is also involved in the implementation of the other 3 pilots, whereby common standards of SeaDataNet for e.g. vocabularies and metadata will be adopted for ensuring harmonisation between the 4 pilots. Moreover the SeaDataNet Common Data Index (CDI) portal will be populated by all pilots for indexing their background datasets.