| Abstract | This report summarises the findings of the GeoDI project. Large volumes of geoscientific (i.e., geological and geophysical) datasets have been gathered by the Marine Institute and its partners over the past number of years, A key challenge now exists to derive maximum value from these very costly and valuable products by integrating these geoscientific datasets together, and with other resources such as biological, chemical, and environmental data. The project aimed to address this challenge by examining the critical issues involved in the integration of Irish marine geoscientific datasets, and by assessing tools and services for enhanced management, discovery, access, and analyses of geoscientific data.
Large volumes of geoscientific (i.e., geological and geophysical) datasets have been gathered by
the Marine Institute (MI) and its partners over the past number of years, notably through the
current INFOMAR (Integrated Mapping for the Sustainable Development of Ireland‟s Marine
Resource) and previous INSS (Irish National Seabed Survey) and MESH (Mapping European
Seabed Habitats) programmes. A key challenge now exists to derive maximum value from
these very costly and valuable products by integrating these geoscientific datasets together, and
with other resources such as biological, chemical, and environmental data. This will allow for
an ecosystem approach in the analysis of marine and geoscientific data, a holistic and more
sophisticated view of change in the status of the marine environment, and thus improve the
quality of scientific advice.
The Geoscientific Data Integration (GeoDI) project aimed to address this challenge by
examining the critical issues involved in the integration of Irish marine geoscientific datasets,
and by assessing tools and services for enhanced management, discovery, access, and analyses
of geoscientific data.
The main outcomes and results of the GeoDI project are:
- A set of reports reviewing existing technologies, standards, models, and best practices
related to the integration, management, and delivery of geoscientific datasets with
associated recommendations and proposed process changes aimed at improving
geoscientific data management.
- An integrated, flexible, and scalable geoscientific data model based on Arc Marine,
compatible with existing MI databases (Marine Data Repository (MDR) and Biological Data
Integration (BIDI) model).
- A set of geoscientific ontologies for use in data, metadata, and extract, transform, and load
(ETL), built based on existing well-established vocabularies.
- A complete system specification for integrating, managing, and delivering geoscientific
resources (data, metadata, and ontologies), including detailed specification of the
subsystems and how they fit together and interact with each other. The specification
demonstrates practical uses of ontologies and includes a semantic web service (SWS)
which is being further advanced by the EU FP7 NETMAR project in order to be submitted
to a standardised body.
- A semi-automatic, generic, and ontology-based ETL tool for loading datasets into the
integrated geoscientific database, which may be further developed and customised to other
systems or databases.
- The Integrated Geoscientific Information System (IGIS), a complete system for integrating,
managing, and accessing geoscientific resources. In addition to standard services, the IGIS
includes the following components which may be reused individually (e.g. by the Irish
Spatial Data Exchange (ISDE)):
o A SWS for accessing the geoscientific domain ontology,
o A catalogue service mediator that allows access to distributed catalogue services
and solves semantic conflicts between these,
o The GeoDataOnline portal, available at http://gdo.ucc.ie.
- A report, with recommendations, assessing potential analyses and services and identifying
tools and approaches to facilitate geospatial analysis of geoscientific data.
- Three publications in two conferences (Remote Sensing and Phtogrammetry Society
Annual Conference, 2010 and E-Science Grid Facility for Europe and Latin America
(EELA2), 2009) and a book (Coastal Informatics – Web Atlas Design and Implementation).
|
