02-Oct-2008 European Forum for GeoStatistics 2008 in Bled

Concept for an Integrated Web Solution / an Infrastructure for Geostatistics(Subproject 3)

02-Oct-2008 2

Vision of the integrated geostat web application

Information can be easily discovered no matter the source

The quality and usefulness of data can be assessed All information can be combined or transformation

operations exist There are no barriers to access data Distributed web services allow all kinds of operations …

02-Oct-2008 3

Existing Framework

INSPIRE Kopernikus (GMES) SEIS ESS

02-Oct-2008 4

Legal support Institutional support at European level Institutional support by Member States Financial support A large user community Methodologies, use cases, etc.

EU Geoportal still in experimental stage

8 years of work and many more to come

INSPIRE

02-Oct-2008 5

Legal support Political support Institutional support at European level Institutional support by Member States Financial support

Still missing: IT tools, applications beyond prototype status

Kopernikus (GMES)

02-Oct-2008 6

Political support Institutional support at European level Financial support

Still missing: IT tools, methodologies, use cases, etc.

SEIS

02-Oct-2008 7

SEIS – Environmental Data Centres

2008 Communication of SEIS First implementation in the form of environmental data

centres (10, owned by EUROSTAT, JRC, EEA) Currently in the user requirements phase First attempts to build a common system architecture

date from 2006 Next deadline for an architecture proposal end of 2008 Most advanced example of a data centre is WISE

02-Oct-2008 8

WISE

Portal to spatial and thematic data on water Centred on River basin districts as reporting units (not

exactly small scale statistics) Currently only access to spatial data and data on the

state of river bodies. Limited access to documents Analysis scenarios still to come Architecture very much based on a spatial SDI

02-Oct-2008 9

European Statistical System - Eurostat

Long tradition in providing official statistics Legal basis Institutional support

Isolated Application to show statistical data (Tables Graphs Maps)

Technologies for data exchange between e.g. Eurostat and NSI (in the future SDMX)

02-Oct-2008 10

Quick start on SDMX

“Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange” Exchanging and sharing of statistical data and metadata

among international organisations and their member states

Applicable to all domains of statistics Follows the publish, find and bind pattern

02-Oct-2008 11

Benefits from SDMX standards

XML based and therefore neutral in terms of underlying technologies

Avoids duplication of development, saves development costs and proliferation of “proprietary” developments

Pools the expertise and resources working on data and metadata issues in sponsoring organisations

02-Oct-2008 12

International Organisations with SDMX Implementations

Eurostat’s SDMX Open Data Interchange Eurostat Census IMF’s Metadata Repositories UN Millennium Development Goals indicators FAO Country Stats ILO Labor Statistics UNESCO-Eurostat-OECD Education Statistics

… growing fast

02-Oct-2008 13

Domain-Specific SDMX Implementations in ESS

Demography Census Hub National Accounts Price statistics Agriculture Environment

Education Energy Short-term statistics

02-Oct-2008 14

Key SDMX Products

technical standards– standard format for data and reference metadata– architecture for data exchange– SDMX registry

guidelines– E.g. how to construct metadata descriptions

freely available implementation tools– SDMX Registry– SDMX Metadata Converter

02-Oct-2008 15

Example - the Census Hub project

The Census Hub project aims to build a new IT infrastructure to achieve the publication of the 2011 Census data on Eurostat website using SDMX standards

It is based on the data sharing architecture where a group of partners agree on providing access to their data according to standard formats and technologies

A data user browses the hub to search for a dataset of interest via structural metadata (dimensions, attributes, measures, code lists, etc). Data are retrieved directly from the interested Member States’ systems

02-Oct-2008 16

Geostatistics – some general concerns

The user community appears to be still small especially in the statistical offices

The use cases are not established yet The players in the potential sub elements of the IISD are

quite busy (INSPIRE, GMES, SEIS) and preoccupied with their own business

02-Oct-2008 European Forum for GeoStatistics 2008 in Bled

Concept for an integrated web solution / An infrastructure for Geostatistics. (The Subproject 3)

Proposal for an application for the discovery of geostatistical data built on INSPIRE and SDMX

02-Oct-2008 18

Correspondence of INSPIRE and SDMX

Statistics SDMX technical standards

– standard format for data and reference metadata

– architecture for data exchange– SDMX registry

Guidelines– E.g. how to construct

metadata descriptions

Freely available implementation tools

– SDMX Registry– SDMX Metadata Converter

Spatial data INSPIRE implementing rules

– Thematic working groups

– Network services– Catalogue service

Technical INSPIRE documents

A number of commercial and FOSS tools

– Geonetwork as a catalogue solution

02-Oct-2008 19

Ambition for a first implementation of a geostat application

A catalogue application shall be developed implementing metadata profiles of INSPIRE and SDMX which will allow users to find spatial and statistical data.

Will allow to search for data registered with INSPIRE catalogues and SDMX registries

Will provide a one stop shop for spatial data and statistical data

Will provide a download service for data (Will allow to visualise datasets in the appropriate format

(text, maps, graphs, tables))

02-Oct-2008 20

Approach

The application needs to implement the SDMX standard and the INSPIRE Implementing rules on network services (based on OGC standards) and metadata

Phases of Work– Definition of the business case (by subproject 1, e.g. from

population statistics)– Analysis of the technical infrastructures of INSPIRE and

SDMX– Specification of the software requirements– Development of interfaces to INSPIRE and SDMX

metadata– Design and implementation of the application

02-Oct-2008 21

Open questions

Deliverables– A web portal in the form of an INSPIRE geoportal that at

the same time can also access SDMX registries.– And?

Users– Potential users will be experts, general public?

Organisations involved and their roles in the proposed work– European Forum for Geostatistics, exact role?– Eurostat (Grant)

Expected Costs and Duration of the Work– Duration: 1 year, cost 100k€, realistic?