Development of a Marine Biological Data Portal within the framework of EMODNet

Simon Claus, Leen Vandepitte and Tjess HernandezFlanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)

Outline Presentation

Introduction Biology Lot

Demonstration of Biology Portal

User Feedback Portal Development of biological data products

Challenges & Lessons learned for follow-up projects

Interaction with other Groups & compatibility INSPIRE

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The overall objectives Assemble fragmented and inaccessible marine data into interoperable, contiguous and

publicly available data streams for complete maritime basins. • define the appropriate processes, best technology and approximate costs of a

final EMODNET • provide first components of a final system which will be useful to provide value-

added services.

Proposal Biological Lot:

1. Inventory of holdings+

2. Gap analysis

3. Building data/metadata portal + integrate biological data

4. Strategy plan for future

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The overall objectives Focus (Tender):

• Temporal/Spatial distribution of species composition, abundance and biomass• Target Species of:

• Phytoplankton, Zooplankton• Angiosperms, Macro-algae• Invertebrate bottom fauna• Bird communities, Sea mammals, Reptiles

• Geographical Focus• Greater North Sea including the Kattegat, and the English Channel• The Bay of Biscay• Iberian Coast

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The overall objectives EMODNet Bio will be build upon EurOBIS:

• EMODNET Biological Portal will be based on EurOBIS (browse data, view, query, download data)• EurOBIS developed with MarBEF, node of OBIS• Distributed system integrates datasets with distribution records• Focus on taxonomy, temporal and geographical cover (but also abundance, biomass -DARWIN )• Keep track of metadata - use standards (ISO 19115, WoRMS, Gazetteer)

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EMODnet

Demonstration of Portal

Data portal available at http://bio.emodnet.eu

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User Feedback

User feedback

User feedback button

Presentation data portal during dataproducts workshop (25/02/2010)

Discussed during project partner meeting (11/10/10)

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User Feedback (Portal) Planned updates based on user feedback (for May 2011)

General technical improvements (filtering, downloading, (meta)data)

Include temporal component (graphs, animations)

Monitor data usages (purposes of download...)

Possible to search & select specific attributes of species (functional groups, invasives, red lists, HABs, Annex listed species...)

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User Feedback (Data products) Data products:

Species attributes Species distribution maps and trends Biodiversity indices Species sensitivity and vulnerability maps

Organisation data analysis (data products implementation) workshops

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Challenges & lessons learned follow-up projects Technical developments dataportal

Data management: standardisations & QC

Data transfer to EMODnet

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Challenges & lessons learned follow-up projects Technical developments dataportal

Technical developments: as planned – OGC powerfull

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Challenges & lessons learned follow-up projects Data management: standardisations & QC

Standardisations & QC labour intensive but necessary Taxonomy: World Register of Marine Species Geography: Gazetteer DARWIN Core Standard Standardisation biomass/abundance under development

# datasets abundance: 106 (out of 229 => = ± 50%!) # datasets biomass: 7 # datasets known sample size & equipment: 77 (in progress)

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Standardisation biomass/abundance under development

Calculation of abundances/densities to standardised area/volume Implementation through extra tables & calculations within EurOBIS No changes to be made to OBIS Schema Creation of density maps! Only plotting comparable data (area or volume): making use of conversion factor & taking

into account sampling gear

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Dataset Original sample size Standard sample size Conversion factor Sampling gear

A 0.5 m² m² 2 Van Veen grab

B 0.8 liter Liter 1.25 WP2 net

C 10 cm² m² 1000 Box corer

D … … … …

Challenges & lessons learned follow-up projects Data transfer to EMODnet

Hard to convince people to contribute data Data from project partners Data analysis workshops Data grant program

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Data project partners 374 dataset descriptions available (data catalog)

229 datasets available through portal

New data / major updates New: OBIS, OBIS Seamap, IBSS data, REPHY (Ifremer), MarBEF data Updates: ICES, PANGAEA, L4 plankton monitoring, Biocean Updates to come: CPR (early 2011)

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Workshops Biological Data Products Workshop (February 2010)

Report available online

Data analysis workshops (2011) Based on data products, define hypotheses, invite relevant experts Discuss data needs, data preparation, data policy, tools to test hypotheses Organize workshop & write workshop reports/A1-publications Data & metadata to EMODnet Experience from Marbef integrated datasets

Active data search => new & relevant contributions to EMODnet Involvement of researchers & their data => added value! Subjects relevant to EMODnet (e.g. useful for policy makers, broad scope)

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Data grant programme for the Black Sea Cooperation with Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas (IBSS)

First communications in July 2010

Black Sea inventory: 13 Ukrainian datasets to be digitised for EMODnet ± 2.5 million distribution records, time span from 1987 – 2010 Estimated person-months: 82

Metadata already provided & online

Drawing up of data grant contracts in progress

=> Start digitisation process in January 2011

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Interaction with other Thematic Groups & compatibility with INSPIRE

INSPIRE compatibility OGC compliant (WMS, CSW) – Metadata ISO 19115 No INSPIRE expert in project or vice versa

Interaction between projects Information flow ok but could be better Chemical ok (VLIZ is partner) Exchange products, maps through OGC Testing habitat maps with Biological data?

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Thank you