GSSG - GIG Geospatial Information Group Standardizing Antarctica – a challenge for the SCAR Geospatial Information Group Steffen Vogt (IPG University Freiburg / Germany) Henk Brolsma, Ursula Ryan, Lee Belbin (AADC Australian Antarctic Division) Australian Antarctic Data Centre Australian Antarctic Division

GIG Outline Introducing ourselves: Who are we? What are we doing? Implementing ISO TC211 work - an application-oriented view Example 1: feature catalogueing – SCAR Feature Catalogue Example 2: metadata – SCAR KGIS Project

GIG SCAR GIG: Who are we? Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is an inter-disciplinary committee of the International Council for Science (ICSU). SCAR is charged with the initiation, promotion and coordination of scientific research in Antarctica. SCAR also provides scientific advice to the Antarctic Treaty System (e.g. on environmental protection issues) GIG stands for Geospatial Information Group

GIG What are we doing? from mapping an unknown continent to modern GI technology framework promulgation of cartographic standards for Antarctica since 1961 currently the endeavour in the GI programme is to provide a spatial data infrastructure for Antarctica to support all scientific disciplines (policies and products) Physical Sciences Life Sciences Geosciences JCADM GIG

What are we doing? GIG Terms of Reference: To make fundamental reference data (geographic, geodetic, geophysical) available to the Antarctic and global user communities to meet scientific research requirements Contribute to global geodesy for the study of the physical processes of the earth and the maintenance of the precise terrestrial reference frame To integrate and coordinate Antarctic mapping and GIS programs Provide a common geographic reference system for all Antarctic scientists and operators as the basis for sound data management To establish and maintain strong links with all Antarctic science research groups and Antarctic data management groups

GIG The Challenge research, logistics, politics, economic interest, SAR political / administrative issues still an comparably unknown and inaccessible continent dynamic environment our information community, the Antartcic Community, in fact is many communities: data producers from a broad range of agencies and institutions in many nations data custodians in a broad range of agencies and institutions (from large, powerful data centres to individual scientists) data users from a broad range of application fields (science, management, tourism,...)

GIG What are we doing? Current GI activities Antarctic Digital Database Place Names (SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica) Map Catalogue National On-line Atlases Cybercartographic Atlas of Antarctica East Antarctica GIS King George Island GIS SCAR Spatial Data Standards - ISO TC211 standards

GIG What are we doing? Example: Antarctic Digital Database topographic database for entire Antarctica 1: 1 Mio / 5 Mio / 10 Mio public/magic/add_main.html British Antarctic Survey

GIG What are we doing? Example: SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica (CGA) geographic names in Antarctica (>17000 entries) searchable on-line database downloadable GIS dataset / data file

GIG What are we doing? Example: SCAR Map Catalogue searchable catalogue of Antarctic maps up-to-date online version AAD-AADC mapping/scarmaps.asp

GIG What are we doing? Example: SCAR King George Island GIS (KGIS) multi-national database for environmental applications King George Island 1: / forschung/ap3/kgis/

GIG GI Workshops Outreach AntGIS nd International Antarctic GIS Workshop Freiburg, April What are we doing?

GIG Why do we need to standardize Antarctica? The Vision: establish a distributed SCAR data and processing network for geospatial data Example: spatially enabled RiSCC Biodiversity database 80% of all data have a spatial component RiSCC project homepage RiSCC biodiversity homepage

GIG RiSCC Biodiversity Database Potter Peninsula

GIG observation data, taxonomy, gazetteer, map catalogue bundled into one framework at AAD-AADC RiSCC Biodiversity Database Observations Taxonomy Maps Gazetteer Interface AAD-AADC GIG products

GIG Component Model Applications Organisations and People Feature Type Catalog Species Taxonomy Data Repository Data Repository Map Catalog Metadata Catalog Services Catalog Applications - Data Retrieval - Data Mining - Data Visualization Symbology Ontologies Catalogs and Services... technical interoperability? semantic interoperability? feasible?

GIG Standards and Specifications open, non-proprietary, well-established technology maturing of standards and specifications (SCAR GIG Liaision Member of ISO TC211)

GIG Standards and Specifications Example 1: SCAR Feature Catalogue build on Example 2: SCAR KGIS Project - A Testbed for Towards a Metadata Community Profile?

GIG SCAR Feature Catalogue should provide common semantics shoud be applicable to any scale of spatial information should be applicable to any GIS package should enable exchange of spatial information across disciplines / agencies / nations / cultures

GIG SCAR Feature Catalogue Part of SCAR Spatial Data Model project (under co-ordination of AAD) Goal: “To provide a SCAR standard spatial data model for use in SCAR and national GIS databases” ISO compliant Under construction! living document (

GIG SCAR Feature Catalogue Part of SCAR Spatial Data Model project (under co-ordination of AAD) Goal: “To provide a SCAR standard spatial data model for use in SCAR and national GIS databases” ISO compliant living document (

GIG SCAR Feature Catalogue and in terms of implementation seems to provide a flexible enough framework in terms of acceptance the ‘ ISO branding’ might become very helpful

GIG The SCAR KGIS Project

GIG King George Island

GIG King George Island

GIG King George Island several nations operate permanent bases important hub to Antarctic Peninsula focal point of scientific activities shipborne / airborne tourism protected areas complex context but apparent need for co-ordinated management (SCAR recommendations Tokyo 2000)

GIG Goal of the KGIS project To produce an integrated geographic database for use by all countries for use in multi-disciplinary applications: planning and coordination of activities environmental impact assessments scientific database management plans (SSSIs, ASMA)

GIG communication & outreach Workflow final products Integration & meta data generation raw data standards web inter- face

GIG Data Input data was provided by - FH Karlsruhe, Germany - IAA Buenos Aires, Argentina - IAAG Muenchen, Germany - IGIK Warszawa, Poland - INACH/IGM Santiago, Chile - IPG Freiburg, Germany - KORDI Seoul, South Korea - LaPAG/UFRGS Porto Alegre, Brazil - SGM/IAU Montevideo, Uruguay -...

GIG Data Integration

GIG Data Integration

GIG ca. 800 named features on KGI in SCAR Gazetteer ca. 300 named by more than one country SCAR Gazetteer and KGIS

GIG 2.5 km implications on management, SAR, etc. SCAR Gazetteer and KGIS Source: Management Plan SSSI 8 Tower, The Torre La, pico La Tour, cerro

GIG Metadata whithin KGIS database comes typically sparse & incomplete SCAR adopted standard is DIF (Antarctic Master Directoy is part of Global Change Master Directory) some institutions have strict standards some institutions have no standards at all most important source for metadata typically is personal communication with data producers we started to construct comprehensive metadata records based on these are provided as XML, HTML and text files to the users positive feedback if tools to easily access the information are at hand growing acknowledgement of the importance of metadata

GIG Antarctic Metadata and ISO an ISO compliant community profile appears to be very helpful in integrating exisiting metadata / metadata standards tools for user oriented metadata presentation help in raising awareness of the fact that metadata actually is part of the data this might help to stimulate the production of metadata records useable for a distributed data and processing environment

GIG Conclusions from our application-oriented point of view users / producers slowly start to realize how they benefit from and why they should adhere to standards looking at the implementation of some ISO TC211 based standards: technically: works, but of course the devil’s in the details... application-oriented: break the communication barrier!

GIG SCAR Geospatial Information Group Mr. A. Paul R. Cooper British Antarctic Survey Liaison Officer from SCAR to TC211 Mr. Larry Hothem United States Geological Survey Liaison Officer from TC211 to SCAR Mr. Steffen Vogt IPG University Freiburg, Germany