1. Indicator structure and common elements for information flow
WGDIKE JUNE , Brussels
Indicator structure and common elements for information flow
Supporting Document: DIKE_
Prepared by: Neil Holdsworth (ICES) for ETC/ICM support to EEA

2. Conditions for WISE-Marine
DO NOT need to manage all the data and information centrally
DO need to leverage as much as possible from the RSC’s
DO need to have structured access to or information relating to, the data and information used in the MSFD assessments

3. Data supply What is structured access? Assessment Indicator result
DATA INFORMATION SERVICES
Data supply
Assessment
Indicator result

4. What we observe What is structured access?
ICES strategy on data handling/databases
What we observe

5. Reality – more like this
What is structured access?
Professionalising knowledge and data products
Reality – more like this

6. Structured access Professionalising knowledge and data products
Roles/Responsibilities
Operators
Methodologies
Timetables
agreed deliveries services/products
Access rights
Etc.

7. How does this look for MSFD?
Based on, but not identical to, the Marine Information Schema (RSC support project, 2015 – in development)

8. Indicator assessment structure

9. Indicator structure at regional level
Organization
Development status
Presentation format
Structure
EEA
Currently used for coreset indicators (CSI)
Online
Follows a strict meta-data template adapted from the European SDMX Metadata Structure (ESMS)
HELCOM
Currently used for some existing assessments (i.e. Eutrophication) and available for use for roof report
Follows a document-based structure based on an agreed HELCOM set of information
OSPAR
In draft and awaiting contracting party agreement. Available for use in roof report
Planned to be online
Follows a document and meta-data-based structure, developed within OSPAR
UNEP/MAP
Not known
BSC

10. Categorisation of indicator elements
Category
Description
Access and use
Explicit information on access rights, usage rights related to the data products, indicator publication etc. i.e. data policy, copyright restrictions etc.
Assessment findings
Key messages, assessment results, trend analysis and conclusions presented primarily as text
Assessment methods
Methodologies, aggregation methods, indicator specifications, references to other relevant methods
Assessment purpose
Purpose of assessment, rationale of approach, targets and policy context
Contact and ownership
Contact details for assessment indicator, including authorship and organisational contact points
Data inputs and outputs
Data sources, assessment datasets, assessment results, snapshots etc.
Geographical scope
Assessment units, other geographical information, countries
Labelling and classification
Identification and classification systems, such as INSPIRE, DPSIR, MSFD criteria
Quality aspects
Explicit information content on quality of assessment, including data and methods. i.e. uncertainty, gaps in coverage etc.
Temporal scope
Time range of assessment, usually expressed as a year range
Version control
Publishing dates, references to previous indicator versions, URI's etc.

11. Indicator structure Categories EEA fields HELCOM fields OSPAR fields
Access and use 1
Assessment findings 4 3 8
Assessment methods 5 7
Assessment purpose 6
Contact and ownership 2
Data inputs and outputs
Geographical scope
Labelling and classification 10
Quality aspects
Temporal scope
Version control
Grand Total 44 31 42

12. Notable features from indicator structures
(EEA) Explicit reference to the indicator units e.g. concentration expressed as microgramme per litre
(HELCOM, OSPAR) Indicator makes explicit references to both an assessment dataset and assessment data sources
(HELCOM) Indicator structure has extensive and explicit assessment methods and quality aspects components
(HELCOM, OSPAR) Explicit references to MSFD criteria
(OSPAR) Explicitly states data and indicator access and use rights

13. Possible MSFD improvements?
EEA
no specific reference to geographical assessment units. However the map products do depict the results by MSFD sub-regions, and the metadata structure has a field for ‘contributing countries’.
There is no explicit reference to an ‘assessment dataset’
No specific MSFD utilisation labels, except for DPSIR label type
OSPAR
A clearer information provision to the data product relating to an assessment result would be useful
The field ‘linkage’ would benefit from a more structured approach as a collection of
More explicit references to quality aspects of the assessment, monitoring and data aggregation methods.
HELCOM
No explicit placeholder for temporal scope i.e. the year range of the assessment
No direct reference to which countries the indicator assessment applies to (i.e. a list of countries), although this might be inferred from the map of assessment units/data results
Although an authorship citation is provided, there is no explicit reference to the access and use rights to the assessment dataset, or map products

14. Proposal for common structured elements
Category and relevant fields
Description
Content type
EEA
HELCOM
OSPAR
Recomm-endation
Access and Use
Explicit information on access rights, usage rights related to the data products, indicator publication etc. i.e. data policy, copyright restrictions etc. n o
Conditions applying to access and use
i.e. Copyright, data policy
text or URL
Required
Assessment Findings
Key messages, assessment results (text and graphic form), trend analysis and conclusions presented primarily as text x
Key assessment
Longer description of assessment results by assessment units
text
Key messages
Short descriptions of trends
Results and Status
Textual description of assessment results, could include graphics
text and figures
Trend
Textual description of assessment trend, could include graphics
Optional
Assessment methods
Methodologies, aggregation methods, indicator specifications, references to other relevant methods
Indicator Definition
Short description of indicator aimed at general audience
Methodology for indicator calculation
Text and tabular information on the process of aggregation and selection etc
Methodology for monitoring
Short textual description of monitoring requirements/method
Indicator units
Units used for indicator
GES - concept and target setting method
Text describing concept used and target method
Assessment Purpose
Purpose of assessment, rationale of approach, targets and policy context
Indicator purpose
Justification for indicator selection and relevance
Policy relevance
Text relating indicator to policy
Relevant publications (policy, scientific etc)
Citable URLs to policy documents related to indicator
Policy Targets
Description of policy target
Contact and Ownership
Contact details for assessment indicator, including authorship and organisational contact points
Authors
List of authors
Citation
Full citation
Point of contact
Organisational contact
Continued

15. Proposal for common structured elements
Category and relevant fields
Description
Content type
EEA
HELCOM
OSPAR
Recomm-endation
Data inputs and outputs
Data sources, assessment datasets, assessment results (tabular and dataset), snapshots etc. x
Data sources
Underlying datasets
text and/or URL
Required
Assessment dataset
snapshot dataset that was derived from underlying data
URL
Assessment result
summary results dataset/table/figure
File or web service
Assessment result- map
GIS version of assessment result i.e. Shape file or WFS
Optional
Geographical scope
Assessment units, other geographical information, countries o
Assessment unit
Nested assessment unit (if available)
text
Countries
Countries that the indicator covers
Other geographical unit
alternate source of geographical reference for indicator i.e. ICES areas
text or URL
Labelling and Classification
identification and classification systems, such as INSPIRE, DPSIR, MSFD criteria
DPSIR
assessment framework linkage
MSFD criteria
criteria coding as listed in Annex III tables 1 and 2
Indicator title
Full title of indicator as published
INSPIRE topics
Keyword topics
Quality Aspects
Explicit information content on quality of assessment, including data and methods. i.e. Uncertainty, gaps in coverage etc.
Data confidence
Adequateness of spatial and temporal coverage, quality of data collection etc.
Indicator methodology confidence
Knowledge gaps and uncertainty in methods/knowledge
GES - confidence
Confidence of target, descriptive text
Temporal scope
Time range of assessment, usually expressed as a year range n
Temporal Coverage
assessment period expressed as year start -year end
date range
Version control
Publishing dates, references to previous indicator versions, URI's etc.
Last modified date
date of last modification
date time
Published date
publish date of indicator
Unique reference
Citable reference unique to resource i.e. URI, DOI
version linkage
Link to other versions of assessment
Sum Required fields 21
Sum Optional fields 15