1. AN ORGANISATION FOR A NATIONAL EARTH SCIENCE INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM Why build an Earth Science Information Network? Dr Robert Woodcock AuScope Grid - Director

2. 2 ? Commonwealth State Local Regional Industry Research bedrock surficial mineral geochemical geochronologic hyrdrogeological Geo-information geophysical With acknowledgement to Boyan Brodaric, Natural Resources Canada Decisions, decisions…? decision makers knowledge base

3. 3 Don’t you hate it when………………….. You have to keep and maintain versions of someone else’s data, and you don’t know if it’s correct or outdated? You know there’s useful information out there, but you cannot find it? You waste valuable time downloading and converting datasets? You can see the data you want on a web map but you can’t download the real data for analysis?

4. GeoScience Victoria: vision for data delivery Kathy Hill, Director GeoScience Victoria

5. Not ideal  complex, rich data must be duplicated and modified to deliver to web with current GIS tools ‣ ‘flatten’ or group data ‣ inefficient process, potential to add errors  presents a cut-down (compromised) version of data holdings  multiple formats for different vendors (eg. ESRI, MapInfo) Current information delivery

6. 6 Current data interfaces Provider defined clients and formats Provider delivers to single clients User accesses single provider Data Providers MRT GA GSV NTGS Users

7. 7 Data Structures Proprietary Software Versions of Software Client Part of our problem…data access is not standardised across organisations

8. 8 The problem runs deeper…information is part of a workflow across organisations decision making Resource Assessment geohazards inundation hazard potential hazard uncertainty Earthquake location Earthquake magnitude Policy buildings bathymetry geophysics Seismic Community Info Environment Geo-information vulnerability, risk cost Human Facility Economy loss Environment Risk Assessment Tsunami risk map Integrated Assessment resource assessment modeling vulnerability, risk assessment modeling integrated assessment modeling Tsunami emergency response geohazards Town planning inundation Vulnerability, risk

9. 9 Integration of observations, models, simulation… deeper still

10. 10 It’s all to hard

11. AN ORGANISATION FOR A NATIONAL EARTH SCIENCE INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM What is an Information Network? Data sharing, applications, discovery and access

12. 12 Coherent Accessible Infrastructure 1: Concepts 2: Data Acquisition 3: Data storage & access 4: Research 5: Knowledge Delivery

13. 13 AuScope Community Agreements Client A solution: Open standards based earth science information infrastructure

14. 14 Standards “Standards are like toothbrushes – everybody wants to use one but nobody wants to share it” –Francois Robida, BRGM “Interoperability seems to be about integration of information. What it’s really about is the coordination of organizational behaviour” –David Schell, OGC

15. 15 Applications: It’s not about you…it’s about them. GIS Standard format Report Simulation and Modelling WMS WFS GSV GA MRT NTGS Data Providers

16. 16 What hat do you wear? Consumer, Provider or both! Provider Consumer Standardise Information models Standardise the Query interface Do not change my internal operations dramatically (including databases) Should not second guess the consumers workflow

17. 17 WMS GetMap returns a server’s “dumb” JPEG, GIF or PNG representation of the data on the server. It does NOT return the actual data, only a bitmap of the data. WMS can’t “give data away.” Roma

18. 18 Multiple thematic data layers GetFeature request: Web Feature Service (WFS) gets operable feature data from multiple servers Cities Borders Elevation Each layer is data, not merely a view: Country is: Name: Italy Population: 57,500,000 Area: 301,325 sq km...

19. 19 Portrayal vs Analysis Simple vs Community Schemas Data can be easily exchanged within communities where meaning is understood and humans are involved Property = temperature, (only) Value = ’15-20’ For use in wider communities more precise definitions are required that reflect the complexity of the real world Property = temperature, Value = 15 Unit = C Instrument = thermometer Value = 17 Unit = C Instrument = thermometer Value = 20 Unit = C Instrument = thermometer Agreement at an international level enables data to be reused, repurposed and used by other domains globally

20. AN ORGANISATION FOR A NATIONAL EARTH SCIENCE INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM Building an Earth Science Information Network …locally for access nationally and globally …to provide access to authoritative, high quality, data and information …to enable reuse and repurposing of data and information …to integrate with other national and state network initiatives

21. 21 1 st Step: Standardise the Information Models Not a storage problem… –Exchange Semantics and structure –GeoSciML, OGC Tool support –Creation and validation Geography Markup Language

22. 22 GML Client WMS WFS WMS WFS WMS WFS WMS WFS GeoSciML WMS WFS GeoSciML GSV GA NTGS PIRSA MRT MRT mapping GeoSciML Benefits GeoSciML Format PIRSA mapping NTGS mapping GA mapping GSV mapping Data to GeoSciML Schema mapping OGC Services Datasources

23. 23 Systems (Data Services) Syntax (Data Language) Schematic (Data Structure) Semantic (Data Content) interoperability Current ‘World’ Organisation specific Few standards Access, Excel, Proprietary GIS Files, DVD, CD GeoSciML Controlled Vocabularies GML, XML WFS, WMS, WCS GeoSciML ‘World’ Interoperability Requirements Geoscience community OpenGIS community (OGC)

24. 24 Systems and Syntax standards WFS 1.0, WFS 1.1, WFS 2.0 GML 2.0, GML 3.1, GML 3.2 Compliance levels (SF-0, SF-1, SF-2) Community defined application schema WFS 1.0, WFS 1.1, WFS 2.0 GML 2.0, GML 3.1, GML 3.2 Compliance levels (SF-0, SF-1, SF-2) Community defined application schema –GeoSciML extends 3.1.1 –GeoSciML conforms to SF-1 Make sure you are compliant with your community specified standard

25. 25 ‘Simple features’ vs ‘Complex features’ Level SF-0Level SF-1 Restricted set of non-spatial property typesYY Restricted set of spatial property typesYY User-defined property typesNY Property cardinality0 - 10 - * Property = temperature, Value = ’15-20 C’ Property = temperature, TValue[1] = 15 Unit = C Instrument = thermometer TValue[2] = 17 Unit = C Instrument = thermometer TValue[3] = 20 Unit = C Instrument = thermometer OR Property = temperature, TRange = MinValue = 15 Unit = C MaxValue = 20 Unit = C SF-0SF-1

26. 26 Schematic Agreement Victoria South Australia lithology RockMaterial consolidationDegree compositionCategory geneticDescription lithology:ControlledConcept[1..*]

27. 27 Cainozoic? Palaeozoic? Archaean? Bolindian? Eastonian? Gisbornian? Late? Early? Semantic Agreement Select geologic features where age = “xxx”

28. Community Agreed Service Interfaces and Information Models AuScope service catalog Standard Vocabularies Vocabulary Service Service Registry Discovery Layer Exchange Layer Resources Complex feature Discovery Portal Government Department Data Geological Survey Web Feature Service (WFS)‏ Services status 1 June 2008 URN Resolver Service X X X X X X X X

29. Community Agreed Service Interfaces and Information Models AuScope service catalog Standard Vocabularies Vocabulary Service Service Registry Discovery Layer Exchange Layer Resources Complex feature Discovery Portal Government Department Data Geological Survey Web Feature Service (WFS)‏ Services status 1 June 2009 URN Resolver Service

30. ApplicationEffort Comments GeoServer - Easiest to configure - Australian community and support - Ongoing AuScope development (next 1.25 years) - Commercial support available - Will meet needs of most users Deegree - Tricky to configure, requires XSLT skills - Will meet most GeoSciML use-cases - Suitable for users serving complex data GIN Mediator - Overkill for most users and complex to deploy and configure - Powerful solution for users with non-OGC or non-community WFSs WFS ImplementationSummary Installation Configration (WFS) Data mapping Configuration (XSLT) Key (Effort)

31. 31 Discovery Portal - Surfing the Earth Model

32. 32 The Carbon Project ‘Gaia’ client

33. AuScope Grid gives us a way to make science communication and collaboration easy in real time scientists won’t have to battle the data before they do science – they can just use it!