General Information
Expert Information
 
Search this Site
More search options...
 

Regional Marine Atlases

A marine (coastal atlas) can be a very effective tool for decision makers, coastal resource managers and planners. It is also a product of which the quality depends heavily on the quality of the data and thus of the work of ocean data managers.

Within the framework of two IODE Ocean Data and Information Networks (ODINs) Marine Atlases are now being developed:

  1. African Marine Atlas
  2. Caribbean Marine Atlas

International coordination of marine atlases

In February 2008 the IODE Workshop on Coastal Atlas requirements was organized at the IOC Project Office for IODE, Oostende, Belgium. The meeting was organized to investigate ways to improve interoperability between Atlases and what can be learneddsc00194_400x300.jpg from other atlas projects.

Find out more about the meeting (agenda, participants)

PowerPoint Presentations are available HERE

The meeting agreed on the following recommendations and actions for follow-up:

  1. The meeting was informed that a paper on "The development of the African Marine Atlas" is being prepared (Lucy Scott et al);
  2. It was recommended to develop a best practices on coastal atlases;
  3. It was recommended to regularly survey users (at the national level) to continuouslyimprove the product;
  4. Dawn Wright will provide a few choice references on Mapserver books;
  5. It was recommended to investigate ways to share common codefor MapServer
  6. It was recommended to track visits to the website to identify users and their interest;
  7. It was recommended to develop anontology to provide interoperability between OCA and MIDA;
  8. It was suggested to investigate the use of postgraduate students for the further development ad updating of the IODE regional atlases;
  9. Regarding intellectual property rights it was noted that MIDA has entered into data agreements or MOUs with data providers which ensures all agreements are documented. It was recommended for the IODE atlases to consider similar arrangements;
  10. It was noted that sustainability indicators are an important new development (linking of atlas to indicators);
  11. It was agreed that UCC (Yassine Lassoued) will provide detail on the new metadata entry tool and XML schemas. These should then be considered for use by AMA and CMA;
  12. It was recommende to look into providing kml as a service;
  13. It was recommended that for IODE atlases it should be made possible to download files as compressed zip files that contain relevanr shape files as well as metadata for each layer;
  14. It was recommended that for IODE atlases data downloads should be provided in the original atlas projection (unprojected lat/lon);
  15. It was recommended that for IODE atlases future atlas services should include WFS and CSW;
  16. Ned Dwyer (UCC) was requested to provide more information on how MIDA generates localized colour legends;
  17. It was recommended that for IODE atlases GeoTIFF is used as the standard image format;
  18. It was recommended to investigate the possibility to provide transparency for MapServer raster layers;
  19. It was recommended for IODE atlases to use annual climatologies and seasonal or monthly clamatologies. For CMA in particular it was recommended to use annual climatologies and derive hydrological seasons from monthly climatologies;
  20. The meeting agreed on the need for IODE and the IODE atlases to be involved in the International Coastal Atlases Network (ICAN).
  21. It was recommended that the IODE Secretariat, IODE Co-Chair(s) and some IODE Atlas team members participate in the upcoming ICAN conference (Copenhagen, 7-9 July 2008). In this regard it was suggested to provide a presentation on IODE (1st day) as well as on data management, data mining experience (2nd day). It was mentioned that the debate on the European Atlas if the Seas (2nd day) should be informed about other continents as well (US, AMA, CMA);
  22. It was recommended to look into the possibility of UCC and OSU to host internships from Africa and the Caribbean, as well as visits of UCC and OSU experts to Africa and the Caribbean;
  23. Prof. Wright offered to contribute expertise to OceanTeacher within the framework of GIS textbook development;
  24. It was recommended to study the mechanisms related to EU-US curriculum development;
  25. It was recommended that the new IT developer who will be joining the IOC project Office for IODE (Oostende, Belgium) in April 2008, should become involved in the atlas projects, and more particularly in MapServer;
  26. It was recommended that for the 2-6 June 2008 MapServer course (Oostende, Belgium), IODE (Greg Reed) should prepare a draft agenda and send this to Ned Dwyer and Dawn Wright with the request to identify experts who can lecture during the course;
  27. The meeting urged the C-LME project to refer to the CMA in the project document and the work plan;
  28. The meeting recommended that an atlas component be included in the proposal for ODINAFRICA-IV. In this regard it was noted that a drafting meeting for the proposal will be held in May 2008. Dawn Wright and Ned Dwyer were invited to assist with drafting of the Atlas work plan;
  29. It was agreed that a metadata item (1/2 day) should be included in the June training course.dsc00195_400x300.jpg

Useful links:

 

 

 

Details
Created on: Tuesday, 26 February 2008 14:55
Last Updated on: Monday, 01 July 2013 12:20
 
© 2024, UNESCO/IOC Project Office for IODE, Oostende, Belgium. - disclaimer