Data Interoperability Between Elements of the Global Ocean Observing System

Abstract

The data management landscape associated with the Global Ocean Observing System is distributed, complex, and only loosely coordinated. Yet interoperability across this distributed landscape is essential to enable data to be reused, preserved, and integrated and to minimize costs in the process. A building block for a distributed system in which component systems can exchange and understand information is standardization of data formats, distribution protocols, and metadata. By reviewing several data management use cases we attempt to characterize the current state of ocean data interoperability and make suggestions for continued evolution of the interoperability standards underpinning the data system. We reaffirm the technical data standard recommendations from previous OceanObs conferences and suggest incremental improvements to them that can help the GOOS data system address the significant challenges that remain in order to develop a truly multidisciplinary data system.

Compatibility in acoustic telemetry

“…From a science perspective, this dependency stifles innovation [11] within the acoustic telemetry community and restricts the scope, type, and flexibility of research [12]. Dominance of one company will also reduce competition among manufacturers, resulting in greater costs for researchers [13] and potential conflicts with legal requirements for competition fairness at national and/ or international level [21]. From a corporate perspective, market dominance does not necessarily violate anti-trust legislation.…”

Enabling the Reuse of Long-Term Marine Biological Observations in Essential Variables Frameworks Through a Practical Approach

“…Consider the international policy reporting requirements which can be benefit from the EBVs derived from monitoring activities or national data products (CBD i , Ramsar Directive, CMS ii , Habitat Directive, Birds Directive, MSFD iii , WFD iv ) v ; check if the stakeholders operating at national level (e.g., policy makers and resource managers) are involved in monitoring projects to inform decisions (Geijzendorffer et al, 2016) Consider the international reporting requirements which can benefit from the BioEco EOVs derived from national data products (24 global agreements); check if the stakeholders operating at national level (e.g., policy makers and resource managers) are involved in monitoring projects to inform decisions (Miloslavich et al, 2018) 3. Making Data FAIR Standardize the formats for data (e.g., Darwin Core Archive, DwC MeasurementOrFact (MoF), DwC ExtendedMeasurementOrFact (eMoF), JSON) and metadata (e.g., EML, ISO19115, ISO 19157) (De Pooter et al, 2017;Kissling et al, 2018a;Hardisty et al, 2019b;Snowden et al, 2019) Publish data in global information systems (e.g., the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the Ocean Biodiversity Information System) to improve accessibility; these two IT facilities are based on common technologies and comply with the same standards (Klein et al, 2019) Consider the Bari Manifesto principles to increase reuse of monitoring data products at global level while assuring autonomy of the research infrastructure or program (Hardisty et al, 2019b) Evolve pragmatic ways (tools, actions) to bridge between the data and metadata standards across science disciplines; assess balance between global interoperability and the local project priorities (Lindstrom et al, 2012;Snowden et al, 2019) 4. Analytical Algorithms, Tools, and Workflows Are Accessible…”

“…Moreover, by comparing the habits of biodiversity scientists with those of the physical oceanography community, standard (meta)data schemas and services to format and distribute data are either underexploited (Snowden et al, 2019) or not systematically employed during research and monitoring activities. This prevents easy processing and assembling of multi-source data in both the EV frameworks (Miloslavich et al, 2018;Hardisty et al, 2019a) and represents a crucial obstacle to reuse of observations captured by monitoring programs (Bax et al, 2019), particularly those outside the network of practitioners developed by MBON to implement the EVs (Canonico et al, 2019).…”

SMART Cables for Observing the Global Ocean: Science and Implementation

“…From the beginning, the SMART cables initiative has benefited for the sponsorship of its UN organizations -ITU, WMO, and UNESCO-IOC -with the associated imprimatur. With endorsements from the Joint Technical Commission for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology (JCOMM), Data Buoy Coordination Panel (DBCP), the ICG/PTWS, and more recently by the Partnership for Observing the Global Ocean (POGO), the SMART cable project is aligning itself within the FOO (Lindstrom et al, 2012;Snowden et al, 2019;Tanhua et al, 2019b).…”