Sprecher
Beschreibung
The processes of search, access and evaluation of geospatial datasets is often a challenging task for researches, managers, administrations and interested users due to highly distributed data sources.
To provide a single access point to governmentally provided datasets for marine applications, the project “Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure Germany” (MDI-DE) was launched in 2013. Its geoportal has been completely renewed on open-source software to follow the approaches of the FAIR-principles and compliance to international standards regarding web services and metadata.
The MDI project is driven by a cooperation of 3 federal and 3 regional authorities, which represent the coastal federal states of Germany. Each of the signatory authorities operates a proprietary spatial data infrastructure based on different technical components to publish web services of, among others, the marine domain. So, one core component of the MDI-DE is a metadata search interface across all participants’ SDI’s. The provided marine-related services are regularly harvested into the own MDIs’ metadata catalogue using OGC CSW-services. The interface enables users to find datasets using keywords and filters. Besides of formal and legal information, it provides the possibility to visualise the services and to download the underlying datasets.
Second, a web mapping application is part of MDI-DE. Here, a large number of categorised view services, originating from the consortium and from external institutions, is available. Moreover, the portal enables any user to import own geodata from disc or from OGC-conformant web services. Further, a map server is deployed within the MSDI to publish harmonised WMS and WFS services based on distributed data sources.
MDI-DE and the German Marine Research Alliance (DAM) plan to intensify their cooperation and to promote their respective public visibility by referencing each other’s portals, integrate their metadata catalogues and jointly develop new products.
