AN ORGANISATION FOR A NATIONAL EARTH SCIENCE INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM

Why build an Earth Science Information Network?

Dr Robert Woodcock

AuScope Grid - Director

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?

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 makersknowledge base

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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• You have to keep and maintain versions of someone else’s data, and you don’t know if it’s correct or outdated?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?

GeoScience Victoria:vision for data delivery

Kathy Hill, Director GeoScience Victoria

• 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

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Current data interfaces

Provider defined clients and formats

Provider delivers tosingle clients

User accesses single provider

Dat

a P

rovi

ders

MRT

GA

GSV

NTGS

Users

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Data Structures

Proprietary Software

Versions of Software

Client

Part of our problem…data access is not standardised across organisations

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The problem runs deeper…information is part of a workflow across organisations

decision making

Resource Assessment

geohazards

inundation

hazard potentialhazard uncertainty

Earthquake locationEarthquake magnitude

Policy

buildings

bathymetry

geophysics

Seismic

Community Info

Environment

Geo-information

• vulnerability, risk cost Human Facility Economyloss Environment

Risk Assessment

Tsunami risk mapIntegrated Assessment

resource assessment modeling vulnerability, risk

assessment modelingintegrated assessment

modeling

Tsunami emergency response

geohazards

Town planninginundation

Vulnerability, risk

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Integration of observations, models, simulation… deeper still

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It’s all to hard

AN ORGANISATION FOR A NATIONAL EARTH SCIENCE INFRASTRUCTURE PROGRAM

What is an Information Network?

Data sharing, applications, discovery and access

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Coherent Accessible Infrastructure

1: Concepts 2: Data Acquisition

3: Data storage & access

4: Research

5: Knowledge Delivery

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AuScope Community Agreements

Client

A solution: Open standards based earth science information infrastructure

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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

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Applications:It’s not about you…it’s about them.

GIS

Standard format

Report

Simulation and Modelling

WMS WFS

GSV

GA

MRT

NTGS

Dat

a P

rovi

ders

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What hat do you wear? Consumer, Provider or both!

Provider

ConsumerStandardise Information modelsStandardise the Query interface

Do not change my internal operations dramatically (including databases)Should not second guess the consumers workflow

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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

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Multiplethematic

data layers

GetFeaturerequest:

Web Feature Service (WFS) gets operable feature data from multiple servers

Cities

BordersElevation

Each layer is data, not merely a view:Country is:• Name: Italy• Population:

57,500,000• Area: 301,325 sq

km. . .

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Portrayal vs AnalysisSimple vs Community Schemas

Data can be easily exchanged within communities where meaning is understood and humans are involvedProperty = temperature, (only) Value = ’15-20’

For use in wider communities more precise definitions are required that reflect the complexity of the real worldProperty = temperature,

Value = 15 Unit = C Instrument = thermometer Value = 17 Unit = C Instrument = thermometerValue = 20 Unit = C Instrument = thermometer

Agreement at an international level enables data to be reused, repurposed and used by other domains globally

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

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1st Step: Standardise the Information Models

•Not a storage problem…–Exchange

•Semantics and structure–GeoSciML, OGC

•Tool support–Creation and validation

Geography Markup Language

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GML

Client

WMS WFS

WMSWFS

WMSWFS

WMS WFS

GeoSciML

GeoSciML

GeoSciML

GeoSciML

WMS WFS

GeoSciML

GSV

GA

NTGS

PIRSA

MRTMRT mapping

GeoSciML Benefits

GeoSciML Format

PIRSA mapping

NTGS mapping

GA mapping

GSV mapping

Data to GeoSciML Schema mapping

OGC Services

Dat

asou

rces

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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)

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Schematic Agreement

Victoria

South Australia

lithology

RockMaterial

consolidationDegree

compositionCategory

geneticDescription

lithology:ControlledConcept[1..*]

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Cainozoic?

Palaeozoic?

Archaean?

Bolindian?Eastonian?Gisbornian?

Late?Early?

Semantic Agreement Semantic Agreement • Select geologic features where age = “xxx”

Community Agreed Service Interfaces and Information Models

AuScope service catalog

Standard Vocabularies

VocabularyService

Service Registry

Discovery Layer

Exchange

Layer

Resources

Complex feature Discovery Portal

Government Department

Data

Geological SurveyWeb Feature Service (WFS)

Services status 1 June 2008

URN ResolverService

XX

XX X

XX

X

Community Agreed Service Interfaces and Information Models

AuScope service catalog

Standard Vocabularies

VocabularyService

Service Registry

Discovery Layer

Exchange

Layer

Resources

Complex feature Discovery Portal

Government Department

Data

Geological SurveyWeb Feature Service (WFS)

Services status 1 June 2009

URN ResolverService

Application EffortComments

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)

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Discovery Portal - Surfing the Earth Model

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The Carbon Project ‘Gaia’ client

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!