A System for Managing Oceanographic Metadata Using XML and XQuery

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EU Marine Beach Litter Baselines

Measures against marine litter require quantitative data for the assessment of litter abundance, trends and distribution. While beach litter monitoring has been ongoing in some European areas since years, so far it was yet not possible to obtain an overview and to analyse litter abundance, litter category distribution and trends at the different spatial scales from local to EU. Therefore, the EU Marine Directors and the Marine Strategy Coordination Group mandated, in the context of the MSFD implementation, to the MSFD Technical Group on Marine Litter and the JRC, the compilation and analysis of an EU beach litter dataset. Aim was to derive EU Marine Beach Litter Baselines at different spatial levels. After collection of European beach litter data from EU Member States via the EMODNET chemistry module database, harmonisation of data formats, clean-up a 2012-2016 dataset was derived. Following the spatio-temporal aggregation of data and the identification of possible litter category analysis, different scenarios for baseline setting have been tested and evaluated. The application of agreed scenario parameters has enabled the calculation of marine beach litter baselines for the years 2015 and 2016 at spatial scales ranging from country and country –region level to sub-regional, regional and EU level. Litter categories have been aggregated and allow analysis of group categories up to EU level, whereas the analysis of single categories could not include all received data due to non-comparable litter type category descriptions. The resulting set of baselines enables the future monitoring of progress in reduction, as well as compliance checking developed using the dataset. Furthermore, it provides valuable information for future improving harmonised monitoring through updated guidance, common data treatment and agreed data reporting formats. Beach litter abundance has been found to be very high in large areas of Europe, requiring joint and strong action in Europe and with the neighbours in shared marine basins.JRC.D.2-Water and Marine Resource

Toward the integrated marine debris observing system

Plastics and other artificial materials pose new risks to the health of the ocean. Anthropogenic debris travels across large distances and is ubiquitous in the water and on shorelines, yet, observations of its sources, composition, pathways, and distributions in the ocean are very sparse and inaccurate. Total amounts of plastics and other man-made debris in the ocean and on the shore, temporal trends in these amounts under exponentially increasing production, as well as degradation processes, vertical fluxes, and time scales are largely unknown. Present ocean circulation models are not able to accurately simulate drift of debris because of its complex hydrodynamics. In this paper we discuss the structure of the future integrated marine debris observing system (IMDOS) that is required to provide long-term monitoring of the state of this anthropogenic pollution and support operational activities to mitigate impacts on the ecosystem and on the safety of maritime activity. The proposed observing system integrates remote sensing and in situ observations. Also, models are used to optimize the design of the system and, in turn, they will be gradually improved using the products of the system. Remote sensing technologies will provide spatially coherent coverage and consistent surveying time series at local to global scale. Optical sensors, including high-resolution imaging, multi- and hyperspectral, fluorescence, and Raman technologies, as well as SAR will be used to measure different types of debris. They will be implemented in a variety of platforms, from hand-held tools to ship-, buoy-, aircraft-, and satellite-based sensors. A network of in situ observations, including reports from volunteers, citizen scientists and ships of opportunity, will be developed to provide data for calibration/validation of remote sensors and to monitor the spread of plastic pollution and other marine debris. IMDOS will interact with other observing systems monitoring physical, chemical, and biological processes in the ocean and on shorelines as well as the state of the ecosystem, maritime activities and safety, drift of sea ice, etc. The synthesized data will support innovative multi-disciplinary research and serve a diverse community of users

Near Real-Time Oceanographic Data Management: Latest Developments

Data sharing, interoperability and quality check are only a short part of the activities connected to the data management. Create a procedure to harmonize and disseminate heterogeneous data, collected by different meteo-oceanographic buoys in near real-time, is a challenge. In this paper, we describe a system for data validation, conversion in a homogeneous and standard format and dissemination adopting Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) using XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and OGC’s (Open Geospatial Consortium) standards. To meet the needs of different scientific communities as RITMARE (La Ricerca ITaliana per il MARE), Jerico (Towards a joint European research infrastructure network for coastal observatories), Copernicus, ODIP (Ocean Data Interoperability Platform) and FixO3 (Fixed-point Open Ocean Observatories), we decided to adopt SWE standard allowing interoperability between data in near real-time, using Sensor Model Language (SensorML) and Observations and Measurements(O&M) standards in a Sensor Observation Service (SOS)

EMODnet marine litter data management at pan-European scale

Marine litter is a growing problem for environmental and human health and policies have included monitoring as an important tool to evaluate both trends and the efficiency of reduction measures. The Marine Strategy Framework Directive is the main driver in Europe for the monitoring of the marine environment; it has included the evaluation of marine litter in order to support policies and achieve good environmental status. This assessment depends on the availability of robust, homogeneous data-sets at the European scale. A data management plan for marine litter has been developed at European level within the existing EMODnet network to collect, homogenise and provide access to standardised data-sets and data products that may be used as a basis for marine litter assessment at pan-European scale. As a long term perspective, it also provides a scientific and technical basis for further global monitoring

SP7-WP4-AZ1 Analisi di confronto tra requisiti e soluzioni per l’infrastruttura interoperabile di RITMARE

<p>Poster presented during the RITMARE Workshop (Bologna, 14 - 15 April 2014) describing gap analysis between requirements and solutions for Spatial Data Infrastructure</p