De Mol, R.

Hademenos, V.

Kint, L.

Stafleu, J.

van Heteren, S.

Van Lancker, V.

Open Marine Archive

 42 
 
INCORPORATING DATA UNCERTAINTY IN 3D VOXEL MODELLING 
AND THE IMPORTANCE IN DECISION MAKING  
L. Kint1*, R. De Mol2, V. Hademenos3, J. Stafleu4, S. van Heteren4, V. Van Lancker1 
1 Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Operational Directorate Natural Environment (OD 
Nature), 2 Ghent University, Database, Document and Content Management (DDCM), 3 Ghent University, 
Renard Centre of Marine Geology (RCMG), 4 TNO - Geological Survey of the Netherlands 
*Lars.Kint@naturalsciences.be 
 
Geological databases resulting from the merging of various data sources and time periods jeopardize 
harmonization of data products. Data standardization is already common practice and a first step in 
avoiding semantic overlap. European marine data-management infrastructures provide such standards, 
e.g., Geo-Seas (http://www.geo-seas.eu/) for geological data and SeaDataNet (https://www.seadatanet.org/) 
for marine metadata in general. In addition, metadata quality control is important, though data 
uncertainty is seldom quantified and yet to be used in modeling. 
Preliminary uncertainty analyses were worked out to provide an extra dimension to the cross-
border 3D voxel models of the geological subsurface of the Belgian and southern Netherlands part of 
the North Sea (http://odnature.naturalsciences.be/tiles/). Starting from simple quality flagging in 
geological databases and model-uncertainty calculations (probability and entropy) in the 3D modelling, 
data uncertainty (e.g., related to qualities in positioning, sampling and vintage) is now quantified. 
Combining all uncertainties remains a challenge, as is communicating their importance in decision 
making. 
A demonstration will be given on the status of the uncertainty analyses and on the way these 
are incorporated into a newly developed decision support tool allowing interactive querying of the 3D 
voxel model, now comprising geological parameters as well as entropy, probability and data-uncertainty 
attributes (Figure 1). 
 
 
 
Figure 1. Interactive querying of the 3D geological voxel model in the newly developed 2D Decision Support 
System (DSS). 
  


Incorporating data uncertainty in 3D voxel modelling and the importance in decision making

http://www.vliz.be/imisdocs/publications/327878.pdf

Incorporating data uncertainty in 3D voxel modelling and the importance in decision making

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