Technical Developments in Marine Data Management
B. Searle
Australian Oceanographic Data Centre.
Email : ben@aodc.gov.au
Abstract
The need for greater quantities of marine data to support a range of maritime activities including resource management, sustainable use, defence activities and policy development has been increasing rapidly over the past few years. This requirement is being partially driven by the requirements and obligations coastal states have under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and partially by human impact and resource conflict issues within coastal zones.
In addition to the increasing need for marine data and improved access to data and data products, recent technological advances in data collection processes have resulted in massive increases in the quantities of data now being collected. These factors are providing a greater pressure on managers of marine data to support larger volumes of data available and address the broader needs for data and data products coming from the marine community.
As a result of these pressures, and the increasing complexity of the task, marine data management is advancing to a point where it can now be considered a scientific activity in its own right. The increasing number of conferences devoted to marine data management and its technologies and the increase in publications relating to this topic support this view.
The paper will focus on developing Internet technologies and capabilities that will support our future marine data management activities. These technologies cover a wide range of areas including databases capable of supporting spatial data and object data structures, data markup languages such as XML and the extension of existing marine data management systems such as the electronic navigation chart (ECDIS). The use and integration of these technologies will be examined and a model proposed for future marine data systems.
