Publication Date: 2023-06-14

Approval Date: 2023-02-23

Submission Date: 2023-02-01

Reference number of this document: OGC 23-010

Reference URL for this document: http://www.opengis.net/doc/PER/FMSDI3

Category: OGC Public Engineering Report

Editor: Robert Thomas, Sara Saeedi

Title: Towards a Federated Marine SDI: Connecting Land and Sea to Protect the Arctic Environment Engineering Report


OGC Public Engineering Report

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Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary

The Federated Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (FMSDI) Pilot Phase 3 is an OGC Collaborative Solutions & Innovation (COSI) initiative with the objective of enhancing Marine Spatial Data Infrastructures (MSDIs) through a better understanding MSDI maturity and to learn more about current capabilities and shortcomings of marine data services offered by all Marine Spatial Data Infrastructures. The Pilot was focused on advancing the implementation of open data standards, architecture, and prototypes for use with the creation, management, integration, dissemination, and onward use of marine and terrestrial data services for the Arctic.

This initiative OGC FMSDI Phase 3 builds directly on what was accomplished starting from September 2021 until July 2022 through the Federated Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure Pilot Phase 1 & 2. These pilots again built on the works of prior initiatives, such as the Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure Concept Development Study, the Maritime Limits and Boundaries Pilot, and the Arctic Spatial Data Pilot. The latter plays an important role for this 2022 pilot, because it followed comparable goals and motivations.

The Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure Concept Development Study Engineering Report (ER)[1] summarized the efforts and information gathered from a Request for Information which focused on in-depth data requirements, architecture, and standards needs for a Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure. The Maritime Limits and Boundaries Pilot ER[2] worked to build a detailed implementation for testing IHO S-121 Standard data. The Arctic Spatial Data Infrastructure Pilot[3] aimed to utilize international standards to support a spatial data exchange focusing on the complex issues of Arctic marine space. FMSDI Pilot Phase 1 and 2 focused on Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and to further advance the interoperability and usage of MPA data by implementing the IHO standard S-122 and several OGC API standards through a federation of MPA data from the various countries interested in the Baltic/North Sea region[4]. The third phase of the FMSDI pilot, which started in July 2022, focused on land/sea use cases and extends the use cases developed in the second phase to add the Arctic region as a new location to the demonstration scenarios.

A goal of phase 3 of the FMSDI pilot was to demonstrate to stakeholders the value of implementing and leveraging open data standards, architecture, and prototypes for use with the creation, management, integration, dissemination, and onward use of marine and terrestrial data services for the Arctic. Through a variety of use cases/scenarios in the Arctic, off the western coast of Alaska, these scenarios demonstrated how accessing and publishing data, through FAIR Data Principles - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable, can improve decision making during a maritime emergency.

This pilot addressed a variety of questions uniquely related to MSDIs. A few of these questions were as follows.

  • Are stakeholders discovering and obtaining the right data?

  • What do stakeholders have and what is missing?

  • Do the available standards and interfaces to these data work?

  • Do stakeholders have the right tools?

The Pilot Phase 3 also prototyped the proposed OGC API - Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS) in performing analytics related to coastal flooding and erosion focused on the integration of both terrestrial and marine spatial information. In addition, this Pilot included an open survey with the objective to gather additional information to better support future development of FMSDI pilots. These ongoing pilots will aid in unlocking the full societal and economic potential of the wealth of marine data at local, national, regional or international levels. This survey also provided information and insight on the current state of MSDI.

1.1. Technical Overview

The Pilot Phase 3 activities were divided amongst seven individual participants according to the component they were providing, either a client or server, and the approved sub-scenario each participant developed. Each participant performed a thorough execution of all phases of data discovery, access, integration, analysis, and visualization appropriate to their component. Participants collaborated and supported each other with data, processing capacities, and visualization tools. An overarching goal was to learn more about current capabilities and possible shortcomings of marine data services offered by all Marine Spatial Data Infrastructures, Web portals, and directly accessible cloud native data in the arctic area. There were seven participants each implementing separate components including four clients and four servers. These were the following:

  • Two universal Clients (D100 and D101): These client services demonstrated different viewpoints and methods for digesting the data from different servers and standardized data.

  • Two Data Fusion Servers (D103 and D104): These servers ingested various data inputs, including S-100 data. Both were implemented using the OGC API - Features standard.

  • An independent DGGS Client (D102) and independent DGGS fusion server (D105): This client ingested the outputs from the independent DGGS server and analyzed and presented the data and results to end users using the OGC API - DGGS.

  • An integrated, real time data fusion server (D107) and client (D106): One processing server that ingested the data from various sources of providers.

Phase 3 includes an overarching, sea-based, health and safety scenario incorporating the land/sea interface in the Arctic. This scenario demonstrated the technology and data used with OGC, IHO, and other community standards in response to a grounding event and the evacuation of a cruise ship or research vessel in the Arctic. Participants were responsible for developing and demonstrating sub-scenarios that showed how data can be discovered, accessed, used and reused, shared, processed, analyzed, and visualized. Each sub-scenario demonstrated what is currently possible and what gaps are experienced with the resources that can be discovered on the Internet.

Participants contribution included, but were not limited to, the following:

  • Demonstrate how FAIR data principles, through the use of OGC API’s and IHO standards, can be effectively used to facilitate rescue operations in the Arctic including oil spill tracking and remediation;

  • Demonstrate interoperability between land and marine data that is necessary to understand coastal erosion;

  • Demonstrate the OGC Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS) API use-case in the Arctic;

  • Access to land-based emergency services/resources (e.g., Coast Guard stations, transit times to emergency services or ports, medical facilities and resources, helicopter access);

  • Access to coastal environmental/topographic/hydrographic/maintenance data;

  • Access to Global Maritime Traffic data used in the Arctic;

  • Access to voyage planning information (e.g., Arctic Voyage Planning Guide).

In addition to marine data, the sub-scenarios included elements coming from the land side. This is particularly interesting, because often land-sea use cases require the integration of data from multiple organizations, with each organization potentially limiting its view to one side of the land-sea transition.

1.2. Key Conclusions and Recommendations

The Pilot Phase 3 encountered many challenges leading to a number of conclusions and recommendations, a summary of which are presented here. The key deliverable were participant demonstrations of OGC and IHO standards highlighting interoperability between a selection of clients and servers. In addition to the deliverables from participants, an online user survey was conducted to gather insights from the Marine community.

These conclusions and recommendations are summarized below. A more comprehensive description is presented in Chapter 9, Challenges and Lessons Learned, and Chapter 10, Recommendations and Future Work.

1.2.1. Phase 3 User Survey

During the course of the Pilot an online user survey was conducted. An analysis of the responses to the survey tended to show the following.

  • The need for partnership will be required to create a successful FMSDI.

  • Most of the participants found that data within their MSDI to be least findable in contrast to other FAIR principles.

  • The marine community appears to be an avid standard user.

  • By implementing interoperability between OGC and IHO, it is possible to increase the number IHO S-100 datasets made available to the public.

  • Although data-oriented use cases had the majority of suggested use cases, an MSDI should support real end-user applications using land-sea data integration as well.

1.2.2. Summary

There were many challenges leading to lessons learned from the execution of the pilot. These include the following.

  • Data Availability - Phase 3 of the pilot demonstrated the lack of data in the subject area. There was little real time data available, so these data were simulated for the pilot. It was also noted by participants that there was limited support for data conforming to either S-100 or OGC API models. It is recommended that future scenarios should occur in an AOI where a wider variety of datasets are available. It is also recommended that, moving forward, developing and publishing implementation guides should be part of future Marine pilot activities.

  • Arctic Voyage Planning Guide (AVPG) - The AVPG provided a significant amount of data through much of the Arctic region but only a small subset of the layers contained data in the subject area. As this is a developing framework, continued investigation of effective use of the AVPG (Arctic Voyage Planning Guide) in future Phases of FMSDI is recommended.

  • Land / Sea Interface - In the area that connects the land / sea domain it is crucial for datasets to meet and integrate effectively. However, datasets from these two domains don’t always achieve this, particularly when data has been captured at different times, with different coordinate reference frames, to different standards and data models, or to varying levels of scale, precision and accuracy. It is recommended that future phases should investigate how a concrete methodology, using existing best practices, could be published for resolving land / sea interoperability issues.

  • DDIL (Denied, Disrupted, Intermittent, and Limited Bandwidth) Environments - Given the challenging connectivity in the Arctic environment, all the more important when dealing with emergency and disaster situations, it is recommended that further investigation is required on how to optimize the retrieval and storage of marine and terrestrial feature collections as a GeoPackage using a supported OGC and IHO file encoding standards.

  • OGC Standards

    • Using OGC API — Features to serve Federated Marine Data. An attractive element of the API model for data producers, particularly of marine data, is the retrieval from the authoritative source of the data. For this Phase, there was a comparison of OGC WMS and OGC API — Features using the same data sources. It was found that OGC WMS provided the benefit of uniform styling and legends across all clients. This was not available through OGC API — Features. However, OGC APIs may provide a much faster response time due to the possibly smaller size of the JSON responses. It is recommended that providing a consistent portrayal from OGC API — Features be further investigated.

    • The issue of security (authentication and authorization) has not been explored to its full extent and should be explored further as much of the marine community uses restricted datasets.

    • Using Draft OGC API — DGGS - In this phase, one of the first OGC API — Discrete Global Grid Systems TIEs was done between different software solutions, each implementing very different Discrete Global Grid Systems. A lesson to take away from this is that although hexagons offer unique interesting sampling characteristics (the hexagon being the regular polygon tiling the plane closest to a circle), they do add a significant amount of complexity compared to square or rhombus tiles. During the process, the OGC API — Tiles standard is used to encode and transfer DGGS data. This phase of the pilot has shown that the draft candidate OGC API — DGGS standard is on solid ground, and that the candidate OGC API — Processes — Part 3: Workflows and Chaining Standard nicely complements these capabilities by allowing to describe workflows integrating multiple OGC API data sources and processes, regardless of where they originate. It is therefore recommended that future work should address these opportunities and challenges.

  • IHO Standards - The pilot demonstrated how S-100’s General Feature Model (GFM) can represent multiple different datasets, for different purposes, in a search/rescue context. The ability to integrate such APIs together and form a common endpoint for users and the ability for users to ingest OGC API endpoints is a high priority. Therefore, it is recommended that this be pursued further in future phases.

1.2.3. Demonstration Videos

To view demonstration videos showing the accomplishments of the seven participants in this phase of the pilot, please click the following link to the OGC YouTube Channel.

2. Security Considerations

No security considerations have been made for this document.

3. Contributors

All questions regarding this submission should be directed to the editor or the submitters:

Name Affiliation Role

Robert Thomas

OGC

Editor

Sara Saeedi Ph.D

OGC

Editor

Sina Taghavikish Ph.D

OGC

Contributor

Jason MacDonald

Compusult Limited

Contributor

Jérôme Jacovella-St-Louis

Ecere Corporation

Contributor

Gordon Plunkett

ESRI Canada

Contributor

Matthew Jestico

Helyx Secure Information Systems Ltd

Contributor

Jonathan Pritchard

IIC Technologies Limited

Contributor

Bradley Matthew Battista

Tanzle, Inc.

Contributor

Perry Peterson

University of Calgary

Contributor

Marta Padilla Ruiz

University of Calgary

Contributor

4. Acknowledgements

The OGC expresses its gratitude to the sponsor of this phase of the FMSDI pilot: The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).

Also special thanks to the sponsors of the previous phases of the FMSDI pilot: UK Hydrographic Office and Danish Geodata Agency.

The OGC further wishes to express its gratitude to all participants, data providers Appendix A: Data & Services and to the companies and organizations that provided excellent contributions in responding to the online survey that provided key input for this OGC Engineering Report.

5. Scope

This Engineering Report (ER) summarizes the main achievements of the Federated Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (FMSDI) Pilot Phase 3. It focused on a variety of aspects contributing to an overarching scenario to aid in the better understanding of both the challenges and potential opportunities for coastal communities, ecosystems, and economic activities in the Arctic region.

The sub-scenarios, i.e., those scenarios developed by each participant, address aspects of the changing Arctic landscape. These activities included the following.

  • A sea-based, health and safety scenario incorporating the land/sea interface in the Arctic. This scenario demonstrates the technology and data used with OGC, IHO, and other community standards in response to a grounding event and the evacuation of an expedition cruise ship or research vessel in the Arctic. Demonstrating interoperability between land and marine data that is necessary to aid first responders and other stakeholders. This scenario incorporates, but is not be limited to:

    • voyage planning information (e.g., Arctic Voyage Planning Guide, Safety of Navigation products and services, Maritime Safety Information);

    • land-based emergency services/resources (e.g., Coast Guard stations, transit times to emergency services or ports, medical facilities and resources, helicopter access);

    • coastal environmental/topographic/hydrographic/maintenance data (e.g., deposition and dredging of seafloor sediment, changes in coastline and bathymetry); and

    • global maritime traffic data in the Arctic (e.g., to help assess likelihood of other ships in responding to a ship in distress).

  • Demonstrating interoperability between land and marine data that is necessary to understand coastal erosion (e.g., ocean currents, geology, permafrost characteristics, etc.).

  • General sensitivity to climate change.

Normative References

  • [IHO S-57], IHO: IHO S-57, IHO Transfer Standard for Digital Hydrographic Data. International Hydrographic Organization, Monaco (2000-). https:/iho.int/uploads/user/pubs/standards/s-57/31Main.pdf.

  • [IHO S-100], IHO Universal Hydrographic Data Model. International Hydrographic Organization, Monaco (2018–). https:/iho.int/uploads/user/pubs/standards/s-100/S-100Ed%204.0.0 Clean 17122018.pdf.

  • [OGC 18-062r2], OGC API — Processes, https:/ogcapi.ogc.org/processes/

  • [OGC 17-069r4], OGC API — Features, https:/ogcapi.ogc.org/features/

  • [OGC 20-004], OGC API — Records, https:/ogcapi.ogc.org/records/

  • [OGC 20-039r2], OGC API — Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS), https:/ogcapi.ogc.org/dggs/

  • [OGC 19-086r5], OGC API — Environmental Data Retrieval (EDR), https:/ogcapi.ogc.org/edr/

  • [ISO 19136], ISO 19136-1:2020 Geographic information — Geography Markup Language (GML) — Part 1: Fundamentals

6. Terms, definitions and abbreviated terms

6.1. Terms and definitions

6.1.1. API

An Application Programming Interface (API) is a standard set of documented and supported functions and procedures that expose the capabilities or data of an operating system, application, or service to other applications [adapted from ISO/IEC TR 13066-2:2016].

6.1.2. DDIL

DDIL (Denied, Disrupted, Intermittent, and Limited Bandwidth environments) to describe scenarios where the connectivity is not ideal and actions need to be taken to guarantee a normal or minimum operation of software applications.

6.1.3. interoperability

Interoperability is the ability to communicate, execute programs, or transfer data among various functional units in a manner that requires the user to have little or no knowledge of the unique characteristics of those units

6.1.4. Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (MSDI)

MSDI is a specific type of Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) with a focus on the marine environment.

6.2. Abbreviated terms

AOI

Area of Interest

AVPG

Arctic Voyage Planning Guide

CAAS

Communication as a Service

CDS

Concept Development Study

CGDI

Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure

CGNDB

Canadian Geographical Names Database

COM

Component Object Model

COSI

Collaborative Solutions & Innovation

COTS

Commercial Off The Shelf

CRS

Coordinate Reference System

CSW

Catalog Service Web

DCE

Distributed Computing Environment

DaaS

Data as a Service

DAP

Data Access Protocol

DAB

Data Access Broker

DCAT

Data Catalog Vocabulary

DCOM

Distributed Component Object Model

DDIL

Disconnected, degraded, intermittent, limited bandwidth environments

DGGS

Discrete Global Grid System

DOT

Department of Transportation

EDR

Environmental Data Retrieval

EO

Earth Observation

ER

Engineering Report

FAIR

Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable

FMSDI

Federated Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure

GEO

Group on Earth Observation

GEOINT

Geospatial Intelligence

GEOSS

Global Earth Observation System of Systems

GeoXACML

Geospatial XACML

GFM

General Feature Model

GIS

Geographic Information System

GISS

Geographic Information System Service

GML

Geography Markup Language

HDF

Hierarchical Data Format

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

ICT

Information and Communication Technology

IDL

Interface Definition Language

IHO

International Hydrographic Organization

InaaS

Information as a Service

IoT

Internet of Things

ISO

International Organization for Standardization

JSON

JavaScript Object Notation

JSON-LD

JSON Linked Data

KML

Keyhole Markup Language

MPA

Marine Protected Area

MSDIWG

Marine Spatial Data Infrastructures Working Group

NASA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

netCDF

network Common Data Form

NGA

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency

NMA

Norwegian Mapping Authority

NOAA

U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

NRCan

Natural Resources Canada

NSDI

National Spatial Data Infrastructure

OGC

Open Geospatial Consortium

OPeNDAP

Open-source Project for a Network Data Access Protocol

OSM

OpenStreetMap

PaaS

Platform as a Service

POI

Point(s)-of-interest

RDF

Resource Description Framework

RFI

Request For Information

RFQ

Request For Quotation

SaaS

Software as a Service

SDI

Spatial Data Infrastructure

SDK

Software Development Kit

SDO

Standards Developing Organization

SLD

Styled Layer Descriptor

SOS

Sensor Observation Service

SPARQL

SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language

SWE

Sensor Web Enablement

SWG

Standards Working Group

TIE

Technology Integration Experiment

UN-GGIM

United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management

USGS

U.S. Geological Survey

W3C

World Wide Web Consortium

WCPS

Web Coverage Processing Service

WCS

Web Catalog Service

WFS

Web Feature Service

WMS

Web Mapping Service

WMTS

Web Mapping Tile Service

WPS

Web Processing Service

WSDL

Web Services Description Language

WxS

Web <whatever> Service

XACML

eXtensible Access Control Markup Language

7. Overview and Background

We currently experience a rapidly changing environment in the Arctic with climate change being an important factor. Coastlines change, sea currents are affected that lead to changing climate on both land and sea and have consequences on marine food chains. Formerly frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean have started to be released, whereas changing ice patterns make large areas of the Arctic accessible and navigable during long periods of the year. Thus, impacts of climate change on the Arctic environment present both challenges and potential opportunities for coastal communities, ecosystems, and economic activities. With more and more data becoming available, the question is: what can we do with all of these data? Do we better understand the status quo, or changes over time? Is it the right data that we find? What do we have and what are we missing? Do the interfaces to these data work? And, do we have the right tools?

Expressed more specifically, we can ask what analytical predictive information products can we extract from the available data? What is the role of EO Frameworks to share multi-temporal, multi-spectral analysis as information products? How can these data streams feed into and streamline regulatory processes?

This initiative builds on what has been accomplished in previous initiatives; the Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure Concept Development Study, the Maritime Limits and Boundaries Pilot, and the Arctic Spatial Data Infrastructure Pilot. The Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure Concept Development Study summarized the efforts and information gathered from a Request for Information which focused on in-depth data requirements, architecture, and standards needs for a Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure. The Maritime Limits and Boundaries Pilot worked to build a detailed implementation for testing S-121 Standard data.

Phase 3 of the Federated Marine SDI (FMSDI) Pilot is focused on advancing the implementation of open data standards, architecture, and prototypes for use with the creation, management, integration, dissemination, and onward use of marine and terrestrial data services for the Arctic. The use cases developed in this phase of the FMSDI pilot further demonstrated the capabilities and use of OGC and IHO standards.

An overarching, sea-based health and safety scenario incorporating the land/sea interface in the Arctic was developed. This scenario demonstrates the technology and data used with OGC, the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), and other community standards in response to a grounding event and the evacuation of a cruise ship or research vessel in the Arctic.

Participants developed demonstration sub-scenarios showing how data can be discovered, accessed, used and reused, shared, processed, analyzed, and visualized. Each sub-scenario demonstrates what is currently possible and what gaps are experienced with the resources that can be discovered on the Internet.

Activities included the following.

  • Demonstrate how FAIR principles can be effectively used to facilitate rescue operations in the Arctic including oil spill tracking and remediation.

  • Demonstrate interoperability between land and marine data that is necessary to understand coastal erosion (e.g., ocean currents, geology, permafrost characteristics, etc.).

  • Investigate the role of vector tiles and style sheets across the land-sea interface.

  • Inclusion of the Arctic Voyage Planning Guide (AVPG) and how standards may be used to expand the guide.

  • Demonstrate the OGC Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS) API use-case.

7.1. Towards an FMSDI (Initiative Overview)

The Federated Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (FMSDI) Pilot is an OGC Collaborative Solutions & Innovation (COSI) initiative with the objective to enhance Marine Spatial Data Infrastructures (MSDIs), to better understand MSDI maturity and to demonstrate the power of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data in the context the marine environment.

A Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (MSDI) is a specific type of Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) with a focus on the marine environment. It is not only a collection of hydrographic products but an infrastructure that promotes the interoperability of data at all levels (e.g., national, regional, and international). Similar to all SDIs, it tries to enhance the discoverability, accessibility, and interoperability of marine data. By doing so, it supports a wider, non-traditional user-base of marine data, far beyond what is typically used for navigation.

7.1.1. Previous Phases

The FMSDI pilot built on the works of prior initiatives, such as the Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure Concept Development Study, the Maritime Limits and Boundaries Pilot, and the Arctic Spatial Data Infrastructure Pilot. Currently, FMSDI initiative include the following three phases which will be extended in future.

  • Phase 1: Marine Data Availability and Accessibility Study (MDAAS): The first phase of the FMSI initiative (Aug 2021 - Dec 2022) included the Marine Data Availability and Accessibility Study RFI (Request for Information). MDAAS started with the release of a Request for Information (RFI) to help determine data availability and accessibility of Marine Protected Areas (MPA, IHO S-122) and other marine data in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. MDAAS further helped assess interoperability, availability and usability of data, geospatial web services, and tools across different regions and the use of marine spatial data. MDAAS also provided identification of gaps and helped define reference use-cases and scenarios for use in future FMSDI Pilot activities.

  • Phase 2: IHO and OGC standards applied to Marine Protected Area Data: The second phase (Jan 2021 - Jun 2022) extended the MPA-focus of the first phase by digging into all the various data services and begins building out an S-122 demonstration model, including the exploration of the S-100 data specifications and how other data (terrestrial, meteorological, Earth observation, etc.) can mingle to create a more holistic view of the region of focus. In addition, phase two designed a MSDI maturity model, which provides a roadmap for MSDI development. The maturity model was derived from the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) Integrated Geospatial Information Framework (IGIF, or UNGGIM-IGIF).

  • Phase 3: Connecting Land and Sea to Protect the Arctic Environment: Third phase of the FMSDI This initiative (Jul 2022 - Dec 2022) builds directly on what was accomplished earlier in Phase 1 & 2. Also, Phase 3 is relevant to the previous Arctic Spatial Data Pilot conducted in 2017. Phase 3 focuses on land/sea use cases and extends the use cases developed in the second phase to add the Arctic region as a new location to the demonstration scenarios. Phase 3 will advance the implementation of open data standards, architecture, and prototypes for use with the creation, management, integration, dissemination, and onward use of marine and terrestrial data services for the Arctic. This phase includes an overarching, sea-based health and safety scenario incorporating the land/sea interface in the Arctic. This scenario will demonstrate the technology and data used with OGC, IHO, and other community standards in response to a grounding event and the evacuation of a cruise ship or research vessel in the Arctic.

7.1.2. IHO Standards, S-100

The IHO is a high level domain specific international intergovernmental standards organization, often represented by their national hydrographic offices. The IHO initially developed unique stand-alone standards, such as the IHO Transfer Standard for Digital Hydrographic Data S-57, but is in the process of replacing these standards with standards based on the ISO Geographic information/Geomatics standards (i.e., ISO/TC 211). The transition to the new IHO Universal Hydrographic Data Model (S-100) is in progress, and much of the hydrographic data currently in use is built to S-57 and is therefore only partially suitable for use with many of the Web Services standards and APIs available from OGC.

IHO S-100, the framework standard, has been under development since the publication of its predecessor, IHO S-57 in 2001. IHO S-57, the current standard for the encoding of Electronic Navigational Charts under the SOLAS convention is a vector based standard developed specifically for the purpose of encoding charts for the purpose of safe navigation but S-100, conceived shortly afterwards represented a much bigger step forward.

S-100 aimed to overcome many of the perceived shortcomings of the newly released S-57 standard and was defined as a much broader standard where a framework of ISO-like structures was defined leaving the details of content and encoding to the authors of specific product specifications which would then sit alongside the main framework. S-100 therefore had the following goals:

  • production of a standard in close alignment with the ISO19100 framework;

  • a framework standard which defines content through individual product specifications;

  • a separation of data content from its representation in encodings;

  • fully machine-readable standards for both feature content and portrayal;

  • the location within a registry located at the IHO, of features, their attributes and metadata; and

  • the facility to update feature content and portrayal by end user systems.

S-100 is currently at edition 4.0.0 with edition 5.0.0 in preparation. As part of the development of S-100 two encodings for vector feature data were defined, one was ISO8211, a compact binary format used predominantly in the encoding of Vector ENC charts, and the other was the S-100 GML profile, Part 10b. The S-100 GML (Geography Markup Language) profile is a subset of GML ISO19136 designed to support the encoding of simple vector datasets. The S-100 GML profile was developed by the UK around 2013 and incorporated into S-100 as Part 10b shortly thereafter. The profile has been used by various project teams within the IHOs Nautical Publications working group as well as other S-100 based product specification developments. S-100 does not define data content but only provides a toolkit for its definition. Data content is defined within S-100 product specifications. These product specifications detail how data is defined, aggregated, and exchanged along with metadata such as coverage, CRS, geometry and encoding details. The detailed definitions of feature, attribute and associations for an individual product specification are contained within its feature catalog and also lodged in the IHOs geospatial registry; an ISO compliant registry where all S-100 products' definitions, concepts and details are kept and reconciled by a dedicated team.

The following S-100 product specifications were used during this pilot:

  • S-101 Electronic Navigational Chart (ENC);

  • S-102 Bathymetric Surface;

  • S-104 Water Level Information for Surface Navigation;

  • S-111 Surface Currents;

  • S-122 Marine Protected Areas;

  • S-124 Navigational Warnings;

  • S-125 Marine Aids to Navigation (AtoN); and

  • others.

It is important to note, then, that the development of IHO S-100 has continued during the Pilot’s progress and this is reflected in updates to the existing S-100 standard. This Pilot remains the most up to date implementation of the S-100 framework to date and certainly one of the few with concrete reference implementations in software from multiple participating vendors.

7.1.3. OGC API Standards and the Challenges for the Marine Community

OGC’s main interaction with the marine community is mainly through its established Marine Domain Working Group (MDWG), formed within the IHO/OGC memorandum of understanding (MOU). This group was formed to address the gaps in the OGC framework within the marine domain. For many years the IHO has run an MSDI community through its MSDIWG and the OGC MDWG works closely with the MSDIWG to cross-fertilize ideas and outline where opportunities exist to improve the ecosystem for the benefit of stakeholders.

The OGC MDWG has a focus on the S-100 framework and its broader integration into the OGC community. This process is likely to take some time and the MLB Pilot is a significant step in exploring such interfaces. IHO and OGC standards have many common elements and both derive largely from overarching ISO standards. The practicalities of their use alongside each other are not always well defined however and the project has sought to explore these practical steps as much as possible.

For several years, the OGC members have worked on developing a family of Web API standards for the various geospatial resource types. These APIs are defined using OpenAPI. As the OGC API standards keep evolving, are approved by the OGC and are implemented by the community, the aviation industry can subsequently experiment and implement them.

The following OGC API Standards and Draft Specifications were used for the development of APIs during this Pilot.

OGC API – Features: a multi-part standard that defines the capability to create, modify, and query vector feature data on the Web and specifies requirements and recommendations for APIs that want to follow a standard way of accessing and sharing feature data. It currently consists of the following four parts.

OGC API - Maps: Maps offers a modern approach to the OGC Web Map Service (WMS) standard for provision map and raster content.

OGC API – Common: Common provides those elements shared by most or all of the OGC API standards to ensure consistency across the family.

OGC API - Processes: Processes allow for processing tools to be called and combined from many sources and applied to data in other OGC API resources though a simple API.

OGC API - EDR: The Environmental Data Retrieval (EDR) Application Programming Interface (API) provides a family of lightweight query interfaces to access spatio-temporal data resources by requesting data at a Position, within an Area, along a Trajectory or through a Corridor. A spatio-temporal data resource is a collection of spatio-temporal data that can be sampled using the EDR query pattern geometries. These patterns are described in the section describing the Core Requirements Class.

OGC API – Tiles: This API defines how to discover which resources offered by the Web API can be retrieved as tiles, retrieve metadata about the tile set (including the supported tile matrix sets, the limits of the tiled set inside the tile matrix set) and how to request a tile.

OGC SensorThings API: Provides an open, geospatial-enabled and unified way to interconnect the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, data, and applications over the Web.

Draft OGC API - DGGS: This draft API enables applications to organize and access data arranged according to a Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS).

Draft OGC API Coverages: Coverages allows discovery, visualization and query of complex raster stacks and data cubes.

Draft OGC API – Styles: This draft API specifies building blocks for OGC Web APIs that enables map servers and clients as well as visual style editors to manage and fetch styles.

The development and adoption of these APIs is likely to have a significant impact on how organizations like IHO engineer systems which seek to be interoperable within OGC standards. The move to an API based interconnecting system of standards clarifies the dividing line between content, its expression within a technical encapsulation (its encoding) and the transport of that data to its ultimate destination.

The IHO, similarly, is instigating a major drive towards implementation of IHO S-100. The standard, many years in the making, is already key to many activities and initiatives in the marine domain. Of particular note is the IMO’s eNavigation initiative, for which S-100 forms the common maritime data structure (CMDS). The IHO is embarking on a push to get S-100 accepted as equivalent for carriage of charts and publications under the global SOLAS convention, a large undertaking and one which will embed its use in live vessel navigation for many years. As a dynamic standard which relies on the creation of product specifications S-100 is wholly dependent on its ability to be interoperable with other standards frameworks and to remain current with those frameworks.

This project is intended to contribute positively to both the OGCs APIs interface with the IHO and to assist the productionisation of S-100 as part of the implementation roadmap.

7.1.4. Arctic Voyage Planning Guide (AVPG)

Where possible, participants incorporate the Arctic Regional Marine Spatial Data Infrastructures Working Group’s (ARMSDIWG) Arctic Voyage Planning Guide (AVPG). The AVPG is intended as a strategic planning tool and a compilation of data and services for national and international vessels traveling in the Arctic. This guide is currently in its development stage. An example of a Canadian implementation is shown in Appendix B. Participants attempted to utilize multiple data from the below list of themes and content while identifying gaps, and making recommendations to improve the federation of data services required for usability of voyage planning in the Arctic.

The Arctic Voyage Planning Guide contains the following themes and content.

  • Theme 1 – Carriage Requirements

    • Navigational Warnings Services

    • Radio Aids to Navigation

    • List of Lights and Buoys and Aids to Navigation

    • Nautical Charts and Publications services

  • Theme 2 – Regulatory Requirements

    • Acts and Regulations specific to marine navigation (similar to S-49 E.3.2)

    • IMO Guidelines for Operating in Polar Waters

  • Theme 3 – Arctic Environment Considerations

    • Communities and Populated Areas Information

    • Weather Station Locations and Services Available (similar to S-49 E.4.2 and U.4))

    • Airports and Hospitals

    • Resource Development Significant Locations

  • Theme 4 – Route Planning

    • Traditional Traffic Routes (similar to S-49 E.3.2)

    • Controlled Navigational Areas including Vessel Traffic Services Zones

    • Limiting Depth For Constricted Waterways

    • Tide, Current and Water Level information (similar to S-49 U.6.1)

    • Environment Protected Areas

    • Major Aids to Navigation (similar to S-49 E.1.2 and U.1.2)

    • Places of refuge or Pilot Boarding Stations (similar to S-49 E.1.5)

    • Calling-in Points (similar to S-49 E.4.1)

  • Theme 5 – Reporting and Communicating

    • Areas of Legislative Importance to Navigation

    • Marine Communication Services (similar calling-in info to S-49 E.4.1)

  • Theme 6 – Marine Services

    • Ice Breaking Support Services

    • Search and Rescue Support Services

    • Ice Services Information (similar to S-49 U.6.4)

  • Theme 7 – Nautical Charts and Publication

    • Nautical Chart Catalog and Coverage

    • Publication Catalog and Coverage

7.2. Pilot Execution Process

All participants were invited to suggest sub-scenarios and/or modifications to the overall scenario. During the pilot execution phase, each participant performed a thorough execution of all phases of data discovery, access, integration, analysis, and visualization. Participants collaborated and supported each other with data, processing capacities, and visualization tools. The overarching goal is to learn more about current capabilities and shortcomings of marine data services offered by all Marine Spatial Data Infrastructures, Web portal, and directly accessible cloud native data. The following graphic illustrates the pilot development process.

Pilot execution
Figure 1. FMSDI Phase 3 execution process

7.3. ER Chapter Overview

The remainder of this document is summarized below.

Chapter 5: A Survey on User Community Needs

This chapter summarizes the results of a web-based survey to gather and identify the requirements and use cases of a regional/international MSDI from a user community perspective.

Chapter 6: Research Objectives and Technical Architecture

This chapter describes the motivations that guided this Pilot’s work, the research objectives, and the component architecture that was demonstrated to address this Pilot’s goals.

Chapter 7: Overarching Master Scenario

This chapter describes the motivations that guided this Pilot’s work, the research objectives, and the component architecture that was demonstrated to address this Pilot’s goals.

Chapter 8: Components and sub-scenarios

This section describes the four servers and four clients used within this pilot.

  • Section a: Data Servers and Services: This section describes the Data Fusion Servers. This was the component designed to ingest datasets as well as other datasets, combine them, and serve them through an API built using the OGC API standards. This component was demonstrated by IIC Technologies, Compusult, University of Calgary and Tanzle.

  • Section b: Data Clients and Visualization: This section describes the Data Clients and Visualization. This was the component designed to access and view datasets as well as other datasets, combine them, and visualize them through an API built using the OGC API standards. These clients were demonstrated by ESRI Canada, Helyx, Ecere, and Tanzle.

Chapter 9: Challenges and Lessons Learned

This section outlines a prescriptive list of challenges and lessons learned encountered through the different stages of the initiative. The section also includes recommendations for the various standards utilized through the initiative.

Chapter 10: Recommendations for Future Work

This section outlines a descriptive list of various items that could be expanded upon in future initiatives or for the sponsors to utilize and build from.

8. A Survey on User Community Needs

As part of FMSDI Phase 3, an on-line user survey was conducted. A blank copy of the online survey is included in Appendix D.

The Survey on the Federated Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (FMSDI) user community was released in October 2022 to gather and identify the requirements and use cases of a regional/international MSDI. The results of the survey will help shape the OGC’s future FMSDI pilot activities and to serve the user community’s needs better.

The survey was available online on October 27, 2022, and the results were finalized by December 2022.

8.1. Questions & Response Summaries

A total of ten questions were asked in four categories. The summary of this RFI is provided in the following sections.

Question 1: Is your organization aware of marine spatial data infrastructures (MSDIs)?

From 35 replies, 91% of the survey participants were aware of marine spatial data infrastructures, and only 9% were unaware of MSDIs.

Question 2: Is your organization aware of the concept of a Federated MSDI?

Out of 35 respondents, 80% were aware of the concept of a Federated MSDI, while only 20% were not aware of the concept of the Federated MSDI.

Question 3: What is the overall role of your organization in a federated marine spatial data infrastructure?

Most of the 35 participants had multiple roles with 60% data user/analyst, 57% data provider/enabler, and 51% data producer/owner, and 23% also had other roles (Figure 1). The other roles included human health aspects, system research, creating Artificial Intelligence environments, GIS and SDI technologies, Software solutions (data integration, data visualization, server, client, analytics), supporting standards’ development, data architecture and technology development.