Geological Survey of Norway; Marine Geology Project Group
Netherlands Institute of Applied Geoscience (TNO-NITG)
Marine Information Service (MARIS)
Institute of Geology; Department of Baltic Marine Geology
State Geological Survey of Latvia
Department for National Technical Services; Geological Survey of Italy (SGN)
Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI)
Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration (IGME)
Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR)
Bureau de recherches géologiques et minières (BRGM)
Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer; Centre de Brest, more
Geologian tutkimuskeskus; Research Development Division
Geological Survey of Estonia
The Danish Ministry of the Environment; Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS)
Ministry of Environment and Water; Department of Geology and Permits for Exploration
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; Institute of Oceanology; Marine Geology and Underwater Archaeology Department
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences; Geological Survey of Belgium (BGD/GSB)
Abstract
Environmental, Economic and Social management and assessment, and sustainable development of the European seas on the regional scale, normally require multinational effort by the states bordering the sea area in question. Such integrated management and assessment can be effective only if there is a high degree of compatibility, accessibility and inter-changeability in environmental data and information. This includes information held, or obtained, by the different organisations in each country that are carrying out investigations and/or providing information within the regional seas.
The first step towards achieving the necessary compatibility, accessibility and inter-changeability, is the development of uniform and standardised metadata formats for the “real data”, to be stored in a central metadatabase, and with user friendly access through the Internet.
An understanding of the nature of the seabed is an important factor in strategic marine management. The seabed is the focus of many oceanographic, biological and sedimentary processes. Interactions between these processes are complex, and require knowledge of marine ecosystems, seafloor resources and pathways of pollutants. The basis for forecasting the impacts of anthropogenic factors such as pollution in the marine ecosystem, and the management of the marine environment for sustainable use, is the construction of a pan-European knowledge base of existing seabed information, descriptions of where information and data are available, in which format and where can it be obtained.
Appropriate overviews of metadata (data which describes the real data) regarding the sediments of the European Seas, must be available and accessible to the end–user in a user-friendly system. Failure to address this issue will lead to continued storage of distributed data sets in widely varying formats and terminologies. Time spent in ascertaining the data sets that already exist for the European marine area would continue to be a significant cost to the varied end-users of marine data in the commercial, scientific and policy making sectors of the European Community.
SCIENTIFIC OBJECTIVES AND APPROACH
The objective of EUROSEISMIC is to generate and develop a central metadatabase for geophysical data derived from marine seismic surveys for the European Seas. EUROSEISMIC will establish a metadatabase on the Internet for marine geophysical survey data held by the marine departments of the European geological surveys and their project partners. It will consist of the following functionalities.
Data-entry with on-line data import module
On-line data edit
Data quality-control
Data-retrieval by means of a map interface in combination with numerical extended search (allowing searches on mandatory and/or optional metadata fields)
Data export
GIS-based geographical interface for navigation and presentation
EXPECTED IMPACTS
The impact of the EUROSEISMIC products will result in:
greatly improved access to available geophysical survey data for all European seas
overviews of metadata information required for marine environmental policy development, management strategies, and administration
improved exchange of data and information, at a total European level
increased public awareness of the marine environment
improved input for environmental research and fundamental scientific research
economic advantages for the marine industries
In combination with metadata for seabed samples and cores compiled by the European geological surveys during the EC-funded EUMARSIN (European Marine Sediment Information Network) Project, which combined with the EUROCORE project established the EU-SEASED Website, users will have ‘one-stop’ access to a significant amount of the publically available marine metadata that are available for the European seas.
All data in the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS) is subject to the VLIZ privacy policy
