Foreword

The 17^th International Hydrographic Conference held in May 2007, directed that CHRIS (now the IHO Hydrographic Services and Standards Committee — HSSC) establish a Marine Spatial Data Infrastructures Working Group (MSDIWG) to identify the Hydrographic Community inputs to National Spatial Data Infrastructures (NSDI). In 2015, the responsibility for the MSDIWG moved from HSSC to the Inter-Regional Coordination Committee (IRCC). This change reflected the ongoing nature of the work of the MSDIWG in tackling predominantly non-technical matters. The Terms of Reference of and other information about the MSDIWG are available at:

www.iho.int → Committees & WG → MSDIWG

IHO publication M-2 outlines the benefits and options for the development of a national hydrographic policy that ensures a State has a knowledge of the physical features of the seabed and coast, as well as the currents, tides and certain physical properties of the sea water, such that the needs of safety of navigation and protection of the marine environment can be met. A successful national hydrographic policy will not only meet the requirements of the mariner but can provide additional and often greater benefits to the State.

Having such hydrographic policies in place led to the adoption of IHO Resolution 5/2009, on MSDI policy, by the 4th Extraordinary International Hydrographic Conference in Monaco in June 2009. It stated inter alia that:

Accordingly, a procedural guide to establishing the role of the national hydrographic authority in MSDI was developed by the MSDIWG, under the title Spatial Data Infrastructures: “The Marine Dimension” — Guidance for Hydrographic Offices. This document was endorsed by the HSSC at its 1st meeting (Singapore, October 2009), and subsequently approved by IHO Member States as edition 1.0 of a new publication C-17. This document was subsequently updated in 2011, incorporating minor changes, as version 1.1.0.

Due to the ongoing dynamic developments in MSDI the MSDIWG made selected and important changes. This version was subsequently adopted by the IHO Member States as version 2.0.0.

1  What is a Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI)?

Spatial Data is the data or information that identifies the geographic location of features and boundaries on Earth and Space, such as natural or constructed features, oceans and space but also includes encoding attributes, observations and other metrics concerning these features and boundaries.

Spatial data is usually stored as coordinates and topology, and is data that can be mapped. Spatial data is often accessed, manipulated or analyzed through Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

It embraces:

Annex H presents an example of a conceptual model for a SDI currently in use in the United Kingdom. Frequently asked questions about SDI are found in Annex C.

A Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (MSDI) is that element of an SDI that focuses on the marine input in terms of governance, standards, ICT and content. The concept of MSDI is now gaining wider appreciation in terms of the way a variety of data types might be combined for efficient analysis by a wide range of disciplines, such as spatial planning, environmental management and emergency response. This requires the data to be held in a generic way, rather than for a particular product for a limited user group or for a specific purpose. An MSDI is not a collection of hydrographic products, but an infrastructure that promote interoperability of data at all levels.

This document focuses on the importance of MSDI to IHO MS and provides guidance towards engaging in MSDI and provides evidence of data management best practice and use cases for consideration.

1.1  What constitutes an MSDI?

An MSDI can be described as a framework comprising the key components shown in Figure 1-1.

Figure 1-1 — The Four pillars of MSDI

1.1.1  Policy and Governance

A policy should exist defining the need to create information that is interoperable. This policy is often linked to a regional, national or organizational strategy for sharing and exchanging geographic information (e.g. INSPIRE in the EU¹, and LINZ in New Zealand²). Annex F presents best practice guidelines for data policy.

1.1.2  People & Organizations

Functional MSDI requires willingness and practical co-operation between the various organizations that create, share and use information to implement the overall policy. There should also be a clearly defined governance structure and transparency in decision-making and reporting to foster a shared sense of working towards a common goal.

1.1.3  Enablers

The enablers in MSDI are the essential building blocks that provide the framework for data acquisition, management, updating and dissemination:

• Standards: International Standards for geographic information exist or are being developed and, in many areas, sector-based standards are being put in place that depend on these over-arching standards. For example; IHO S-57 and also S-100 relies in turn on the ISO 19100 series of geographic standards. The standards work of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) especially in the areas of data content modelling, data transport, and web services are critical to developing a robust SDI approach;

• Technology: The provision of technical infrastructure (both hardware and software) will enable the delivery of data and services to allow the viewing, sharing³, transformation and downloading of data to complement informational products. As the technical infrastructure matures, development can enable the SDI not only to work in different geodetic systems but also enable the user to transform data to create informational products (such as maps) in different projections.

• Metadata: At its simplest, metadata is “data about data” and describes the characteristics of a dataset (i.e. content, value and limitations) and is normally held in a metadata management system or clearinghouse to provide mechanisms of search and retrieval. .. It is a vital component in “discovering” data and information and understanding how the data can be used. The most common way to search for data through its metadata in a quick and easy manner is using a web portal

• IHO S-100 Universal Hydrographic Data Model: the S-100 provides the data framework for the development of not only the next generation of ENC products, but also other related digital datasets and products required by the hydrographic, maritime and GIS communities. Specifications based on S-100 are now being developed for a range of thematic data resources such as S-102 for bathymetry and S-122 for Marine Protected Areas (MPA).

1.1.4  Content

Arguably, the most important component of SDI is the information content which is available to users. Without content, expressed within a consistent coordinate reference system, SDI is of minimal use. At the core of this information is reference information (i.e. the common datasets, themes or spatial data layers that “most people use most of the time” and which collectively make up a digital base “map” that can be viewed and queried).

• Reference information may be defined as any geographic feature that is used as a location reference for application information, or can be used in geographic analysis. It is sometimes arbitrarily divided into base and associated thematic reference information with base information comprising fundamental topographic features (e.g. buildings, roads and elevation) describing complete and detailed coverage of the Earth’s surface. Associated reference information comprises supplementary datasets where this is also commonly used to support geo-referencing or analysis (e.g. transport networks, land cover).

• Application information provides the outer layer of information which is generally “application” or “business” specific. It may contain no spatial reference(s) other than provided by the reference information and consist only as supplementary properties.

1.1.5  Education and Learning

SDI cannot be successfully delivered without the four key pillars above. However, a fifth key element which underpins the four pillars; education and learning, is very important but often overlooked (Figure 1-2). In the HO community, involvement in MSDI take up and adoption has been slow. A lack of understanding of SDI has been responsible, in part, for MSDI input lagging behind its terrestrial counterparts with MSDI, as part of existing SDI not considered a priority orconsidered unnecessary.

Annex E introduces a 1-Day Training Session template with the Fundamentals of a Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (MSDI).

Figure 1-2 — MSDI Framework with additional inputs to ensure success

2  The Current Landscape

Since C-17 was first published in 2009 the landscape in which HOs operate has rapidly changed due to, for example, the need for greater access and sharing of public data; open data initiatives; the development of new and potentially disruptive technologies and the advent of the power of “place” driven by the expectations of users viewing, analyzing and using spatial data.

New data capture technologies such as satellite derived bathymetry, crowd sourced data and the use of Underwater Autonomous and Remotely Operated Vehicles (UAV and ROV) are now being actively employed as more cost effective methods in sea regions and depths where either existing data is poor or non-existent and where conditions allow for the use of these technologies. Ship-borne survey may over time become the capture platform of last resort for some purposes. The emergence of e-Navigation, a concept developed by IMO, embraces the harmonized collection, integration, exchange, presentation and analysis of maritime information on board ship and ashore. It does this by electronic means to enhance berth to berth navigation and related services, for safety and security at sea and protection of the marine environment.

Politicians are now taking a far greater interest in the world’s sea space in terms of its potential to generate economic and socio-economic benefits and to maximize this within national territorial sea limits. The recent spate of disasters at sea across the World have all heightened the urgency for better access and re-use of HO data for emergency response purposes.

Geospatial data and information is no longer seen as “special” or “different” as the citizen, thanks to Google, Microsoft and other global technology companies providing mapping “mash ups”, now use such information without even thinking about where it came from and any intrinsic value contained therein. We now have mobile devices capable of doing what a mainframe computer did 10 years ago for a fraction of the cost in a fraction of the time.

The value of geospatial data has fallen by approximately 80% in the last 5 years. It is now considered to be a commodity resource. In turn the advent of Open Data strategies by nations, allowing the re-use of data in a free and open manner is itself stimulating the growth of applications developed by commercial companies.

3  The traditional role of HOs

All HOs depend on data, but mostly think and operate in terms of products. The creation of ENCs requires chart information to be decomposed into features and attributes, but the output is still a generalized product, albeit provided as data sets. The delivery of these data sets is also on a cell-by-cell basis, characterized by scale. They are therefore restricted in their use by design.

Most HOs focus on supplying products to a narrow sector of navigational users. The driving force is navigational safety, with any additional use, being an opportunistic spin-off. The opportunity to service a wider user community (outside of navigation) of approximately 5 million potential users has been overlooked in the past but now needs to be seriously considered. The imperative to engage with this much wider community of users has grown with the demand for access to marine and maritime geospatial data from commerce, government, academia and the citizen.

4  From Data to Information to Knowledge

The principle of data being the foundation of knowledge is well known (Figure 4-1). In essence, knowledge is only of value if conveyed, and as the pyramid shows with a broad base of data required to extract a smaller volume of knowledge. What is less often articulated is the amount of redundancy in many knowledge systems, where far more data is held than actually converted into conveyed knowledge. The conversion of detailed bathymetric surveys into charts with sparse soundings is a good example of this. A large amount of data is collected, and although it presents a lot of information to the compiler, only a small amount of the knowledge is passed on to the recipient of the product. Thus, the knowledge transfer is only a small part of the potential of the original data. Many hydrographic data sets have the potential to convey a range of knowledge categories.

Figure 4-1 — The Data Information Knowledge triangle

Continuing with the bathymetric survey example, in addition to providing knowledge relevant to a navigational chart (where the knowledge conveyed is shoal biased to ensure a suitable depth of water safety margin) the data could also be used for the following purposes:

In addition to the bathymetric survey case described, HOs have a wealth of other data including navigational marks, traffic schemes, boundaries and limits. The idea of exploiting as much of the data as possible, for numerous applications has to make sense in the modern world.

Work remains to be done to derive benefit from HOs maritime data heritage in order to satisfy the breadth of current and future customers’ needs. It seems difficult to determine non SOLAS off-the-shelf products that would meet the various possible marine data requirements. Therefore the future may lie in developing systems and workflows that would meet user requirements and from such systems derive fit-for-purpose products/maps without human assistance except at the user interface: the concept of marine ontologies may be the solution to achieve this?

But what are ontologies? They are a representation of knowledge, in a particular subject domain, such as marine, that are written with a standardized and structured syntax. Ontologies can relate resources to other resources, either internally or in other ontologies. For example, an individual resource is associated with a class (“apple” is a member of “fruit”) or a class is associated with an ontology (class “fruit” is described in an ontology called “food”).

A formal specification of a (controlled) vocabulary can be something we are all familiar with: a plain list of words, a dictionary, a taxonomy, a thesaurus or it could be a more technical document such as an Object Model in Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagram, or an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) schema. Simply expressing a controlled vocabulary in a Web Ontology Language (OWL) file makes it qualify as an ontology.

5  Data Duplication and Conflict

An organization focused on the delivery of discrete products (such as paper charts, ENCs and nautical publications) may have separate data holdings that contribute to different product lines. This can result in the same data being held more than once (e.g. light information shown on charts being stored in a separate system to the light information in a List of Lights). This is not only inefficient in terms of the volume and use of data held, but can also lead to differences between the data held for the same feature.This has become particularly evident where some ENCs and paper charts have discrepancies between each other and between scales. This puts into question the value of the knowledge portrayed, as the conflict demonstrates doubt and uncertainty in what is correct. Such fragmentation of data, together with proprietary or product specific formats can limit interoperability. This is something that improved data management practices or developing an enterprise SDI within the HO could help to eliminate.

6  Why is MSDI important to a HO?

Involvement in MSDI will elevate the importance of hydrography across a wider marine sector in-country and regionally as well as giving a wider user community exposure to the data and information that can be provided by the HO. It will also provide politicians with the information necessary for government per se, to gain a greater interest and understanding of the role of hydrography nationally.

Hydrography has a vital role in MSDI in providing core “reference” data (such as bathymetry, maritime boundaries, coast line and geographic areas and names). After all, Hydrography is the branch of applied science which deals with the measurement and description of the physical features of oceans, seas, coastal areas, lakes and rivers, as well as with the prediction of their change over time. It does this firstly for the purpose of safety of navigation but also plays a crucial role in the support, through its data and information resources, of all other marine activities, including economic development, security and defense, scientific research, and environmental protection.

7  MSDI – Some Important Drivers

7.1  Blue Economy and Blue Growth

The concept of a “blue economy” came out of the 2012 Rio+20 Conference and emphasizes conservation and sustainable management, based on the premise that healthy ocean ecosystems are more productive and a must for sustainable ocean-based economies. To support a shift to this new approach, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) launched the Blue Growth⁴ Initiative (Figure 7-1), through which it will assist countries in developing and implementing blue economy and growth agendas and the European Union developed its long term strategy to support sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors as a whole. Seas and oceans are drivers for the European economy and have great potential for innovation and growth. It is the maritime contribution to achieving the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.⁵

The ‘blue’ economy represents roughly 5.4 million jobs and generates a gross added value of almost €500 billion a year. However, further growth is possible in a number of areas which are highlighted within the strategy.

Figure 7-1 — Blue Growth schematic

The strategy consists of three components:

1. Develop the sectors with potential for sustainable jobs and growth:

   • aquaculture and fisheries

   • coastal tourism

   • marine biotechnology

   • ocean energy generation

   • seabed mining

2. Providing knowledge, legal certainty and security in the blue economy:

   • marine knowledge to improve access to information about the sea;

   • maritime spatial planning to ensure an efficient and sustainable management of activities at sea;

   • integrated maritime surveillance to give authorities a better picture of what is happening at sea.

3. Sea basin strategies to ensure tailor-made measures and to foster cooperation between countries in the following sea basins:

   • Adriatic and Ionian Seas

   • Arctic Ocean

   • Atlantic Ocean

   • Baltic Sea

   • Black Sea

   • Mediterranean Sea

   • North Sea

7.4  Smart Oceans ⁹

Smart monitoring and observations by utilizing existing activities in the ocean to collect and manage data can close the knowledge gap we have about the ocean and the opportunities the ocean provides (Figure 7-2). Whereas monitoring technology has hitherto been constrained by the limits to duration of research vessel expeditions (e.g. battery life) and weather conditions resulting in observing short-term events or taking snapshots of longer term events; smart ocean systems represents a major shift in how science and ocean monitoring is conducted. They address the limitation of conventional technologies to allow continuous year-round, sub-second observations with dozens of measurement types, accessible through the internet, in very-near real time to any audience. New data products and services are now being designed, tested and operated that can now be monitored and managed by researchers, industry and users anywhere in the world.

Figure 7-2 — Smart Oceans: Interoperability

7.7  Emergency Planning and Response

A driver is to develop and provide improved plans for and a far more proactive way of responding to natural and man-made disasters and emergencies in the world’s sea space. We have seen several very high profile devastating events in the last five years including:

• Gulf of Mexico oil spill (Sept 2010)

• Japan earthquake and tsunami ( March 2011)

• Korean ferry disaster (April 2014)

• Loss of Malaysia Airlines MH370 (March 2015)

Figure 7-3 shows images of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and of the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan.

Reaction to each of these, and numerous other events, requires a multi-disciplinary approach including emergency response, environmental protection and longer term regional planning. Although precompiled products are currently essential, the knowledge they convey, which can be inadequate for the purpose, is often trapped in a form (whether paper or digital) that is not easily compatible with the tools and systems used by non-marine agencies. This prompts the need for greater interoperability across both data and response agencies.

Figure 7-3 — Images showing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill (left) and the Japanese tsunami (right)

8  What role should a HO have in MSDI?

Most HOs hold data in order to support nautical charting requirements with limited emphasis placed on providing that same data to support wider environmental and commercial coastal and offshore activities.

MSDI places a greater emphasis on the unlocking of all geospatial information, including hydrographic information, and to make that information more widely available to support the myriad of uses described in Annex B of this document. HOs are well placed to support SDIs in that it provides a natural extension in the management and dissemination of the underpinning hydrographic information to a wider user community in an integrated manner. All HOs should therefore carefully consider how they might engage and play a full role in the development of, or participation in a SDI. Annex G show possible ways for a HO to engage in SDI.

Hydrographic Offices (HO) should be able to play a central role in the development of the marine component of all SDIs. Hydrography, with its subset of data themes (e.g. bathymetry, coastline, geographic names) forms the key “base reference” or “core geography” layers for the sea space in each State or region. In this capacity, HO data is in a position to provide a rich and unparalleled resource for users at all levels.

However, in some countries the HO has to struggle with other national organizations to have its data recognized as reference data so how might a HO achieve being recognized as a major component of its national MSDI? This might require discussions at a higher level within government and / or with other data providers to “make the case” for hydrographic data to be treated as a core geographic layer. Therefore the question may be “how can HO achieve being recognized as a major component of its national MSDI”? The HO being convinced is not enough and making the case is sometimes not well articulated.

Some HOs are already be involved in MSDI, some are considering participation (and how such involvement might benefit both the HO and other marine/maritime data providers) whilst others have yet to consider MSDI. At this time, the picture across the HO community is far from clear.

Some will be seeking ways to improve their knowledge and understanding of MSDI. Being involved in MSDI does not mean that the data must be provided to a central information “warehouse” or database; it can and should be held and managed at the organizational level.

9  Business Planning

In order to develop the HO approach towards an SDI, it will be necessary to undertake some business planning to ensure the organization is prepared. This might take the form of a business plan and would typically include the following elements:

Annex J lists some examples of business cases.

10  Steps required to be taken by HOs to make MSDI happen

In order for the MSDI to operate at its optimum level, minimum requirements in terms of data management will be required. This is not an onerous task as HOs ought to be able to define which data is relevant and at what level they wish to provide data.

Data Management will probably include inputs such as policy and plans necessary to deliver metadata, data sharing and exchange mechanisms, levels of data interoperability, network services including “discovery”, “view”, “download”, “invoke” and “transform” and other plans necessary to ensure compliance with MSDI requirements (e.g. data licensing, digital rights management, pricing).

Step 1: Skills and Knowledge

Ensure the necessary skills and knowledge is available to enable the development of MSDI within the HO.

Step 2: Identify what data you hold, where it is held and how it is held

HO data which should be part of an MSDI includes any navigational or other water body data¹² and comprises at least:

Identify those themes of data that would support the MSDI as “core or base reference” information (e.g. bathymetry, seabed characterization, and coastline).

Step 3: Data Ownership

An HO which provides information/data into an MSDI must take steps to ensure that it owns the data or the rights to the data to allow it to populate the MSDI. Often, HOs rely on the provision of bathymetric survey data from other parties such as port authorities, the offshore industry and other HOs. In this case, the HO is not the “owner” of the data but rather a “custodian”. When considering what data the HO may contribute to an MSDI, it should be aware that it may not have authority to include source data for which it is not the owner and permission to provide such data should always be sought although, in general terms, the HO would be able under its agreements with the data suppliers to include product level data.

The HO should also identify the organization’s data custodians/stewards for each specific data set.

Types of Hydrographic data (by theme) suitable for MSDI mayinclude:

Some of the above themes of data might be held by other authorities who are also providing inputs to an SDI. Ideally, the HO should discuss with other data providers where potential overlaps exist in data holdings. Part of this discussion would involve the need to de-conflict data where overlap occurs. Source data should prevail over derived/generalized product data.

Step 4: Create the metadata

Increasingly, hydrographic organizations are collecting, storing and archiving large quantities of digital data which are important national assets that must be managed, controlled and made available for dissemination and use. In order to achieve this, data custodians need to record information about their data – in the form of metadata.

The minimum set of metadata required for data discovery for hydrographic requirements should describe information about the type of data, the extent of data, the quality of the data and the spatial/temporal reference systems used for the data.

Metadata should:

An essential part of metadata includes information on the Geographic Reference Systems used¹⁴ . This includes both horizontal and vertical datum and projection (e.g. EPSG [European Petroleum Survey Group] codes, Coordinates [e.g. xyz, WGS84 datum, Vertical Datum [e.g. local and regional]).

Step 5: Capture data sets in digital form

Figure 10-1 shows the 5 Star approach to digital data form. In general:

Figure 10-1 — The 5 star approach to digital data management (http://5stardata.info)

Step 6: Develop a technical architecture and environment

In order for data to be more easily shared and exchanged as part of an SDI, certain things have to be considered:

Step 7: Make the Metadata Searchable

Step 8: Make the Data Available

Step 9: Monitoring and Reporting

Every HO should provide update reports, regarding their status in respect of building, engagement and/or contributing to an SDI in their country or region, to their respective Regional Hydrographic Commission (RHC) meetings. Such a report should include:

Step 10: Making MSDI Involvement Sustainable

Providing data to a MSDI framework at an organizational, national or regional level should be considered as a long term initiative which over time will evolve and mature such that the activities in Steps 1-9 are considered “business as usual”. As such, the framework, systems and processes have to be sustainable over time. Therefore it is critically important therefore that data is managed, shared and published in a sustainable “best practice” manner.

11  The Challenges for Hydrographic Offices

12  A look into the Future!

So where will the HOs, as part of the global geospatial community, be in the next 10 years?

There is no doubt that there has never been a more urgent need for a paradigm shift in how we inhabit our planet. Whether we look at it through the lens of climate change, population growth, migration, socio-political unrest, or use of natural resources; it is clear that our current “direction of travel” is unsustainable and potentially unpalatable.

There is no escaping that technology now dominates our lives, with a large part of the world’s economy and society now relying on smart phones, IT and the internet. At the heart of today’s world is the data that this technology generates. Yet, in these days of big data, open data, the Internet of Things, sensors, augmented reality and almost instantaneous sharing of information on social media, there is a mismatch between the rate of change of technology and the ability for our world’s leaders and policy makers to keep up and understand the implications of this change.

The ongoing challenge is that the time taken to deliver such policy and standards is extraordinarily long whilst technology is moving forward much more quickly. In the past, these kinds of technological shifts have allowed humanity to advance its resilience, adaptability and influence.

Spatial information has a critical part to play here as “everything happens somewhere!” Providing a sense of place is extremely powerful because, as humans, we gain comfort from knowing our place and position in the world. This is now more important as our world increasingly operates online and becomes more intangible. But do we believe we as geospatial specialists can fill this role?

There is a widely held belief that the geospatial industry, as we know it, has reached an existential moment. Our past belief in the central role and importance of geospatial data has been eroded by the realization that geo-technology and its use, is now so ubiquitous as to be almost invisible.

Many of the key skillsets we had previously taken for granted as exclusively ours are now shared by other professionals, users and even hobbyists such as gamers, geo-cachers, travelers and ramblers. What this gives the geospatial industry is the opportunity to evolve into a new role in this information rich world.

We must take charge of technology, and not be its slave, by raising our profile to view the wider geospatial picture. There is far more to “location intelligence” than maps and charts. It’s all about the data, what you do with it and what outcomes you can provide that counts.

The geospatial industry, of which HOs are part, now has to understand how to switch from being a data provider to becoming a data service and to do it quickly. Data is no longer considered an asset but a ‘modus operandi’.

Doing nothing is no longer a realistic option!