1. From a centralized to a distributed access to water data in France using open-source
FOSS4G 2006
François Prunayre
Michael Treguer
Fx Prunayre /

2. Water Information System for France (SIE)
History
All the actors of the water domain in France have adopted a common protocol since 1992
In 1993, creation of the Sandre (standards and reference data for water) in charge of data standardization and access
This protocol is nammed « Protocol SIE » = Water Information System for France
1992
1993
2002
2003
2006
French national
water data network
Sandre
SIE

3. Water Information System for France (SIE)
History
Objectives :
Monitoring water ressources
Control activities having impact on environment
Evaluation of politics, programs
Provide access to data to the EC, EEA, OCDE, OSPAR, …
Inform population on natural risks
Store and structure information (including GIS data)
Provide public access to environmental data

4. Water Information System for France (SIE)
What is ?
Main components of the SIE are:
Data
Hydrometry (banque HYDRO)
River quality (banques de bassin)
Marin water (banque Quadrige)
Fish resources (banque BDMAP)
Groudwater quality and quantity (banque ADES).
In progress: database on lake quality, waste water, usage and pressures, economics
Metadata
Description of all information available including monitoring network, gis layers, features (ie. geometry)
Services
Allowing search, analyse, download on data

5. Water Information System for France (SIE)
Members
Ministry of Ecology
IFEN (Institut français de l’environnement)
The 6 river basin agencies
Water office Réunion and Martinique
CSP (Conseil supérieur de la pêche)
IOWater (Office international de l’eau)
BRGM
Ifremer
INERIS
EDF
… IOWater and BRGM are also OGC member

6. Common architecture (ASIE)
History
This architecture relies on :
common core datasets (reference data) composed of:
Geographic datasets
Water domain datasets
Databanks
Websites for dissemination
These references are managed by the Sandre
Common language for water
Data modelisation (dictionnaries)
Data exchange specifications
Service Standardization
WG since 2004

7. Common architecture (ASIE)
Rules
No technology are imposed
Only conformity with standards are required. Basicily, W3C (to access to ressources and data exchange) and OGC (for geospatial Information).
This specification described 69 rules to be used (datatypes, protocols REST & SOAP, versionning, error handling, asynchronous webservices, large data exchange, security, GIS data, …)
Prototype made in order to validate those rules for 3 main languages (.Net, Java, Php)

8. Common architecture (ASIE)
Rules for Geospatial information
Use only REST protocols
Access to RASTER and Vector dataset
Used WMS 1.1.1
WFS 1.0.0
Style description (SLD)
Save a map (WMC)
Projection system (at least WGS84)

9. Free public access to water data in France
Objectives
Principle:
Provide public access to core datasets for the water domain in France
Core dataset is defined at least by:
a geometry,
a code,
a name and
a producer.
… Could be mode detailed if the producer is a member of the SIE.

10. Free public access to water data in France
60 layers available

11. Free public access to water data in France
limitation
Data collection is made « manually » for all layers
on an yearly basis
with a methodolgy defining format, actors, roles
Use of the ASIE rules defined by the Architecture in order to improve the access to
a more up to date information
Access to metadata

12. First online application using ASIE rules
Webmapping access to data on the water domain
Objectives:
Create a webmapping application which could access to remote datasets using webservices for
Data visualization
Data download
Queries to get metadata on a feature level

13. First online application using ASIE rules
previously
Public Internet access since 1997
Sandre
Public internet access
Background maps
Data producer
GeoTiff and Shapefile
Data from IGN
webmapping application
Sandre
Reference data collected
manually by the SANDRE
Partners DB
Data
collection
Data dissemination
Direct connexion
Using Mapobject from 1997 to 2003
And mapserver and
Oracle Spatial since 2003
Data processing

14. First online application using ASIE rules
New distributed architecture
Remote Background maps
WMS JRC
WMS BRGM
Sandre
WMS Géosignal
Public internet access
IREP (Industry)
Sandre Gateway
IFREMER (marine water)
Reference data collected
manually by the SANDRE
Partners DB
Data
collection
SAGE (protected area)
OGC Web service
Webservice for attributes data
Shell Fish Farming area
Gateway
Local
Gateway
Local

15. First online application using ASIE rules
Features
Data visualization
Gazetter using Geonames

16. First online application using ASIE rules
Features
Metadata on features using a specific webservice (core info+contact+more info on the web)
Asynchronous data download using WFS
Zoom to an area of interest
Select layers
Click download and post your
Receive a zip file containing all the data requested

17. First online application using ASIE rules
Tools
Cartoweb
Mapserver for the main portal
Data coming from partners using Mapserver, Geoserver, Ionic
Metadata webservices in Java and Php
Made by:
CampToCamp & DMSolution
IOWater
Ifremer (development of marine water access)

18. First online application using ASIE rules
On going work
Data:
Work with more partners in France to set up new distributed nodes
Cartoweb:
Migration to Cartoweb 3.3 and Ajax for the web interface
Add the option to query geonames webservices using the locate plugin
Creation of a basic wmsBrowser plugin (wmsBrowserLight)
Catalog interface to cartoweb in order to query GeoNetwork nodes

19. First online application using ASIE rules
Next steps
Interface:
Improve error handling when contacting webservices
Store metadata about features on a catalog
Catalog of maps (in order to get simple access to information – 60 layers is a lot!)
Cartoweb:
Already start a sldEditor (basic editing for now)

20. The next steps for the Water Information System for France
Standardized access to non-geographic information. Specification on services to answer water domain questions :
Quality of a station in the last 3 years ?
Get reference list for parameters
Implement those rules for new coming portals (Waste Water, Lakes monitoring)
Provide common tools for webservice creation / Work on WSDL -> Php code generation (Client and Server Side)
Extend ASIE rules for advanded used (service registry, orchestration, security, metadata …)

21.
WebMapping
Thank you

22. From a centralized to a distributed access to water data in France using open-source
 All the actors of the water domain in France organized on a common protocol since 1993, have adopted in 2005 common rules to improve the access to water data.
The application of these rules will progressively lead to a more efficient data dissemination process.
One example is the geoportal of the Sandre Since 1993, a community on the water domain in France has been organizing the access to water data. Covering marine water, groundwater and surface water, all partners have agreed on a common protocol.
One of the main goal is to achieve to communicate between partners using a common language for water named "Sandre".
First design on a common semantic (codification, data models, dictionnaries, ...), the Water Information System for France has extended this interoperability to technical issues (protocols, webservices, ...).
In 2005 was published the guideline for the Water Information System for France architecture taking into account all on-going initiatives at EU level like WISE or INSPIRE and at international level like OGC, W3C, OASIS, ... On this step by step approach, progress to access to the data on a distributed way will be improved based on existing system, adoption of a SOA, promoting use of opensource software, delivering free public access to water data in France in a consistent way.
Following 2 years of prototyping and analysis of systems, different projects are implementing these rules today. One example is the geoportal for water data of the Sandre. This webmapping application is using Mapserver/Cartoweb and only webservices to display, query and export data to provide access to water data references (river network, monitoring stations, infrastructures, ...).
The interface use WMS and WFS services to connect to the data publish by producers. The long term objectivs is to avoid the manual data collection process.