1. CHALLENGES IN PROVIDING MARINE DATA IN FORMATS DESIGNED FOR LAND-BASED DATA
Karen Douglas|

2. About Ocean networks canada
Provides oceanographic data openly via the web for science, society and industry
2 regional and 4 community observatories, and many partner projects
Operational since 2006
500+ TB of data in the archive and over 34 million files. 280 GB data collected everyday
Interoperability is important to us

3. Types of Spatial Data Provided at ONC
(Primary data feeds and data partner projects)
Navigation Data from Ships, Divers, and Remotely Operated Vehicles
Water property data from Gliders, Drifter buoys and Ferries.
Single-beam and Multibeam Echosounder Data
Post-processed bathymetric grids
Marine radar data (surface currents and waves, sea state derived products)
Vector data formats for cables, instruments, platforms, and related infrastructure
Compiled GIS databases containing sampling information, links to video, data, and vehicle navigation for offshore Marine Protected Areas and areas of interest.

4. Challenges
Navigation data are received in a variety of formats and not always with information on what post-processing has been applied. Data formats provided to Navigators are restricted by their navigation software.
Determining the best bathymetric interoperable data formats to provide (i.e. BAG, XYZ, GeoTif). Can we expand this to a web service where depth, uncertainty and tidal information are still available and are not inhibited by the amount of data?
ISO Metadata standard is used, but need better definition of how to input/track tidal and SVP correction information
Echosounder data are provided in manufacturer formats. Are there interoperable/standardized formats that we could provide? Perhaps NetCDF?

5. Challenges (cont’d) Backwards compatibility with KML
OGC SOS metadata fields such as “Feature of interest” are difficult to define for marine datasets. Not all underwater features/areas have been named in a standardized way (i.e. boreholes, CTD stations), ontologies are incomplete, not everyone is using the same source.
Some data types do not yet have an interoperable format (hydrophones), others take a while to establish (gliders).