A Framework for the Evaluation of Marine Spatial Data Infrastructures – Accompanied by International Case-Studies

Abstract

Germany is currently developing a marine data infrastructure addressing different topics such as coastal engineering, hydrography and surveying, protection of the marine environment, maritime conservation, regional planning, and coastal research. This undertaking is embedded in a series of regulations and developments at many administrative levels, from which specifications and courses of action are derived. To set up a conceptual framework for the marine data infrastructure of Germany (MDI-DE), scientists at the Chair for Geodesy and Geoinformatics at the Rostock University are building a reference model, evaluating meta-information systems and developing models to support common workflows in marine applications.Evaluating how other countries built their marine spatial infrastructures is important to learn where obstacles and errors are likely to occur. To be able to look at other initiatives from a neutral point of view, it is necessary to construct a framework for evaluating marine spatial data infrastructures (MSDI). This framework is then used to analyse and evaluate the efforts of Canada, Australia, and Ireland with respect to marine data infrastructures.