OceanWise in Vancouver!

We recently attended the 8th International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO) Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure Working Group (MSDIWG);for which OceanWise provides the Secretariat; which was hosted by the Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) part of Fisheries and Oceans Canada at The Metropolitan Hotel, Vancouver, Canada.

MSDIWG-8 was attended by 22 participants from 9 countries including expert contributors from OGC, GSDI Association, Teledyne Caris, Esri Inc. OceanWise and IIC Technologies. The group discussed and debated current initiatives including the new MSDI White Paper and final revisions to 2nd edition of IHO publication C17 – Spatial Data Infrastructures: ÔÇ£The Marine DimensionÔÇØ – Guidance for Hydrographic Offices. National MSDI initiatives from Malaysia, South Korea, Brazil, Canada and Denmark were presented plus regional MSDI projects in the Baltic Sea and Arctic Regional Hydrographic Commission areas. All demonstrated that significant progress has been made over the last year in building a sustainable framework for MSDI.

The group developed its new MSDIWG Work Plan for 2017-2020 which includes tasks to promote greater data sharing and improved data management, policy development and governance, standards, horizon scanning / innovation and to increase the MSDI body of knowledge on the IHO website.

Further detail of MSDI Working Group activities can be accessed here.

The Open Geospatial Consortia (OGC) Maritime Domain Working Group meeting took place immediately prior to the MSDIWG-8. It is to develop new candidate specifications and standards for MSDI to better enable marine data exchange, sharing and re-use across the World. A key outcome of the meeting was a project to identify key datasets necessary to create a Common Operating Platform (COP) for delivering effective Marine Cadastre, Emergency Response and Coastal Zone Management.