New Pilot will demonstrate a multi-country, federated Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure for land/sea interface use-cases.

10 March 2021: The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is seeking sponsors for a cooperative OGC – IHO Federated Marine SDI Demonstration Pilot. Responses are due by April 30, 2021.

As recommended by the successful OGC-IHO MSDI Concept Development Study (CDS), and as evidenced by the success of the OGC-IHO collaboration in the OGC-IHO Maritime Limits and Boundaries Pilot, OGC is seeking sponsors to help initiate a full-scale Pilot to demonstrate a multi-country, federated Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) under land/sea interface use-cases. The Pilot will potentially focus on the Arctic, European Coastal Waters, and/or South East Asia, depending on sponsor requirements.

The Federated Marine SDI Demonstration Pilot will show how Marine SDI can unlock valuable data and information for more than the traditional providers and consumers of hydrographic data. Specifically, the Pilot will include one or more land/sea interface scenarios in order to demonstrate how federated Marine SDI can provide simple, secure access across borders and domains, and improve the connections between terrestrial and marine foundational communities.

The land/sea interface scenario has valuable applications in coastal zone protection, shoreline management, Marine Spatial Planning (MSP), Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), and improving the ability to connect Terrestrial and Marine SDIs, amongst others.

Improving Marine SDIs globally means contributing to an important and growing international collaboration that mutually benefits society and sponsoring and participating organizations. Benefits for organizations sponsoring the Pilot include:

• Improving discovery and sharing of data within your national SDIs, both terrestrial and marine, and across national jurisdictions
• Prototyping functional federated Marine SDI architectures and tools to connect to operational environments
• Sponsoring an agile, adaptive, well-governed process inclusive of new and existing data sources and technologies
• Building on best-of-breed standards and conventions across sponsoring and participating organizations in a highly collaborative environment
• Performing real-world testing of existing IHO and OGC standards and providing recommendations for improvements to those standards
• Maximizing return on investment by collaborating and sharing costs with other sponsors
• Supporting open standards, policy, and improved information sharing with international partners

The  Pilot will lead to three main outcomes.

1. Demonstration - A practical technology demonstration from global community experts showcasing federated Marine SDI for selected Land/Sea use cases. Possible examples include use cases for the Arctic, a European Coastal Region, and a South East Asian region. The demonstration will show how using OGC, IHO, and other open standards enables the community's ability to find, obtain, use, share, interoperate, and reuse data.
2. Impact on OGC Standards - Lessons learned, gaps, and the need for changes to the OGC Standards Baseline will be summarized in an Engineering Report that will inform the OGC Standards Program.
3. Impact on IHO Standards - Practical testing of relevant S-100 based IHO standards will accelerate the process for adoption and implementation of IHO standards. The resulting Engineering Report will help to inform the work of the IHO HSSC Working Group and will provide inputs to enhance the framework and its component standards.

The OGC - IHO Federated Marine SDI Demonstration Pilot will be conducted under OGC's Innovation Program, a collaborative, agile, and hands-on prototyping and engineering environment where sponsors and OGC members come together to address location interoperability challenges while validating international open standards. Watch this short video on how OGC’s Innovation Program can benefit your organization.

To express interest in sponsoring the pilot or for more information, visit the OGC – IHO Federated Marine SDI Demonstration Pilot page on the OGC website. Responses are due by April 30, 2021.

About OGC
The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) is an international consortium of more than 500 businesses, government agencies, research organizations, and universities driven to make geospatial (location) information and services FAIR - Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.
OGC’s member-driven consensus process creates royalty free, publicly available geospatial standards. Existing at the cutting edge, OGC actively analyzes and anticipates emerging tech trends, and runs an agile, collaborative Research and Development (R&D) lab that builds and tests innovative prototype solutions to members' use cases.
OGC members together form a global forum of experts and communities that use location to connect people with technology and improve decision-making at all levels. OGC is committed to creating a sustainable future for us, our children, and future generations.
Visit ogc.org for more info on our work.