CoGIS agreement could accelerate SAEON’s delivery on its mandate

The South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON) and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) signed a landmark agreement which will enable SAEON to accelerate delivery on its mandate of establishing innovative research platforms and information management systems for long-term multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional and participatory ecosystem studies with strong regional and global linkages.

Johan Pauw, Head of SAEON (left) and Khungeka Njobe, Executive Director of the CSIR's Natural Resources and the Environment operating unit, sign the CoGIS agreement. (Picture © SAEON)

In terms of the agreement with the CSIR's Natural Resources and the Environment operating unit, a CSIR designed content management service will be customised for SAEON. The Collaborative Geographical Information Service (CoGIS), was developed by AgileWorks (Pty) Ltd, a company subcontracted by the CSIR. The CoGIS is Open Standards compliant and allows for the archival, discovery, retrieval, sharing and integration of spatial information sourced from a variety of providers connected via a web-based network. SAEON contributes financially and conceptually to the development of the system.

"SAEON's currency is long-term environmental data."
- Johan Pauw, Head of SAEON

According to Avinash Chunthapursat, SAEON's information management co-ordinator, customisation will largely be on an aesthetic level "to fit SAEON's skin". It will also allow SAEON to work out protocol for actions like data searching, as the data will come from different sources.

One of Avinash's first tasks following the signing of the agreement will be to assemble a team consisting of representatives of organisations from where data will be sourced, in order to look critically at protocol issues. The team will initially include the current frontrunner organisations in terms of data sharing - CSIR, Department of Minerals and Energy, Agricultural Research Council (ARC), Kruger National Park and the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB) - but will be expanded as other organisations are brought in.

As the SAEON nodes are starting to deliver, a data management system including a database and a data archive will be developed at each node before being linked up to CoGIS. As part of the CoGIS agreement, data management staff at the respective nodes will be trained by AgileWorks.

"CoGIS is an environmental geoportal," says Avinash "and future developments include the possibility of sensor networks and … who knows … even a distributed artificial intelligence."

CoGIS will operate on the Collaborative Spatial and Modelling Platform (CoSAMP), which was initiated by the CSIR to link, enhance, and manage spatial analysis and modelling capabilities - internally within the CSIR as well as within the wider South African geospatial information community.

Long-term environmental data

"SAEON's currency is long-term environmental data," says SAEON Head Johan Pauw, "and accordingly its challenges are to offer leadership in long-term data systems, support long-term observations on crucial and missing variables, archive long-term data, make long-term data accessible, integrate and package it, determine national indicators of long-term environmental change, and secure the SAEON system and long-term data collections."

In the past, ecosystem research has been fragmented, its data not readily accessible and not enough variables have been included to cover the additional complexity of global climate change. It is one of SAEON's core missions to generate long-term environmental data to inform the sustainable management of natural resources and habitat over a range of ecoregions and land uses.

As ecosystem understanding is improved through SAEON, it will be transferred into new policies and strategies to promote wise use and management of the goods and services that are provided by ecosystems, as well as into negotiations on global climate change management and economics.