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SAEON participates in Marine and Coastal Atlas Development Workshop
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As part of the South African ODINAFRICA (Ocean Data and Information Network of Africa) Atlas team, I was invited to attend a workshop in Belgium to further the development of the national atlas for South Africa.
The workshop, which began on Monday 22 November, was held in the IOC (Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission) offices in the coastal town of Oostende. The workshop kicked off with an introduction of all participants, most of which were from the workshop held in Kenya in July 2010. There were a few new participants from India, Mexico and Barbados, as these countries are currently also developing national atlases. In total there were 18 participants from 15 different countries.
Greg Reed (trainer for IOC) ran the first two days of the workshop, mostly revising work done since the Kenya workshop, and assisting those that did not attend the Kenya workshop with their data. This involved a review of metadata records that have been created, and the upload of these to a central metadata database. Previously, participants in the atlas have retained these records on their own systems and uploaded an xml copy to the IOC server. This central database will now be the housing mechanism for all the atlas metadata, and all participants were given access to enable them to upload their own records for their countries.
Adding data layers
The last three days of the workshop were dedicated to training on the Marine Irish Digital Atlas (MIDA) software by Yassine Lassoued, an IT and GIS Researcher at the University College Cork’s (UCC) Coastal and Marine Resources Centre. This is software that has been developed by the UCC to display marine data for Ireland on the internet. Each participant’s institute has had to sign a user agreement to gain access to this software. Yassine showed us how to install the software, how to customise it for our own areas of interest, and most importantly, how to add data layers to it.
Installation of the software can be done on any computer that can act like a server. The different operating systems created some problems and not all installations went smoothly. The customising of the area required slight alterations to the programming script in the files, and as many participants do not have an IT background, this took a while to get right.
Depending on what type of data is to be added as a layer also requires an understanding of the programming of the map files, and most of the time was spent experimenting with different options that can be applied to the layers. Yassine and Greg were both available to supervise as we added various layers. The cooperation and assistance between the participants created a wonderful learning environment.
Hosting arrangements
It was decided that the server to display the combined data from all the participating African countries will be hosted by IOC in Belgium. This server will host the MIDA software and the Geoserver database for the metadata for the entire atlas. Each country, if possible, can host their own server with the MIDA software on to display the data for their area of interest only, or otherwise they can set up their own sub-server at IOC to host their country’s data.
To view the overall atlas, click on www.africanmarineatlas.org and then on the ± (Add/Remove Layer) sign in the middle on the left of the map to choose layers you would like to view. Please bear in mind this is still a work in progress and only a small sample of what the atlas will eventually look like.
It was inspiring to see the Marine and Coastal Atlas moving forward and the participating countries joining forces to make it happen. The workshop presented a wonderful opportunity for learning new technology and catching up with previous atlas workshop participants. There was even a bit of snow before we left so people from tropical countries could experience what “real cold” is.
Thank you to ASCLME for sponsoring my trip and to the IOC and their staff who were extremely professional in training as well as all logistics associated with the course. Thanks also to Yassine for sharing his time and knowledge to assist us with the project.
