A pilot project for biodiversity and climate change interoperability in the GEOSS framework
Stefano Nativi, Paolo Mazzetti, Lorenzo Bigagli, Valerio Angelini, Enrico Boldrini, Éamonn Ó Tuama, Hannu Saarenmaa, Jeremy Kerr, Siri Jodha Singh Khalsa
Abstract
The Global Biodiversity Interoperability Framework (GBIF) Interoperability Process Pilot Project (IP3) addresses two Societal Benefit Areas: Biodiversity and Climate and is developed within the framework of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). GEOSS is an international initiative to combine new and existing hardware and software for the purposes of supplying earth observation data and information at no cost.
The aim of IP3 is the implementation of a GEOSS Architecture through the development of relevant scenarios that draw on data and information exchange from a series of interconnected systems.
The focus of GBIF IP3 is modeling the impact of climate change on species distribution. To achieve this, heterogeneous data resources (e.g., biodiversity, climatological and environmental resources) and processing services are required to interoperate by using a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach.
Through the pilot some available service-based components were selected, some artifacts developed and special arrangements to facilitate interoperability demonstrated, all for specific use scenarios.
These main components are described below.
Biodiversity occurrences are discovered and accessed through web services published by the GBIF Data Portal (http://data.gbif.org) and according to the TDWG Darwin Core standard format.
Climatological data are obtained from the NCAR GIS portal which provides web access to free global datasets of climate change scenarios. These data (spanning 50 years from 2000 to 2050) have been generated for the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). The datasets are processed to generate grid coverage and served through an OGC WCS 1.0 server.
GI-cat is a federated catalog providing a unique and consistent interface that enables the interrogation of biodiversity and climatological data resources. GI-cat exposes an OGC CS-W/ebRIM interface and is able to federate heterogeneous catalogs and access servers that implement international geospatial standards (e.g., OGC OWS). In addition, GI-cat implements a mediation server, making it possible to federate non-standard servers (e.g., THREDDS/OPenDAP servers) by specifying “special interoperability arrangements”. A special interoperability arrangement was introduced for the GBIF portal services, consisting of the introduction of a formal mapping for the GBIF data model to the ISO 19115 core metadata profile, and the GI-cat to GBIF service protocols adaptation.
The component used for processing collected data and generating future projections is the OpenModeller, an open source Ecological Niche Modelling (ENM) framework. It is accessed through a Web Services interface based on the SOAP protocol.
An AJAX client was developed to implement a user friendly interface to OpenModeller functionalities, making them accessible by any web browser. With this tool, the user is guided through the process of discovering data (by submitting queries to GI-cat), accessing selected data (through GBIF and WCS/NCAR data servers) and running ENM projections. Finally, the results are shown.
A first demonstration dealt with the Canadian butterfly species (Amblyscirtes vialis) and its response to climate change. This demonstration was presented in the most recent GEOSS workshops.
The aim of IP3 is the implementation of a GEOSS Architecture through the development of relevant scenarios that draw on data and information exchange from a series of interconnected systems.
The focus of GBIF IP3 is modeling the impact of climate change on species distribution. To achieve this, heterogeneous data resources (e.g., biodiversity, climatological and environmental resources) and processing services are required to interoperate by using a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach.
Through the pilot some available service-based components were selected, some artifacts developed and special arrangements to facilitate interoperability demonstrated, all for specific use scenarios.
These main components are described below.
Biodiversity occurrences are discovered and accessed through web services published by the GBIF Data Portal (http://data.gbif.org) and according to the TDWG Darwin Core standard format.
Climatological data are obtained from the NCAR GIS portal which provides web access to free global datasets of climate change scenarios. These data (spanning 50 years from 2000 to 2050) have been generated for the 4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). The datasets are processed to generate grid coverage and served through an OGC WCS 1.0 server.
GI-cat is a federated catalog providing a unique and consistent interface that enables the interrogation of biodiversity and climatological data resources. GI-cat exposes an OGC CS-W/ebRIM interface and is able to federate heterogeneous catalogs and access servers that implement international geospatial standards (e.g., OGC OWS). In addition, GI-cat implements a mediation server, making it possible to federate non-standard servers (e.g., THREDDS/OPenDAP servers) by specifying “special interoperability arrangements”. A special interoperability arrangement was introduced for the GBIF portal services, consisting of the introduction of a formal mapping for the GBIF data model to the ISO 19115 core metadata profile, and the GI-cat to GBIF service protocols adaptation.
The component used for processing collected data and generating future projections is the OpenModeller, an open source Ecological Niche Modelling (ENM) framework. It is accessed through a Web Services interface based on the SOAP protocol.
An AJAX client was developed to implement a user friendly interface to OpenModeller functionalities, making them accessible by any web browser. With this tool, the user is guided through the process of discovering data (by submitting queries to GI-cat), accessing selected data (through GBIF and WCS/NCAR data servers) and running ENM projections. Finally, the results are shown.
A first demonstration dealt with the Canadian butterfly species (Amblyscirtes vialis) and its response to climate change. This demonstration was presented in the most recent GEOSS workshops.