Tuesday, November 1, 2011KISTERS is GEOWOW partner in the EU project for the standardisation of geodata
Aachen, October 2011. KISTERS has been supporting the GEOWOW project, which is part of the EU-sponsored project GEOSS for the development of a global Earth monitoring system since October 2011. KISTERS will be contributing on the topic of standardisation issues for water data in the context of Earth monitoring systems as part of the work group ‘Water’ within the project, which is headed up by the European Space Agency (ESA). KISTERS will be able to apply their knowhow gained in many projects for the standardisation of water data to GEOWOW.
In Work Group 5 ‘Water’ of the GEOWOW (GEOSS Interoperability for Weather, Ocean and Water) project, KISTERS is collaborating with the BfG (German Federal Institute for Hydrology), GRDC (Global Runoff Data Centre) and 52 North under the leadership of Bonn University. The aim is to put the prospective standardisation work of the OGC (WaterML2/SOS) and the Inspire Initiative into the context of GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems). Another objective is to technically process data sources in such a way that they can be easily integrated into GEOSS. In addition to the topic ‘Water’, the areas ‘Weather’ and ‘Ecosystems’ (oceans) will also be touched on.
A meeting of all participants in Work Group 5 was held at KISTERS in Aachen on October 11, at which the approach for each of the participants was organised, and the milestones for the next 36 months were defined.
KISTERS was a much sought-after partner for the GEOWOW project because of their active involvement in the development and specification of the OCG standards (Open Geospatial Consortium), and also support and implement open standards with their proprietary technology, the water management information system WISKI.
GEOSS will combine and coordinate Earth monitoring systems around the world to form a global, superordinate Earth monitoring network. GEOWOW (GEOSS Interoperability for Weather, Ocean and Water) is a subproject of GEOSS, and deals with the compatibility of water, weather, and oceanic data. It will contribute towards the development of new tools, processes and protocols in order to make Earth monitoring data available globally. Overall, GEOSS will provide scientists with a better understanding of the global contexts of environment and climate, offer politicians an improved basis for decisions, and will also be utilised as an early warning system for natural disasters.