A Web-based Distributed Architecture for Coastal Zone Management
Éamonn Ó Tuama (1), Clive Best, (2), Torill Hamre (3)
(1) Coastal & Marine Resources Centre, ERI,
University College Cork (IE)
(2) Joint Research Centre (JRC), Institute for the Protection and Security
of the Citizen (IPSC), Ispra (IT)
(3) Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center (NERSC), Bergen (NO)
The implementation of a Coastal Zone Management strategy can benefit greatly from the application of web-based technologies. This presentation describes the current state of development of DISPRO, the prototype for an advanced web-based information system to improve management of pollution crises in coastal and ocean regions of Europe. DISPRO is being developed as part of DISMAR (Data Integration System for Marine Pollution and Water Quality) [1], a project funded under the EU IST Programme. The project commenced in July 2002 and runs for three years.
The broader context for DISPRO is provided by two other major
European level programmes, GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security)
[2] and INSPIRE (INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe) [3]. GMES
seeks to support EU environmental and security policies with regard to sustainable
development and global governance, by promoting the timely provision of quality
data, information, and knowledge. Working in synergy with GMES, the INSPIRE
initiative is developing a spatial information infrastructure for Europe,
and to this end has defined a set of common principles and a generic model
to support them, based on the deployment of interoperable spatial information
services over the internet. INSPIRE can thus inform and guide the development
and implementation of DISPRO.
The pan-European, multi-institutional nature of DISPRO lends itself to a web-based
distributed architecture, incorporating a GIS and several complementary Web
services. The principles guiding the design are to comply as much as possible
with INSPIRE, OpenGIS™ and W3C standards, and to use OpenSource software
where available [4].
DISPRO thus relies heavily on tools/applications such as Apache HTTP server [5], Tomcat servlet container [6], XML [7], XSL [8], University of Minnesota MapServer [9], and GeoServer [10]. The architecture, consistent with the INSPIRE general model for an SDI (Spatial Data Infrastructure), is a multi-tier one (client, middleware, data layers) and includes four main groups of components: user applications, geo-processing and catalogue services, catalogues and content repositories. By following open standards and protocols, maximum flexibility is ensured and the distributed nature of the system allows each institution to retain control of its own data.
References
- DISMAR; http://www.nersc.no/Projects/dismar/
- GMES; http://www.gmes.info
- INSPIRE; http://inspire.jrc.it/
- Free/Libre and Open Source Software: Survey and Study; http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/
- Apache HTTP Server; http://httpd.apache.org/
- Tomcat; http://jakarta.apache.org/tomcat/index.html
- XML; http://www.w3.org/XML/
- XSL; http://www.w3.org/Style/XSL/
- University of Minnesota MapServer; http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/
- GeoServer; http://geoserver.sourceforge.net