On the 24th and 25th of April 2024, the MSPglobal 2.0 initiative facilitated an online workshop to consult experts on ocean data and Spatial Data Infrastructure. The project aims to co-develop a Data Toolbox to support countries in developing their own SDI for MSP. About 30 participants from across the globe joined the sessions to share their knowledge and consult about the Toolbox.
Spatial data and data tools support analyses of current and future marine conditions. Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) precisely, is crucial for Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) as it facilitates the integration of geographical data and services available from different sources. Still today, many countries do not have an SDI often due to a lack of human and/or financial resources. Therefore, the MSPglobal 2.0 initiative has set the goal to produce a comprehensive guiding publication about the development of an SDI to support MSP practitioners. More specifically, this Data Toolbox will be a compilation of existing tools and methodologies featuring key elements of an SDI useful for MSP.
Joint development of the Data Toolbox
To kickstart the development of this Data Toolbox, an extensive global mapping of experts in ocean data and SDI was conducted. Then, an informative pre-workshop and a 2-day online workshop were organised to meet with interested participants, aiming to inform about the process and collaboratively define the structure and the key content of the Toolbox.
During the main workshop, experts from UNESCO-IOC, UN Ocean Decade, the EU Technical Expert Group on Data for MSP, the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Sul, the Geological Survey of Sweden, HELCOM, Shom, and Marine-Analyst.eu took over and presented their own experiences with SDI existing tools, challenges, and good practices. These talks were bundled into the following themes related to SDI: SDI connectivity, governance, human resources and capacity development, metadata, interoperability, as well as data security, privacy, and safety. They were followed by group discussions and interactive brainstorming sessions via a digital whiteboard to capture concrete ideas for the Toolbox.
To this date, the online workshops are concluded and the participants are in the process of co-creating the publication with the MSPglobal 2.0 team. We thank all collaborators for their engagement in making SDI more accessible for MSP practitioners. The publication will soon be made available.
CONTACT:
MSPglobal.comm@unesco.org