New approaches for accessing environmental data-bases

In environmental engineering projects where large amounts of data are available and need to be made readily accessible to a range of engineers and scientists, there is a need to improve and streamline data-base management and data delivery. HR Wallingford has moved to implement new systems - mainly in the coastal zone sector, but applicable to all aspects of environmental engineering.

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Users can easily find beach survey data


Daily conditions are monitored continuously from the top of the Burj al Arab (Photo HR Wallingford)

There is increasing recognition of the need to adopt ‘open standards’ for data exchange so that components of data systems can be built independently, yet can still interoperate with one another. But where the data is primarily concerned with observations of environmental parameters such as waves, currents and sediments, how these standards should be implemented is not yet fully established. Informatics experts at HR Wallingford have started to pull this emerging technology through into the operational systems used in real-life situations.

One of the emerging standards is the Web Feature Server specification from OGC (The Open GeoSpatial Consortium). Historically, this standard evolved for delivering data that would constitute a layer of data on a map, such as a road network. HR Wallingford has recently deployed this technology so that it can be used for delivery of observational or measurement data-sets. The Web Feature Server (WFS) deployment has been used to provide and manage access to marine data of Dubai Municipality; and more recently for NERC’s environmental data.

The core of the WFS approach is to provide a consistent interface to an underlying and generally heterogeneous set of data-bases, and which allows different portals to be developed for varied users with different requirements. Although WFS is already in use for traditional map layers, this marine environment application is an early serious use of the system to procure observational and measurement data. The features delivered by the WFS approach cover a range of observation types related to moored instrument deployments and beach surveys.

For further information please contact Keiran Millard, Head of Informatics, HR Wallingford, (01491 832398; k.millard@hrwallingford.co.uk).