This webpage was updated on April 28, 2011

California Coastal and Marine Geospatial Information System Scoping Study


In April 2011, the OPC hired Kearns & West/UC Santa Barbara to conduct a scoping study on information management systems for California coastal and marine geospatial data.  The final scoping study was completed in October 2011. Below is more information on the study.

Scoping Study Goal:

To outline the coastal and marine geospatial data priorities of California agencies and to outline the specific technical requirements for data management systems at the State that are needed to support these priorities.

This project originated from comments about challenges to interagency data sharing in the state and is designed to be the first major step in addressing this challenge.

Scoping Study Objectives:

  • Consult with the state agency users of coastal and marine geospatial data to document the functional requirements of the users;
  • Learn from existing information management systems to assess approaches for interoperability. The existing systems and tools have advantages and disadvantages that can serve to inform the type of information system that California develops; and
  • Provide a summary of considerations for long term operational sustainability of the system.

Key Findings and Recommendations:

The primary focus of this effort was on state agencies’ needs. Key findings from the scoping study consultations include:

  • All agencies report the need for a commonly accessible coastal and marine Information Management System (IMS) through which to access geospatial information and no existing California-based web atlas or geospatial information management system evaluated during this study addresses the complete set of features and requirements identified;
  • The dominant use of geospatial information is by non-technical users using web mapping applications and Google Earth.  Web services and “out of the box” software solutions can provide essential functionality for visualizing and more easily sharing data across organizations and agencies as well as inter-operate with other IMSs and databases;
  • Previous experiences with distributed and centralized IMS architectures have shown strengths and weaknesses for each approach, depending upon data holder capabilities, and a hybrid approach could capitalize upon the strengths of both architectures; and
  • Long-term staff support and funding are required to support an effective IMS.  A Data Librarian and Data Diplomats could greatly enhance state inter-agency data sharing and maintenance of a coastal and marine IMS.

The resulting recommendations that emerged from these findings include:

  • A California coastal and marine geospatial IMS should be searchable and viewable through a dedicated web atlas, with the ability to view, overlay, print, and/or download geospatial data in several formats, including through GIS web services within ArcGIS Desktop;
  •  The architecture of the IMS should be organized with a hybrid approach, supporting both centralized and distributed data sources;
  • The IMS should have staff support through a data librarian and data diplomats; and
  • The IMS should be housed and funded in such a manner so as to enable it to be a long-term resource for California agencies.

 



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