Interoperable Geospatial Referencing by using OpenGIS® Web Services
Fitzke, Jens. lat/lon, Meckenheimer Allee 176, 53115 Bonn, GermanyPlants and animals have "whereness". For a GIS-Professional whereness means that "things" in general can be referenced to place. In the Biology domain these "things" may occur as collection objects or current/historical observation data on species distribution, including spreading areas, feeding grounds, mating areas, migration paths, and staging posts - to name just a few. Today, the GIS community has tools and data ready to assist in the georeferencing task.
During the last five years the growing relevance of network technologies - esp. the World Wide Web - led to a paradigm shift in the GIS world. Geographical Information Systems underwent and still undergo a change from monolithic systems with proprietary data structures to interoperable geoprocessing components serving different tasks. The Open GIS Consortium (OGC) is the most important player on the scene. OGC specifications define standardized interfaces for geoprocessing services, the most important of which are Web Map Servers, Web Feature Servers, Web Coverage Servers and Catalog (Registry) Servers.
The OGC's concept of a Gazetteer Service for referencing place-names to location (and vice versa) is based on the powerful Web Feature Server Specification, which allows for read/write access to vector geodata using HTTP and XML. This concept which is well-aligned with the ISO Draft International Standard 19112 "Geographic information - Spatial referencing by geographic identifiers" establishes a basis for designing interoperable gazetteer services. This interoperability approach takes into consideration the fact that huge digital databases containing well-known geo-referenced place-name vocabulary were built by the respective authorities. Avoiding redundancy and accessing up-to-date information are the key issues that advocate the services approach in geospatial referencing.
To briefly summarize future steps: 1.) Keep the geospatial reference data within the respective authority. 2.) Tell them to establish an OGC Gazetteer Service on top of the data (some of the are already working on this topic, e.g. the USGS). 3.) Reference your observations or collection objects by pointing to one of these Gazetteer Services. - Optional: 4.) Establish a connection to OGC (esp. the Natural Resources and Environmental WG) for discussion and collaboration (e.g. "Biodiversity Pilot").