International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XXXIX-B4, 2012 
XXII ISPRS Congress, 25 August — 01 September 2012, Melbourne, Australia 
COASTAL OCEAN OBSERVING NETWORK - OPEN SOURCE ARCHITECTURE FOR 
DATA MANAGEMENT AND WEB-BASED DATA SERVICES 
E. Pattabhi Rama Rao”, R. Venkat Shesu® and T.V.S. Udaya Bhaskar” 
* Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, Hyderabad, India - (pattabhi, venkat, uday)@incois.gov.in 
Commission IV, WG IV/1 
KEY WORDS: Coastal Ocean Observation, Ocean Data Management, Open Source, Visualisation 
ABSTRACT: 
The observations from the oceans are the backbone for any kind of operational services, viz. potential fishing zone advisory services, 
Ocean state forecast, storm surges, cyclones, monsoon variability, tsunami, etc. Though it is important to monitor open Ocean, it is 
equally important to acquire sufficient data in the coastal ocean through coastal ocean observing systems for re-analysis, analysis 
and forecast of coastal ocean by assimilating different ocean variables, especially sub-surface information; validation of remote 
sensing data, ocean and atmosphere model/analysis and to understand the processes related to air-sea interaction and ocean physics. 
Accurate information and forecast of the state of the coastal ocean at different time scales is vital for the wellbeing of the coastal 
population as well as for the socio-economic development of the country through shipping, offshore oil and energy etc. 
Considering the importance of ocean observations in terms of understanding our ocean environment and utilize them for operational 
oceanography, a large number of platforms were deployed in the Indian Ocean including coastal observatories, to acquire data on 
ocean variables in and around Indian Seas. The coastal observation network includes HF Radars, wave rider buoys, sea level gauges, 
etc. The surface meteorological and oceanographic data generated by these observing networks are being translated into ocean 
information services through analysis and modelling. Centralized data management system is a critical component in providing 
timely delivery of Ocean information and advisory services. 
In this paper, we describe about the development of open-source architecture for real-time data reception from the coastal 
observation network, processing, quality control, database generation and web-based data services that includes on-line data 
visualization and data downloads by various means. 
1. INTRODUCTION ocean data from a variety of ocean observing systems (through 
different modes viz. satellite communication, e-mail, ftp, etc.), 
Availability of ocean data in real-time is essential for spatial processing, integration, quality control and web-based data 
analysis and decision support system to provide ocean dissemination to the users for operational and research 
information and advisory services and also forcing models that activities. 
lead to climate predictability, both short-term and long-term. 
Further, with the vast amount of data available, ocean models To bring out the awareness and as a ready reckoner to the 
could be fruitfully utilized to undertake need based user projects coastal community to understand state of the ocean, 
for coastal and offshore applications. dissemination is vital stage in data management, that too which 
is easy to visualize and comprehend. To accomplish this target 
A network of Ocean Observing System including both the open — effectively, Open Source WebGIS architecture is adopted to 
ocean and coastal ocean has been established in the Indian publish and share geo-spatial information from the coastal 
Ocean for providing operational ocean information and advisory observing network on the internet. To provide cost effective 
services. The observing network provides data on various solution, we relied on the UMN MapServer on top of the widely 
oceanographic and surface meteorological parameters in real- spread client server architecture LAMP (Linux, Apache, 
time that includes includes, HF Radars (surface currents), Tide MySQL, PHP). The architecture includes UMN MapServer to 
Gauges (sea level), Wave Rider Buoys (wave), Moored Buoys serve the purpose of displaying and querying dynamic data 
(surface meteorological and oceanography), Current meters ^ spatially, which provides easy mechanism to implement 
(surface and sub-surface currents) etc. WebGIS server solution based on Open Geospatial Consortium 
(OGC) standards including WMS (Web Map Service) that 
The use of open source tools are gaining wider acceptance for enables creation of web maps from the layers coming from 
providing web-based services in the field of ocean sciences. multiple different remote servers/source; MySQL to manage 
Significant progress has been made in developing open source database; and OpenLayers to put a dynamic map in web page. 
tools to integrate ocean observing systems; test and implement OGC is providing interoperability and standardized 
easy-to-use, open-source, OGC-compliant software; and specifications to support geospatial to be shared by internet. In 
creation of networked, interoperable, real-time data systems. this paper, we describe the architecture of the system with the 
HF Radar data that is very complex in nature compared to other 
Our objective of the experiment is to exploit the potential of ^ coastal observing platforms viz Wave Rider Buoys and Tide 
open source tools in developing Ocean Data and Information Gauges, Moored Buoys. The same architecture was extended 
System - an end-to-end system comprising acquisition of met- 
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