Primary Investigator

Email

Institution

Wright, Dawn

dawn@dusk.geo.orst.edu

Oregon State University

Abstract
The goal of this project is to address the problems of the public resource manager in making effective use of discipline-specific data within the inherently interdisciplinary context of the coastal zone.

Initially the focus will be on local users on the Oregon Coast. However, there is great potential that the technologies can serve as a general model for similar efforts throughout North America, by developing an interactive, Internet-accessible information management system that incorporates a variety of geospatial data and analysis tools within a common framework. End-user training and direct technical assistance are incorporated into the development of this system, as are back-end system maintenance tools to ensure system longevity. This will enable coastal decision-makers at all government levels, the public, and research scientists to more easily find and use relevant, timely geospatial information. In this way universal participation in coastal decision making among coastal communities can be improved by extending community-expanding infrastructure to public offices that would otherwise face difficulties accessing IT services and resources.

Specifically, a web-based data sharing depot will be built, with integrated Internet mapping and tool building capabilities to provide the coordination that resource managers and scientists need to tackle the interdisciplinary topic-based issues characteristic of the coastal zone. The infrastructure will be designed so that it is scalable over time both in size and in audience and encouraging of 2-way contributions by more advanced participant users. Much of this infrastructure will be generic, of use to many areas of interdisciplinary research in the natural sciences. The infrastructure, called the Oregon Coastal Atlas (OCA) will include: 1. A web-based electronic repository that will hold not only physical observations (traditional data),text, video and graphics, but also information about computational elements (programs, models, tools, and scripts for computational processing); 2. A set of tools that facilitate the entry of new data and metadata as well as the transformation between supported formats; and 3. A new form of XML, called Coastal XML or CML, that will improve the exportability of data archive structures and tools.