Data Management in International Monitoring Programs Joint Workshop of the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the Common Wadden Sea Secretariat (CWSS)
EU Life-project DEMOWAD	Copenhagen 18th/19th February 1998

by Jan Kroos

Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management

Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management

National Institute for Coastal and Marine Management / RIKZ

P.O. Box 20907

2500EX Den Haag

The Netherlands

Phone: +31 70 3114512

Fax: +31 70 3114500

E-mail: j.kroos@rikz.rws.minvenw.nl

1 Introduction

In the Netherlands sampling of data in case of watermanagement is very important. For the Dutch people water is sometimes a friend and sometimes an enemy.

At one hand large areas of the country lie below sea level and their safety is at stake. Many people still have vivid memories of the storm surge disaster of 1 February 1953, when 135,000 hectares of land were inundated and 1835 people lost their lives in a single night. Tens of thousands of farm animals perished and there was vast damage to infrastructure, some of it irreparable. Since then, large parts of the sea defences along the Dutch coast have been strengthened. Implementation of the so called Delta Plan has led to the construction of dams and the barriers in the Eastern Scheldt and the New Waterway (port of Rotterdam). For the developing and the construction of these dams and barriers actual and historical data was needed. Nowadays when these barriers are operational, data is needed for maintaining and operating these barriers.

At the other hand the Netherlands are dependent of the flow of fresh water. Fresh water is used for agriculture, shipping, fishery, industry, nature and recreation. The quality and the condition of the water is also a matter of dead or alive for the people and the biological living in the country.

2 Datamanagement in Rijkswaterstaat

As part of the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, in the Netherlands the Rijkswaterstaat is among other things responsible for the planning and implementation of the policy on water management and for the operational water management itself. The National Institute for Coastal and Marine Management/RIKZ provides the Rijkswaterstaat with advice and information on subjects as the sustainable use of estuaries, coasts and seas and on coastal flood protection.

To carry out these tasks Rijkswaterstaat needs a lot of information, for example:

• the current environmental condition of the water systems;
• the economic use of the waterbound environment;
• the expected trends;
• information about the relevant physical, chemical and biological processes;
• for the policy makers aggregated information.

  

  Data and information about the waterquantity, waterquality, biological conditions, the heights of the dikes and dunes, and the depths of the shipping-roads are very important. As the Dutch people samples different "water-data" since more than two centuries, for some parameters datamanagement is implemented a long time ago.

2.1 Definition Datamanagement

The definition of datamanagement we use in the Netherlands is as follows:

The planning, the measuring, the documentation and by electronic way making accessible of data by a way that an optimum quality and availability of data will be succeeded, during or at the end of a (monitoring, research or advice) project.

2.2 Measures taken by Rijkswaterstaat

From the seventies Rijkswaterstaat has taken different rigorous measures for implementation of datamanagement:

• Good Measuring Practise (GMP)

  	Different standardized sensors, sampling methods and prescriptions are taken in use by the measuring services of the Rijkswaterstaat;

• Good Laboratory Practise (GLP)

  Different standardized analysing methods and prescriptions are taken in use by the Laboratories of Rijkswaterstaat (certifying of the Laboratories);

• Standardization of check and validation of the measurements

  Very sophisticated methods based on the newest mathematic possibilities are being developed and used by checking and validation the data;

• Unambiguous storage of data;
• Standardized and uniform datamodel for datastorage.

2.3 DONAR, the database for various data for Rijkswaterstaat

At the end of the eighties Rijkswaterstaat starts the development of a database-system for storage their data. Per year Rijkswaterstaat samples about 10⁹ measurements. After operational use the data will be reduced to about 75*10⁶ measurements per year.

In the beginning of the year 1998 the total size of measured data archived in databases is about 1.4*10⁹ measurements. Most of them are physical data. At the end of 1999 99% of these measurements are stored in the DONAR databases. It is also possible to store simulated or generated and aggregated data in the DONAR database. Until now no simulated or generated data are archived in the DONAR-databases.

The DONAR-system is a set of databases based on a common datamodel a common set of procedures, rules and metadata. The software for all the DONAR databases is equal.

The functionality of the databases is comparable. The metadata for all the databases are managed in the central database. The contents of the different databases is different. In the central database the user has an overview of all the dataseries in all the decentral databases. If necessary the measurements can be copied from one database into another. The copied measurements are marked as a copy.

The DONAR-datamodel is an unique datamodel. This datamodel gives a very high performance and a relatively small size of datastorage. The metadata are stored in the about 30 What, Who/Why, Where and How tables. These metadata are joined into the W3H table.

Below the W3H relation table the datamodel splits up into 7 different tables for different kind of dataseries. There are 2 time-related series tables (equidistant and non-equidistant); 4 location-related series tables (for track and grid series, both equidistant and non-equidistant); and 1 specimen-related series table. At the bottom of the datamodel there are about 10,000 data tables, with the about 1,4*10⁹ measurements over all the databases.

Data-exchange between the different DONAR-databases, the DONAR-applications and other systems has been done by a standardized file(-format).

3 Datamanagement in the Netherlands

Just like the Rijkswaterstaat all the other institutes have taken different measures for delivering a higher quality of data. In cooperation with other institutes (national and international) we started developments for the exchange of data. Some of these developments are:

• National
• Standard water datadictionairy for 'water' information systems for Rijkswaterstaat, Waterboards and Provinces
• Standard set of metadata (based on the DONAR-metadata)
  • one set of standardized "what" - codes;
  • one set of standardized "how"- codes;
  • one set of standardized codes for biological species.
• Translation standard set of metadata to metadata from different information systems.

• plugox' water
• standardized data and file format based on the water datadictionairy.
• Start National Oceanographic Data Committee (NODC)
• Exchange of national oceanographic data.

• International
• DEMOWAD
• In cooperation with the Danish and German institutes development of a database conglomeration for the exchange of trilateral Waddensea data.
• REMSSBOT
• In cooperation with Greek, Italic and Belgium institutes development of a advanced coupling between the several national databases for the exchange of data;
• Based on the CDS of the European Environmental Agency (EEA).