Oceanographic Data Management

Abstract

In this chapter the authors look at technological issues within and the influence of technological developments outside oceanography on two very different, but interrelated, facets of ocean data: the labelling of parameters and the autonomous collection of oceanographic data. In particular, consideration is given to the influence of standards developed within computer science, such as Sensor Web Enablement (SWE), Resource Description Framework (RDF) and the Simple Knowledge Organisation System (SKOS). It is shown that the development of autonomy in oceanographic data collection is highly dependent on semantically sound data and metadata with presentation of related issues such as unambiguous data citation, resolution of systematic biases and integration of data from complementary but independently governed oceanographic observation programmes.