A framework for enabling data sharing and accessibility in a transdisciplinary federated marine spatial infrastructure

Abstract. The Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Ocean Decade require preservation of the oceans and the efficient management of marine resources, contributing to sustainable use of oceans resources and the blue economy. Oceans span a wide area with exclusive economic zones of different countries adjacent to each other. This therefore necessitates the collaborative management of these resources across several countries in a region. Data is essential for providing trusted information, which in turn drives knowledge generation from science to policy implementation, towards informed decision making regarding the ocean resources. Harmonising data into decision support tools becomes a challenge due to two main reasons. Firstly, this is due to the transdisciplinary nature of the ocean, where data is governed by a variety of standards. Secondly, regional collaboration requires the data and knowledge to be shared in a federated environment in order to preserve data ownership by the custodians, while also cognisant of the network challenges in developing countries. This paper presents a standards compliant framework for enabling data sharing and access in these environments based on lessons learnt in the Marine and Coastal Operations for Southern Africa and Western Indian Ocean region, a project supported by the African Union Commission’s GMES and Africa program.