=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3006/17_short_paper
|storemode=property
|title=Content standards for geospatial metadata and their use
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3006/17_short_paper.pdf
|volume=Vol-3006
|authors=Alexander V. Koshkarev
}}
==Content standards for geospatial metadata and their use==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3006/17_short_paper.pdf
Content standards for geospatial metadata and their
use
Alexander V. Koshkarev1
1
Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
Abstract
*-2mm Among the many GIS standards that provide interoperability of (geo)spatial data and related web
services, we can identify a limited but important group of standards, intended to catalog spatial data
sets and services. Many of currently used standards are based on international ISO 19115 series and
their national profiles. Among them are two Russian national standards developed by the Technical
Committee (TC) 394 Geographic information/Geomatics of the Federal Agency on Technical Regulating
and Metrology (Rosstandart): the GOST R 57668-2017 “Spatial data. Metadata. Part 1. Fundamentals”
and the GOST R 57656-2017 “Spatial data. Metadata. Part 2. Extensions for imagery and gridded data”.
The analysis of Russian, foreign and international geoportals with metadata editing, validation and
publishing functions has been carried out, including using ISO 19115, FGDC-STD-001-001-1998, DIF,
Dublin Core and open source software GeoNode, GeoNetwork, GeoServer, etc. The results of the analysis
can be useful in selecting effective spatial metadata management systems in the scientific geoportals.
Keywords
Spatial data, spatial metadata, web services, geoportal, standards.
1. Introduction
The development of any information system should be supported by information technology
standards. International, national and industry standards ensure that spatial data is well handled
and managed. The process of unification and standardization of both spatial data and the rules
of their circulation initiated long ago, in the era of mass use of geographic information systems
(GIS) for GIS products and services, and the development of the GIS market. The importance of
geo-information standards in geographic information management is highlighted in a relatively
recent review of ISO/TC 211 Geographic information/Geomatics, International Hydrographic
Organization (IHO) and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) [1].
Among the many GIS standards, we specify spatial metadata content standards, being under-
stood as the properties of spatial data that are necessary and sufficient to identify, effectively
search, evaluate, and use. The search tool is usually a geoportal. The term geoportal in Russian-
language scientific literature is understood both as a geoportal for data search in the traditional
sense, and a means of web mapping, a tool of their cartographic visualization on the Web. It
was suggested, therefore, to distinguish between geoportals for search, search and visualization,
and visualization only [2].
Geoportal is a convenient object for analyzing the use of GIS standards. The purpose of
the paper is to review and evaluate the current state of development and use of Russian and
SDM-2021: All-Russian conference, August 24–27, 2021, Novosibirsk, Russia
" akoshkarev@yandex.ru (A. V. Koshkarev)
© 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR
Workshop
Proceedings
http://ceur-ws.org
ISSN 1613-0073 CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
135
Alexander V. Koshkarev CEUR Workshop Proceedings 135–141
international standards for the content of spatial metadata, including the creation of inventory
mechanisms and effective search for data and services on their geographic metadata as the
primary function of spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) and access to them [3].
The problem is particularly urgent in the context of Russia’s transition to the digital econ-
omy [4], given its reluctance for the full implementation of SDI technologies [5, 6].
2. Historic review
Interest in similar establishment in Russia emerged towards the end of the last century, when in
1998 non-profit Russian GIS Association in its Information Bulletin has organized a wide public
discussion of the draft Russian content standard of metadata of electronic maps, developed by
the TC 051 of Rosstandart. Text of this draft drew a lot of criticism, both in its substance and in
view of the fact that it has completely ignored the experience of developing de facto international
standard FGDC-STD-001-1998 [8]. However, the GOST R 51353-99 on “Geoinformatic mapping.
Metadata of electronic maps. Composition and content” has been approved and put into effect
on January 7, 2000. Its practical applications are still unknown.
The internationally recognized ISO standard 19115:2003 Geographical Information — Meta-
data was developed by ISO/TC 211 Geographic Information/Geomatics and published in 2003. It
fully complied with the European standard EN ISO 19115:2005 produced by Technical Commit-
tee CEN/NC 278 Geographic information. Following it, TC 394 has developed its Russian profile,
the GOST R 52573-2006 “Geographic Information. Metadata”. Later there appeared a standard
for its implementation in XML (eXtensible Markup Language) — ISO 19139:2007 Geographic
information — Metadata — XML schema implementation.
This standard is long since out of date, splitting into two separate ones: the ISO 19115-
1:2014 Geographic information — Metadata — Part 1: Fundamentals, successive to basic content
of ISO 19115:2003, and the ISO 19115-2:2009 Geographic information — Metadata — Part 2:
Extensions for imagery and gridded data. The latter allows you to most effectively describe the
spatial data sets presented in raster formats, such as remote sensing data, and similar (but not
identical to them) data ordered in regular grids, such as grid-based digital elevation models. They
correspond to the already mentioned GOST R 57668-2017 and GOST R 57656-2017. National
Standardization Program for year of 2020 set out the development of two standards similar to
ISO 19115-2:2019 Geographic information — Metadata — Part 2: Extensions for acquisition and
processing, what included a revision of the GOST R 57656-2017, and the GOST R standard based
on ISO 19119:2016 Geographic Information — Services.
3. Domestic experience
More than twenty years of experience in the creation and operation of geoportals and similar
network services offers different approaches to metadata management. It is presented in
numerous scientific publications, manuals, regulatory and technical documentation, in the
multiple “best practice” analyses. The chart (see Table below) contains selected examples of
network services with a brief description of the features of editing, validation, and displaying
of spatial metadata.
Let’s start with the analysis of domestic, relatively modest, experience.
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Alexander V. Koshkarev CEUR Workshop Proceedings 135–141
Among the current geoportals, the Institute of Volcanology and Seismology in the Far East
Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (FEB RAS) is the first to mention. It is organized
on the fairly popular and functional GeoNetwork platform, as well as another service by
the Pacific Institute of Geography FEB RAS, it is a part of the stack of software products
with open source OSGeo software (http://www.osgeo.org) known in dozens of its applications
abroad (https://geonetwork-opensource.org). The platform maintains ISO 19115/ISO 19139
and metadata elements of ISO 15836:2009 Information and documentation — The Dublin Core
metadata element set, providing metadata editing. Its operational integration of volcanological
data has been repeatedly discussed in the scientific periodicals [9, 10].
Another “long-lived” service supporting the ISO 19115 metadata description is organized by
the Institute of Computational Modeling from the RAS Siberian Branch in Krasnoyarsk, this
research team is widely known for its pioneering work among domestic researchers in the web
mapping and online web services for various subject areas [11, 12]. This service uses MapServer
(https://www.mapserver.org) as a platform, also open source software from OSGeo products.
Geoportal resources are grouped according to the GOST R 52573-2006 Topic categories. It is
possible to export metadata in the form of XML files under the ISO Standard 19115:2003.
The relatively recent Metalogeny geoportal of the RAS Vernadsky State Geological Museum
also supports ISO standards among other spatial data standards, it is equipped with a built-
in metadata editor but uses commercial software [13]. Alas, there are not as many services
similar to the above mentioned (see Tables 1 and 2), it is eventually worth noting that our chart
contains only selected examples, however adequately reflecting the current situation. The last
two lines of its first section contains data on two Russian services that cannot be described
according to standards, they represent the Komi Republic geoportal and the service for search
and visualization of digital maps, spatial data sets and other materials generated by the Federal
Spatial Data Fund of the Center of Geodesy, Cartography and SDI.
4. International and foreign experience
An example of a search engine, and at the same time of a appropriate visualization, can be
the geoportal of the INSPIRE European program in the second section of the chart [14]. The
need to create spatial metadata by European Union countries was enshrined in law in 2008 [15].
Their preparation is governed by technical requirements, including the implementing rules of
the European standards EN ISO 19115 taking into account EN ISO 19119 and ISO 19139:2007.
Their preparation is governed by technical requirements, including the implementing rules
of European standards EN ISO 19115 with proper consideration of the EN ISO 19119 and
ISO 19139:2007 standards.
The INSPIRE standard features the inclusion of elements from the ISO 19119:2005 Geographic
information — Services known as the ISO 19119:2016 after revision. This is primarily due to the
wide distribution of geographic services based on the OGC specifications, including WMS, WFS,
WCS, WMC, CSW, GAZ, WCTS, etc. Another feature of the INSPIRE profile is the description
not only of spatial data sets, but also of their series, if necessary replacing descriptions of
individual (with similar properties) products by descriptions of their collections [16, 17].
Another international example, the Arctic SDI geoportal, also based on ISO 19115/ISO 19139
standards, is built on the GeoNetwork platform.
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Alexander V. Koshkarev CEUR Workshop Proceedings
Table 1
Web resources of spatial data sets and services.
Web Developer/ Metadata
resource. Owner/ Standard editor Comments
URL Manager available
Russian resources
Geoportal of the Institute IVS FEB RAS ISO 19115/ Yes GeoNetwork 3.2 platform
of Volcanology and Seis- ISO 19139
mology (IVS FEB RAS).
http://geoportal.kscnet.ru
Geoportal of the Pacific Geo- PGI FEB RAS ISO 19115/ Yes Prototype. GeoNetwork 3.2.0.0 platform:
graphical Institute FEB RAS ISO 19139 http://gis.tigdvo.ru:9190/geonetwork/srv/
(PGI FEB RAS). http://gis.dvo.ru rus/catalog.search#/home
Metalogeny geoportal. http:// Vernadsky State Geological ISO 19115, Yes Geoportal Server 2.6.0 portal by the Esri
geoportal.sgm.ru (not responding Museum of RAS ISO 19115- Company (USA)
138
on 05-23.06.2021) 2, FGDC,
Dublin Core
ArcGIS Meta-
data format
Regional geoportal of the Institute ICM SB RAS ISO 19115/ N/A* Web server configuration: Apache 2, PHP 5,
of Computational Modeling SB RAS ISO 19139 MapServer 7
(ICM SB RAS). http://gis.krasn.ru
Geoportal of the Komi Republic. State authority Territorial in- No No Catalogue of metadata with the description
https://gis.rkomi.ru formation fund of the Komi of 426 resources (as of 29.05.2021). Geoserver
Republic platform
Federal Fund of Spatial Data. https: State authority Center of No No It is possible to search and order resources
//cgkipd.ru/fsdf Geodesy, Cartography and on a number of criteria: https://order.cgkipd.
SDI ru. 86,718,970 storage units (as of 01.01.2021)
*
N/A — no information available
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Alexander V. Koshkarev CEUR Workshop Proceedings
Table 2
Web resources of spatial data sets and services.
Web Developer/ Metadata
resource. Owner/ Standard editor Comments
URL Manager available
International and foreign resources
INSPIRE geoportal. https: Joint Research Centre, Bel- ISO 19115/ ISO 19139 Yes A built-in validator to verify com-
//inspire-geoportal.ec.europa.eu gium pliance with datasets, geographic
services and metadata of technical
documentation of the INSPIRE pro-
gram
Arctic SDI geoportal. https://
Arctic Council in cooperation ISO 19115/ ISO 19139 N/A GeoNetwork 3.2. platform. Regis-
geoportal.arctic-sdi.org with the national survey & tered users are allowed to embed
mapping services their own maps
Geoportal of the Caucasus-SDI, Swiss National Science Foun- Full metadata: Text Yes GeoNode platform, 2.10.1
139
Scientific Network for the Cau- dation and the Swiss Agency format, HTML format. version (as of 15.04.2021):
casus Mountain Region. https:// for Development and Cooper- Standard Metadata — http://docs.geonode.org/en/
sustainable-caucasus.unepgrid.ch ation under the SCOPES Pro- XML format: Atom, master/tutorials/install_and_
gram, coordinated by the Uni- DIF, Dublin Core, admin/quick_install.html
versity of Geneva ebRIM, FGDC, ISO,
ISO with XSL
Scientific Data Search. https:// The National Snow and Ice DIF N/A Import of data from external
nsidc.org Data Center (NSIDC, USA) sources is supported
GeoPlatform geoportal of the US FGDC JSON, ISO 19139, Yes ArcGIS Online (AGOL) platform
National Spatial Data Infrastruc- ISO 19115-3, Esri Company, USA
ture. https://www.geoplatform.gov ISO 19115-3 Geo-
Platform Profile
Geoportal of the Infraestructura de Instituto Geográfico Nacional ISO 19115/ISO 19139 Yes GeoNetwork 3.8.2 platform
Datos Espaciales de España (IDEE).
https://www.idee.es
135–141
*
N/A — no information available
Alexander V. Koshkarev CEUR Workshop Proceedings 135–141
GeoNode is the other common platform, like the GeoNetwork it is an open source software
class; it is used, among many other services, in the Scientific Network for the Caucasus Mountain
Region (Caucasus-SDI) geoportal. In addition to the original ISO 19115/ISO 19139 format and
text format to display selected metadata elements on geoportal pages, the platform supports
the publication of metadata in other formats, including the following ones:
• Atom (Atom Syndication Format), developed by a non-commercial regulating organization
of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force);
• ebRIM (CSW-ebXML Registry Information Model), profile OGC Catalogue Service;
• DIF (Global Change Master Directory Interchange Format), compatible with the ISO 19115
and CSDGM, applied in the NASA (USA).
The standard DIF format is also used in The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
Two examples of geoportals of national SDIs conclude the table. A selection of foreign regional
and national geoportals is contained, in particular, in Appendix A of the GOST R 58570-2019
“Spatial data infrastructure. Fundamentals”. Typically, the search for multiple datasets, series,
and related geographic services is supported by the group of ISO 19115 standards.
5. Conclusions
The health of the geoportal, like any network service, largely depends on the support of
international standards. The analysis reveals that effective search for spatial data resources
and related geographic services rests on the use of ISO spatial metadata standards. This
statement is true of international and foreign geoportals. None of these Russian geoportals
use domestic standards of GOST R 57668-2017 and GOST R 57656-2017. It is worth recalling
that the development of an analogue of the ISO/TS 19115-3:2016 Geographic information —
Metadata — Part 3: XML schema implementation for fundamental concepts under the national
standardization plan is not to be launched until 2021. In the future, we should also revise
and evaluate how and to what extent all 19 national standards set for TC 394 Geographic
information/Geomatics are operationalised.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, State
Assignment No. AAAA-A19-119022190168-8.
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