Development of standards : a key mission for geological surveys in their new role

François Robida (1)

1 BRGM - Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM)

Geological surveys have been instrumental in the development of standards for many years. Heavy investments have been made by a number of surveys through the IUGS/CGI commission to develop GeoSciML and other standards. During the last years, a partnership between IUGS/CGI and the OGC has facilitated the recognition of geoscientific standards by a broader community of geospatial data. Efficient lobbying has also permitted the adoption of those standards by national or continental legislations, such as Inspire in Europe. The standards facilitate the exchange of information between geoscientists, and the OneGeology initiative launched in 2008, has been a flagship demonstrator projectin this regard. OneGeology has also been very efficient in providing capacity building by disseminating the proper technical knowledge and tools among the geological surveys. New initiatives have been recently launched between IUGS/CGI and OGC to develop and demonstrate standards for borehole data and for 3D/4D geological models with the creation of a “Geoscience Domain Working Group”. Geological surveys will be even more challenged in the coming years about their capacity to make available to deliver reliable geoscientific data to a lot of users who are not geoscientists. For topics such as climate change understanding and modelling, or smart and sustainable cities, geoscience is a key component that must be connected, and combined with many other topics. This is related to new science development and to policy making issues. New technologies such as big data, IA will require a facilitated access to huge assets of data from all domains. Therefore, it is critical for the Geological surveys, in order to remain useful for the society, to be in the capacity to provide geoscience data, information or knowledge in a way that could be as easy as possible to “ingest” by non-geoscientists. This will require even deeper investment in standard development with broader partnerships.

Domaines: Géologie appliquée; Environnement et Société; Base de données [cs.DB]

François Robida. Development of standards : a key mission for geological surveys in their new role. Resources for Future Generations - RFG2018, Jun 2018, Vancouver, Canada. ⟨hal-01769017⟩