The Arctic Permafrost Geospatial Centre (APGC): A new central platform for hosting and distributing geospatial permafrost datasets

• Main Authors: Laboor, Sebastian, Grosse, Guido, Haas, Antonie, Heim, Birgit, Nitze, Ingmar
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: Arctic; Peta; Ice; permafrost
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/41197/; https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/41197/1/APGC_Laboor_icop.pdf; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.48148; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.48148.d001

The Arctic Permafrost Geospatial Centre (APGC) is designed as a web interface showcasing high level projects with permafrost focus and providing an entry point for their geospatial product dissemination needs. At the core of APGC we will establish two services for data discovery: an Open Access Data Catalogue and an Open Access WebGIS Application (Fig. 1). The APGC Data Catalogue will allow searching for project-specific geospatial data by tags, keywords, data type and format, licence type, or geographically, provides a data preview figure, localizes the dataset on a zoom- and pan-capable basemap, displays a variety of metadata, and links to a permanent DOI-based archival link at the PANGAEA data repository (Figs. 2 and 3). The APGC Data Catalogue will be based on the open source CKAN data catalogue architecture, allowing geospatial data categorization associated with defined projects based on metadata standards. The Data Catalogue will contain all final products of projects that will be featured here, for example the ERC PETA-CARB project and the IPA Action Group on Yedoma ice-rich permafrost. The WebGIS Application will rely on OGC-standardized Web Mapping Services (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) technologies for data display and visualization. The WMS/WFS services are provided through the Data Catalogue. We are further evaluating the possibility to load external WMS/WFS services in the WebGIS Application. Legends will provide information on data attributes, and pop-up menus will provide information on metadata and a link to the archive location for a dataset. The WebGIS Application will provide a platform independent and visually interactive platform for displaying both raster and vector geospatial data from the project. Independently, we will provide an Access-Restricted FTP Service at AWI which will be available to project team members and defined users for rapid and easy sharing of validation data and for testing new versions of project datasets.