Interoperability in the Context of Marine Geosensors

The strategy to observe geophysical and biochemical processes in the world oceans will be subjected to significant changes within the upcoming years by complementing current point sampling campaigns at certain time instances with permanent possibly cabled observatory stations. This is underlined by the outcome of the ESONET study, an EU funded project, which states a strong need for permanent observation stations in the Open Ocean and coastal waters to monitor the health of the oceans around Europe and detect potential environmental hazards. As these stations will be connected with the main land via submarine cables or via satellite communication systems it is possible to collect scientific data in real time and also to interact with the instrument to control the sampling process. Here the concept of interoperability becomes a necessity as the inventory of sensors is changing permanently due to the scientific demands and maintenance and service needs. Additional to that there are marine sensors in particular for measuring biochemical parameters where only experts are able to identify, connect and interpret the signals of the sensors. When setting up the new, costly infrastructure of marine sensor networks it is advisable that the sensor data can be detected and interpreted also by people from outside the research community to ensure an optimal use and a widespread availability to public institutions and private companies. In the context of hazardous events like Tsunamis waves the necessity is obvious as immediate, real-time information is crucial for efficient disaster management. Moreover, if we provide formal semantics on the sensor, the signals could also be understood from machines. This would gives us new opportunities with the sensor networks, e.g. identify “foreign” sensors, automatically interpret signals from own and foreign sensors, plausibility controls for the quality of the data, etc. This paper connects the actual needs for the construction of marine sensor networks with the technologies that are available from the Web community to outline a general scheme for implementing interoperability in Marine Geosensor networks and systems.