1. Introduction to the
COBWEB project
Citizens’ Observatories Projects
Coordination Workshop,
Brussels.
29th Jan, 2013
Chris Higgins,
Project Coordinator,
EDINA National Data Centre,
University of Edinburgh.
chris.higgins@ed.ac.uk

2. The bare bones…
• Research project started Nov 2012 for 4 yrs
• Crowdsourced environmental data to aid
decision making
• Introduce quality measures and reduce
uncertainty
• Fusion of crowdsourced data with reference
data…
• Spatial Data Infrastructure - like initiatives
– National SDI’s in UK, Greece and Germany
– INSPIRE
– GEOSS

3. FP7-ENV-2012 observatories
Name Lead Topic
Citclops Barcelona Digital Coast and ocean
Centre Tecnològic optical
(Spain) monitoring
WeSenseIt University of Water
Sheffield (UK) Management
CITI-SENSE Nilu (Norway) Air quality
Omniscientis Spacebel (Belgium) Odour
monitoring
COBWEB UEDIN (UK) Various

4. Project Partners
University of Edinburgh Wendy MacAdie, Pete O’Hare UK
University of Nottingham Mike Jackson UK
Aberystwyth University Steve Walsh UK
Welsh Assembly Government Simon Agass UK
Environment Systems Limited Steve Walsh, Jamie Williams UK
Ecodyfi UK
Open Geospatial Consortium Europe Bart De Lathouwer UK
University College Dublin Gregory O’Hare IR
Technische Universitaet Dresden DE
Secure Dimensions GmbH DE
University of Western Greece GR
OIKOM – Environmental Studies Ltd GR
GeoCat BV NL

5. Essential context – WNBR
• UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programmes
(MAB) World Network of Biosphere Reserves
– Sites of excellence to foster harmonious integration
of people and nature for sustainable development
through participation, knowledge sharing, poverty
reduction and human well-being improvements,
cultural values and society's ability to cope with
change, thus contributing to the Millennium
Development Goals
• Main route to citizen engagement
• Chair of UK MAB on COBWEB Advisory Board
• 610 reserves in 117 countries
– But we are concentrating on three…

6. COBWEB Biosphere Reserves
1. UK (Wales): Biosffer Dyfi
– Development work concentrated here
2. Germany: Wadden See and Hallig Islands
3. Greece:
– Mount Olympus
– Gorge of Samaria
Left open possibility of expansion to further BRs
later in project

7. Status at moment
• Kickoff Nov 15th, 2012, in Edinburgh with
associated press release
• Still mostly in project setup mode
• Initial website up by end of month
• Consortium meeting April:
– Website plus content management system
– Communication plan
– COBWEB technical architecture
– Technical Work Packages kickoff
– Initial outputs stakeholder engagement

8. WP2: Stakeholder Engagement (Welsh Gov)
• Engage the main target stakeholder groups to elicit
requirements
• Encourage broad involvement in the project across
sectors, e, citizens, public sector, private sector,
academia
• Effectively feed user requirements to the rest of the
project to ensure COBWEB is user driven
• Establish and maintain alignment between project
deliverables and policy drivers
• Encourage take up of project deliverables and
results during and beyond the project’s life

9. Stakeholder Engagement – GEO-IX
• GEO Plenary main annual GEOSS event
• Impression was that mainly political/admin with
technical aspects peripheral
• Presented COBWEB at:
– EC Side Event
– Poster at booth
– Authentication Workshop
• Implications for Cit. Obs. Coordination:
– Opportunity to mention all projects
– Flyers would have been good
– Brazil was a long way to go…

10. Stakeholder Engagement – OGC TC
• Again attempting to stimulate discussion.
• COBWEB using OGC processes, eg,
– GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilots
– Interoperability Experiments
– OWS
– OGC Network
– OGC/AGILE/EuroSDR Persistent Testbed
(PTB)
• Would be happy to meet up at TC’s!

11. Stakeholder Engagement – UKEOF
• UK Environmental Observation Framework
– "facilitate the ongoing environmental evidence required to
understand the changing natural environment and its societal
interactions, thus guiding current and future environmental
management, policy, science and innovation priorities for
economic benefit and quality of life“
• Producers of report Understanding Citizen Science &
Environmental Monitoring Dec 2012
• Data Advisory Group is the UK forum with
responsibility for the INSPIRE theme environmental
monitoring facilities

12. WP3: Citizen Observatory Framework (UCD)
• Design of the COBWEB Portal & COBWEB
framework;
• Implementation of the COBWEB portal;
• Implementation of the COBWEB framework;
• Integration with other relevant WP’s
resulting in the final COBWEB platform;
• Production of necessary documentation
including user guides.

13. WP4: Citizen observatory mobile data collection, validation and
quality system (UNOTT)
• Design the prototype mobile phone data collection
sub-system
• Design and develop the back-end server based
system for dynamic model-based data validation
and quality assurance.
• Field test and iterate as necessary the prototype
citizen mobile data collection system and ensure
that it is compatible with work done under WP5
(privacy assurance and access control) and
provides a citizen friendly intuitive data collection
component for the demonstrator development
(WP6)

14. WP5: Privacy assurance and access management (SECD)
• “Data collected should be made available through
the GEOSS without any restrictions”
• “…addressing questions of privacy…”
• COBWEB about environmental, not personal data
• Some kinds of protected data that may be
encountered during the project:
– Personal information, eg, expert or novice
observer
– Location protected Species
– Reference data from European National
Mapping and Cadastral Agencies

15. WP6: Demonstrator Development (UCD)
• Minimum of 3 demonstrators in each of the
three subject areas
1. Creation and validation of data products from EO data
2. Biological monitoring
3. Flooding
• Proven working under different conditions in
different Biosphere Reserves
• Additional demonstrators in response to
community consultation
• Option of a non-EU international
demonstrator towards the end of the project

16. WP7: Data and knowledge management (UEDIN)
• Maximise use and reuse of Citizen Observatory
data and information.
• Working within the GEOSS framework, establish a
suite of common methodologies, standards and
guidelines for data archiving, discovery and access
for use by the WNBR.
• Create Biosphere Reserve data repositories
compliant with the above and demonstrate how the
process is repeatable with other Biosphere
Reserves and interoperable with other standards
compliant data infrastructures
• Establish metadata and quality guidelines for use
with crowdsourced data
• Modified GeoNetwork catalogue software capable
of handling crowdsourced “sensor” metadata,
privacy and concomitant data access

17. WP8: Testing and validation (ENVSYS)
• Test the approach taken by the project and assess
its feasibility for operational implementations
• Develop and document a test environment
incorporating test criteria and test cases for testing
and validating project outputs
• Test the data and services provided by COBWEB
for the three pilot case study subject areas,
validated initially in the Welsh Biosphere Reserve
• Test and validate the data and services provided by
COBWEB for other BR’s, eg, in Germany and
Greece
• Document the approach so that it may be used for
other reserves within the WNBR

18. Some COBWEB testbed considerations
• UNESCO WNBR as a global testbed environment
• Link up with other related testbed initiatives?
• Sustainability an ongoing problem
• Continue with the PTB?
– OGC (University Domain Working Group)
– Association GI Laboratories Europe (AGILE)
– EuroSDR
• Attempt to develop links with existing academic sector
SAML federations?
• Use OGC interoperability experiment process?
18

19. WP9: Dissemination, exploitation and usage (ENVSYS)
• Gain maximum exposure for and raise awareness
of the project with all relevant stakeholders
• Encourage enthusiastic involvement in the project
• Encourage take up of project deliverables and
sustained results during and beyond the project’s
life
• Evaluate and assess business models predicated
on COBWEB technology and outputs
• Evaluate and assess applications for the data and
services produced by COBWEB

20. Any questions?
chris.higgins@ed.ac.uk