1. ICES – Web services & Data services
Carlos Pinto, ICES Data Systems Analyst
JERICO summer school presentation
17th June 2014

2. Marine Science Cooperation
since 1902;
20 Member Countries;
Intergovernmental Organization;
Legal basis, 1964 Convention
ICES in a Nutshell

3. 360 Institutes; A network of 4,000
scientists;
1,600 scientists participating in
activities annually;
>100 Expert Groups that address the
many diverse issues of marine
ecosystems and ocean sustainability
ICES in a Nutshell
57,21
15,35
16,85
10,59
% Scientists in Science EG (2012)
ICES M.C. Governm.
Laboratories
Other Research
Institutions
Universities
Other

4. Data services
Source: dilbert.com

5. Data has to be organized
The World Wide Web has been also caled the Information
Highway (Bill Gates, 1997)
Example would be
Wikipedia
8 billion words in 19 million
articles in approximately
270 languages
English Wikipedia alone has over 3 804 086 articles

6. Data services
What kind of services can be offered?
• Download (user friendly, can offer distinct
visualizations and options);
• Map services (user like maps);
• Meta data services (normally well described, easy to
build);
• Web services (requires advanced users, small
maintenance, easy to deploy).

7. 1 149 608 measurements
Stomach Content data
5 638 877 measurements
Fish trawl survey
245 470 249 measurements
Oceanographic
9 547 077 measurements
Cont. and bio. effects
240 210 measurements
Biological community
318 319 measurements
ICES Historical Plankton
996 282 measurements
ICES Historical Plankton
1
3
11
49 Years
122 Years
30
Bar chart with the number of years per dataset
33 Years
11
91 Years
ICES Datasets

8. Data flow in ICES
ICES Data Portal

9. EcoSystemData
Stomach content
data
ICES Data Portal
Why gathering all ICES Data in a Portal
Hydrographic
data
Ecosystem approach
Synergy
Multidisciplinary
Integrated
assessment
Multispecies
– integrated repository
of data
– international
collection of different
kinds of marine
related data
– integration of distinct
formats previously
held in disjointed data
structures and
systems
Historical
plankton
Eggs and Larvae
Fisheries data
Environmental
data

10. What kind of data and services ICES has?
Data is available in ICES main data portal
(http://ecosystemdata.ices.dk)
1) For download
2) web services
3) In a map

11. ICES Data portal – All data is free access
From the ICES data portal all data is free,
accessible and downloadable

12. Datasets and maps have metadata and are organized
http://geo.ices.dk

13. Web map services
Get the regions from the spatial facility server using WMS
EcoRegions get from ICES Spacial facility server

14. Web services portal
http://gis.ices.dk/geoportal/catalog/main/home.page
ICES - Web services are organized and documented

15. Web services portal
Using the web services to download data from DATRAS
Web services

16. Downloading a data file or a shapefile
From the data portal users can download a text file or a shapefile
EcoRegions get from ICES Spacial facility server

17. Exercice 1
Please find the Dutch name and species name for
the following species:
- Chicharro
- Linguado
- Torsk

18. Exercice 2
Could you please find the AphiaID for the following
species (some of these might be invalid):
- Anabaena lemmermannii
- Anabaena spiroides
- Crangonidae
- Cribrinidae
- Polymorphina lacteal
- Pontocrates arcticus

19. Exercise 3
Imagine that your line-manager asked you to see
check the abundance of “Chicharro” in the Atlantic.
Could you download a shapefile from ICES with this
species (you can use QGIS to display the shapefile).

20. Exercise 4
They ask you to tell from the ICES area what is the
area with most measurements. Could you
download the Layer of ICES Areas from ICES and
display it with the measurements of “chicharro”.

21. Exercise 5
Now you were also approached by a company that
would like to build an indicator based on the
contaminants found in the liver of “Torsk”, could
you check the number of measurements and range
in years of Mercury, Aluminium and Cadmium in
“Torsk”? (use the inventory of ICES data portal)

22. Exercise 6
Your line-manager wants to see how he can have
access to the ICES trawl survey data. He knows
these data can be a good indicator of some species.
Could you list to him the web-services of
datras.ices.dk?

23. Exercise 7
Can you download the data of “Torsk” from Eggs
and Larvae?
How many lines has the file?

24. Exercise 8
How would you consume these web services?
Can you consume a webservice from ICES?

25. Exercise 9
Could you download all the data from “Torsk” from
ICES?
The file with all the data is here:
http://ecosystemdata.ices.dk/download/JERICO_To
rsk.zip
List in an excel spreadsheet all:
-Matrices
-Datasets
-Measurements

26. www.ices.dk
More information
Thank you for your attention