COWRIE: COLLABORATIVE OFFSHORE WIND RESEARCH INTO THE ENVIRONMENT

Data Management and Coordination

Developers' Seminar
5th December 2005
IMarEST
80 Coleman Street, London EC2R 5BJ.

Monday 5th December 2005
10.00 am to 16.30 pm.

Developers' Seminar

5th December 2005, IMAREST, London.

Introduction

COWRIE, the Collaborative Offshore Windfarm Research Into The Environment, was set up "to advance and improve understanding and knowledge of the potential environmental impacts and benefits of offshore windfarm development in UK waters". COWRIE will achieve this through:

• a coherent programme of short to medium term generic environmental research leading to the publication and dissemination of reports, guidance notes and best practice documents;
• the management and dissemination of environmental data and information collected, analysed and interpreted throughout the whole life cycle of each windfarm project (from development through operation and decommissioning);
• raising awareness of the UK offshore windfarm programme through a comprehensive education, communications and outreach strategy.

Under the terms of Agreement for Lease and Lease for Round II marine renewable projects all environmental data and information collected as part of developers' site investigations and environmental impact assessments and monitoring is to be provided to The Crown Estate. It is proposed that the data and information will be brought together based on the implementation of a Data and Information Management Plan (DIMP). The DIMP implementation will also incorporate the outputs and data from the COWRIE-funded research programmes. It is envisaged that the outcome of the DIMP will be guidance and best practice on data and information management, web-based access to metadata and data generated through Round II and from research programmes and a long-term (c 50 year) data management strategy.

The Consultation Draft of the Data and Information Management Plan (DIMP) and an online comment form is available at: data.offshorewind.co.uk

Aims and Objectives

The aim of the seminar is to explore what COWRIE proposes within the DIMP and to enable discussion on current data holding, data submission and data and information retrieval. The objectives of the workshop are to:

1. brief and update developers / consultants on COWRIE's data management role,
2. describe the main elements of the Data and Information Management Plan,
3. highlight experiences of developers and consultants in managing data and information,
4. identify the challenges to data collation, the need for standards, guidance and tools to facilitate data and information submission,
5. to help developers understand:
   • the scale and nature of their expected contribution;
   • the likely format of and timescale for future data submissions; and
   • processes for data retrieval from COWRIE and longer term data and information management,
6. explore the next steps in the implementation of the Data and Information Management Plan.

Provisional Programme

10.00	Coffee and Registration
10.15	Introduction and welcome Carolyn Heeps (COWRIE Director and Chair of COWRIE Data Working Group)
10.35	Wider coordinated management of marine data Mike Cowling (Science and Research Manager, The Crown Estate)
10.45	Developer data management perspective Ben Barton (npower renewables)
11.00	Examples of data traffic Bill Cooper (ABP mer)
11.15	FEPA licence data management requirements Geoff Bowles (Head of Marine Consents and Environment Unit, Defra)
11.30	Data and Information Management Plan Chris Hill and Jason Sadler (GeoData Institute)
11.50	Discussion of data handling issues from individual projects
13.00	Lunch
13.45	Technical proposals for data submission and access Jason Sadler (GeoData Institute)
14.00	Longer-term data management and value-added benefits Keith Hiscock (MarLIN Marine Biological Association)
14.30	Coffee / Teas
14.50	Discussion of issues: identify the developer / consultant requirements on themes: (led by Quentin Huggett, GeoTek) Scope of data holdings Metadata + Data submissions Data management plans Data retrieval and access Copyright issues
15.50	Next steps / Programme
16.15	Summing up and actions Led by Carolyn Heeps
16.30	Close

Time is allocated for discussion and questions, and also for c. 5 min for each Project to describe their own approaches. Please come prepared to contribute to the 11.50 session.

For directions to IMarEST:

The Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology
80 Coleman Street
London
EC2R 5BJ

Tel: +44 (0)20 7382 2600

www.imarest.org