Open data services for environmental data
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet AB - IVL Stockholm |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 800 000 |
| Project duration | December 2012 - November 2013 |
| Status | Completed |
Important results from the project
The aim was to examine the prevailing conditions for publishing environmental data as open data through application programming interfaces (API). Selected data flows were: environmental screening of drugs [1], data on hydrological measurements [2], measurements of ground-level ozone (ozonmätnätet) [3] and pollutants in biota [4]. The goal was to use established conditions and publish at least two of them, available without any restrictions or requirements imposed on potential users. Flow [2] and flow [3] have been published, flow [1] and flow [4] have not yet been published.
Expected long term effects
Services developed in the project are openly available as API, along with test clients and code. The portal is under development and has as purpose to provide open flows of environmental data. Suitable data is longer time series but also measurement campaigns within projects, which naturally becomes exclusive in terms both of what is measured, when and where. The expected impact is that inaccessible data can be published openly and the project becomes a starting point for highlighting these data for research, for environmental reporting and for new applications.
Approach and implementation
The project was carried out in four phases; information, structure, API development and publishing. Each phase was designed as a specification to the next phase. For two data flows [2] and [3] the work progressed according to plan, and after reviewing of data structure choice of method, choice of database and server architecture could be performed and development of API begin. For flow [1] and [4] the situation was more complex. Flow [1] has led to a new project, with the revision of the data structure. Flow [4] is under investigation by the data owner, specification is expected in the spring.