GGOS Portal - The future Metadata Platform for Geodetic Data - Feasibility Study and Perspectives

The services of the International Association of Geodesy (IAG) provide very important and valuable geodetic data, information, and data products that are increasingly relevant for Earth system research, including monitoring of global change phenomena and a wide range of diverse applications such as satellite navigation, surveying, mapping, engineering, geospatial information systems, and so on.

Currently, it is difficult for many people to obtain an overview of all available geodetic products and data. The Global Geodetic Observing System (GGOS) of the IAG aims to fill this gap by developing the GGOS-Portal (ggos.org/portal), which will serve as a unique search and access point (one-stop shop) for geodetic data and products. Data and products will be described by rich metadata and remain physically located at their originating data centers of each contributing IAG service and other data providers. With this future platform, GGOS will contribute to increase the visibility of geodetic data for scientific research and to make other disciplines and the society aware of geodesy and its beneficial products.

Several software packages are available for the realization of such a metadata platform. Two of them are particularly suitable for this purpose: GeoNetwork and CKAN. Based on the community survey conducted in spring 2023, a requirements profile for the GGOS portal was drawn up as part of a feasibility study and compared with the tested functionalities of the two software packages. A particular focus was on testing the metadata harvesting function.