As part of its work programme, Biodiversa+ aims to support interoperability and harmonisation of biodiversity monitoring databases.
In this context, a workshop on data interoperability and harmonisation was organised on the 4th of November 2022. This workshop was an opportunity for (sub-)national initiatives/databases to introduce their data architecture and data workflows and to discuss on how Biodiversa+ could provide support to reinforce data interoperability and harmonisation.
This was the second workshop organised by Biodiversa+ on this topic. The first one was organised on the 1st of September 2022 and targeted European and global databases and initiatives.
47 participants attended this second workshop representing European/ global intitiatives/ databases, (sub-)national initiatives/databases, Biodiversa+ Partners, representatives of European institutions and researchers.
During the first part of this workshop, Hanna Koivula from the CSC-IT Centre for Science in Finland gave a keynote speech on data interoperability and harmonisation. This keynote was followed by two case study presentations. First, Dimitri Brossens from INBO introduced the “Meetnetten” Flemish webtool for biodiversity monitoring’s data architecture and data workflows and how data are shared with GBIF. The second case study was presented by Barbara Ebert, from NFDI4Biodiversity, who gave an introduction of the German NFDI4Biodiversity database.
During the second part of the workshop, building on the outcomes of the first workshop, the participants were divided into three sub-group to identify concrete solutions to help tackle the data interoperability and harmonisation challenges related to:
- Lack of (meta)standards
- Lack of capacity building and knowledge sharing opportunities
- The governance for biodiversity monitoring data interoperability
