The third Meeting of the MedWet CODDE project  ‘Information and MedWet information and knowledge network for the sustainable development of wetland ecosystems’ met in Athens, 9-11 February. Representatives of four of the five partner organisations as well of the MedWet Culture Working Group and information system experts attended the Meeting.

The Meeting aimed to revise the MedWet Inventory Method and the web hosted database o­n Mediterranean Wetlands. Participants considered: other approaches to indicators to complement the Ramsar procedure regarding monitoring and assessment; a timeline for testing the new datasheets revised by the CODDE project before they can be finalised. The Meeting considered the Remote Sensing applications to be introduced into the inventorying tool in the context of testing the applications and integrating the experience of MedWet CODDE in other Earth Observation projects or initiatives including the INSPIRE and C-GTOS initiatives. Testing of the Remote Sensing tools will be carried out in Tour du Valat, France as well as a weltand site in Estonia. A workshop o­n the remote sensing component will be held in April.

The Meeting made some progress regarding the structure of the web-hosted database agreeing to use the data model developed by the SUDOE project as a basis o­n which the CODDE information system will be developed.  In this context the Meeting addressed issues related to accessing, gathering and analysing and hosting of data. The Meeting decided that collaboration among information system experts of ICN and EKBY should be developed to further progress o­n these issues.  It was also agreed that the MedWet web-hosted inventorying system will be hosted o­n the server of the SUDOE database. Security in sharing and accessing data was also addressed. A draft of the protocol to guide access and sharing of data will be drafted and opened to discussion in the April workshop.

Integration of existing data as well as data which is in the process of being compiled was addressed, including the possibility of extracting data from existing sources using software applications  to store them in the new database. The method developed by EKBY o­n compiling a wetland inventory using satellite data was presented to the Meeting including elements regarding capturing geographic information, analysing and classifying wetlands into types as well as the format in which the information can be accessed and viewed.

The Meeting received a presentation of the new webpages developed for the CODDE project, available o­n and agreed o­n further developments, including new content o­n the partners as well as o­n the background of the project.

Updated on 10/18/2006 12:00:33 PM.