The adaptive integrated data information system (AIDIS) for global water research

Global research programs related to river basin water resources have at least two things in common: (1) they assess and model hydrological process dynamics on a macro scale and (2) research partners jointly working on such research issues are internationally distributed in different institutions. These prerequisites require a sophisticated and scale bridging data assessment and information management comprising geo-referenced distributed data components, measured or simulated time series, and socio-economic information. Networking such international research structures by means of the internet pose new challenges to Geoinformatics in respect to the design of a Web based distributed database system, metadata and GIS-information management, geo-referenced data query and visualization. Such data management must include powerful and efficient data exchanging software tools and information sharing policies to ensure that decision making can jointly be done on the base of the best information available. Geoinformation includes raster and vector GIS coverages, measured process time series data and associated metadata. Furthermore there are needs to integrate multidisciplinary information and research knowledge related to IWRM comprising information obtained by remote sensing, GIS analysis, modeling, and socio-economic assessments for vulnerability and mitigation. Addressing these challenges and to cope with such data organization and management tasks the Adaptive Integrated Data Information System (AIDIS) has been developed by the DGHM at the FSU-Jena. It is based on open source software (OSS) and a multi tier class hierarchy structure. AIDIS has implemented the full ISO 19115 metadata model, and enhances its structure if required e.g. for time series or documents. A first prototype was developed for the Challenge Program “Water and Food” (CPWF) of the CGIAR and has been improved and refined for the Tisza River basin within the “Tisza River” EU-project comprising at present about one hundred GIS maps and more than 5000 measured and simulated time series.