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Sandre : A quality year!

(The News N° 21 - January 2011)

Reference frames allow gathering and exchanging data, they ensure technical interoperability of databases and applications for data management: they are thus the cornerstone of information systems.

The French National Water Data Plan, approved by the Ministers of the Environment, Local and Overseas Authorities, Health, Agriculture and Food, formalized the National Data Reference Center for Water (Sandre) that has existed since 1993, as a French reference frame of water data. IOWater is in charge of its Technical Secretariat.

”Sandre” produces and disseminates reference frames (specification documents and data sets) free of use at: http://sandre.eaufrance.fr

Year 2010 was marked by:

  1. Obtaining an ISO 9001 certification covering the alphanumeric reference data managed by ”Sandre”: parameters, taxa, analyzed fractions, etc.. This area will evolve in 2011; the objective is to progressively cover all activities of Sandre’s Technical Secretariat.
  2. Redesigning the Atlas, a name which means the cartographic search engine for data sets, geographic references and associated metadata: measuring stations, infrastructures and zoning, etc.. This new service appears under the hea - ding "Online Services - For a data set" on ”Sandre” website.
  3. Publication of specification documents relating to water and aquatic environments, on various topics such as water bodies, water abstractions, industrial discharges and quality of coastal waters.
    Also, ”Sandre” continues to improve data exchanges for the information system of the Hydrometeorology and Support to Flood Forecasting Center (SCHAPI).
  4. Completion of more than 650 certifications, which cover exchange scenarios for hydrometry, land application plans and exchanges between laboratories, water suppliers and Departmental Health Services, via the information system of the Ministry for Health.

Of course, work carried out in France is in line with European or international standards, to which ”Sandre” participates. Thus, it contributes to the specifications of the INSPIRE Directive.
It participates in drafting the "WaterML 2.0" specifications (working group on hydrology) of the OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium). It is involved in the specifications for the exchange of water data of COVADIS, Joint Commission of the Ministries of Environment and Agriculture, responsible

 

(The News N° 16 - December 2008)

SANDRE (National Data Reference Center for Water) works out the common language used by the French national Water Information System (WIS) directed by ONEMA (National Agency for Water and Aquatic Environments).

IOWater takes care of its technical secretariat. SANDRE produces specifications which guarantee the technical interoperability of the information system.
2008 was marked by improvements, aiming to better meet the users’ needs.

  • The OGRES service (Management tool for SANDRE reference frames on water) enables the users to obtain answers to the requests for adding new elements in SANDRE nomenclatures (mainly chemical parameters and taxons);
  • The specifications for data exchanges on the quality of surface and inland waters and on the obstacles to runoff were produced with the tool used for generating SANDRE documents (data dictionaries and inter-exchange scenarios);
  • EDILABO, the standard of physicochemical data exchange with the laboratories now has a new version free to use. SANDRE works on EDILABO Version 2 for biological data exchange.

SANDRE and the health services
In 2008, IOWater contributed to the draftagreement between the French Ministry for Health and the water suppliers for data exchange with the DDASS (Departmental Health and Sanitary services) and managed the evolution of the necessary benchmark data (codes of statement, parameters, etc).

The CG34 wants to be in conformity with SANDRE
The General Council of Herault (CG34) asked IOWater to produce the necessary recommendations for its Water and Environments Network (RFEM) to be in conformity with SANDRE specifications.

IOWater contributes to INSPIRE
The European INSPIRE Directive defines the framework of a common infrastructure for geographical data: in the consortium, selected after invitation to tender, IOWater contributes to the development of a harmonized metadata profile for air, water, waste and biodiversity and of data-processing tools for reporting to the European level.

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