ICES Data Portal has been serving the marine science community since 2021. It brings together hundreds of millions of measurements from surveys, monitoring programmes, and research cruises, covering topics like water temperature and salinity, plankton, fish stocks, eggs and larvae, contaminants, underwater noise, and biodiversity. It’s widely used by marine scientists, fisheries managers, policy-makers, environmental agencies, students, and educators who need marine data collected across the North Atlantic and surrounding seas to understand changes in the marine environment. They use these observations to develop practical evidence to support sustainable marine management.
To be a world-leading data centre, we need to constantly look at how we can improve. Over the past five years, the Data Portal has been undergoing upgrades and has now been relaunched as dataXplorer. Mehdi Abbasi, Software Development Team Lead in ICES Data Centre has been leading the project. “The development of ICES Data Portal has been carried out in two phases. The core phase, released in August 2021, supported only public data. Now, with the subsequent extended phase, we have introduced support for restricted data."
"At the same time, continues Abbasi, "we have relaunched the portal as dataXplorer to bring it in line with the wider ICES Xplorer family, including adviceXplorer and fisheriesXplorer. The relaunch comes with updated design, themes, and icons, creating a more consistent look and feel across ICES digital tools.”
Improved access to restricted datasets
Our new dataXplorer platform has all the features of our previous Data Portal but introduces new ways to visualize and download restricted data layers. dataXplorer supports three types of datasets: public data, restricted data, and combined public and restricted data.
What does this mean for users of the platform? Public data has been available since 2021 and remains freely available. However, prior to the introduction of restricted data support in dataXplorer, users were required to access individual data portals to view and download such data. Now, with dataXplorer, an aggregated view is provided where all users have a clearer picture of what information exists while still protecting access rules. Authorized users can download restricted data based on their permissions. If a user does not have access to restricted datasets, only aggregated information will be included in any downloaded files.
Datasets that combine both public and restricted data, such as vulnerable marine ecosystem (VME) data, are also available.
Availability of datasets that consist of solely restricted data, such as the Regional DataBase and Estimation System (RDBES), are expected by the end of this year.
dataXplorer is now the place to find and use trusted marine data, whether you are tracking ecosystem change, supporting policy decisions, or simply curious about what is happening beneath the surface. Mehdi and the rest of the dataXplorer team invite you to explore the new platform dataXplorer and to share your feedback as it continues to grow.
