Oceanographic data centre dedicated to the long-term storage, the scientific processing, and the publication of Belgian marine environmental data.
BELGIAN MARINE DATA CENTRE
The Belgian Marine Data Centre (BMDC), located at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), is a National Oceanographic Data Centre (NODC) dedicated to the long-term storage, the scientific processing, and the publication of Belgian marine environmental data.
The mission of BMDC is firstly to assure the safeguarding of meaningful oceanographic data collections as a valuable heritage to support environment assessments of the past, present and future quality state of the North Sea. So far, around half a million marine data are archived in its central oceanographic database and is accessible via its Oceanographic Data request platform.
The BMDC holds a wealth of publicly accessible marine data collected using a variety of instruments and samplers and collated from many sources. It handles biological, ecological, chemical, physical, and geophysical data and its oceanographic database contains measurements of more than half a million marine measurement results available online.
BMDC activities relies on the scientific expertise of a dedicated team of environmental engineers, biologists, and informaticians whose expertise is oriented towards the management and the analysis of marine environmental data and the development of related web services.
Type: virtual infrastructure
Access & costs: Free and following the FAIR principles. The Data Inventory and Tracking System (DITS) is a tool that allows to centralise, integrate and valorise data compiled in the frame of specific research projects/monitoring programmes for oceanographic data (an account is required). The RBINS Geonetwork Data portal can be browsed to access specific datasets, services and maps, when other specific requests can be also addressed using the online form. Moreover, GIS data can be accessed with the BEDIC GeoServer.
Website: http://www.bmdc.be/NODC/index.xhtml
Contact: the centre can be reached by using the online contact form.