National Data Grid, a Platform for Integrated Climate Change Research

  • Dr Tai Chan, Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information and Victorian Department of Sustainability & Environment, Australia
  • Mark Eigenraam, Victorian Department of Sustainability & Environment, Australia
  • Mark Stephens, Victorian Office of Emergency Services Commissioner, Department of Justice, Australia
  • Patricia Fitzsimons, Victorian Department of Primary Industries, Australia
  • Dr Adam Lewis, Geoscience Australia, Australia
  • Stephen Farrell, Spatial Vision, Australia
  • Glenn Frankish, Victorian Partnership for Advacned Computing, Australia

    • The National Data Grid (NDG) is a shared data infrastructure that adopts a grid cell (also called raster) based approach to managing spatial information (SI). It is a Demonstrator Project funded by Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial information (CRC SI) and commenced in October 2008.

    The objective of NDG is to build on the earlier successful Platform for Environmental Modelling Support (PEMS) Demonstrator Project and to extend its capabilities to meet the needs of the core participants. These needs include providing a production platform for the hosting, using and ordering/extracting grid cell based data in real business applications; demonstrating the value of NDG to the public, national and jurisdictional stakeholders; and developing options to strengthen the scalability of NDG.

    The method of undertaking the project involves an innovative model based on that offered by the CRCSI and inviting new participants into the project. The technical platform is based on that developed for the PEMS project. It also adopted the investment management methodology developed for the Victorian Government to ensure the benefits of the project are realised.

    The result is that NDG is able to show that it can support a number of business applications that represent key activities underpinning Australia’s broad approach to climate change. They include applications for monitoring the environment, modelling/analysing impact and associated adaptation measures, communication of outcomes to end users.

    This leads to the conclusion that NDG fills an important gap in the Australian Spatial Data Infrastructure in supporting climate change response in Australia.