News
29 January 2019
We are pleased to launch the release of the second generation of OBIS (OBIS 2.0). Not only the URL has changed from IOBIS.ORG to OBIS.ORG. OBIS now runs on a complete new infrastructure and technology stack. This allows us to do continous data integration from OBIS Nodes - as soon as OBIS Nodes publish new or updated data, the OBIS system begins automated processing to ingest data and completes integration routines in a timely manner (minutes to an hour). Since March 2018, the last time OBIS harvested the OBIS nodes, we added 3 million occurrences from 189 new datasets. With OBIS 2.0, those new data will be immediately processed (quality controlled), integrated in the central database and made available.
Other changes are in the taxonomic information. OBIS is now fully aligned with the World Register of Marine Species, which means that records are dropped when those are from species that are not in WoRMS or listed as non-marine. The information portal also provides details on quality issues and a more powerful mapper allows the users to visualise, filter and download millions of records.
We now have a more solid foundation to build improved data processing/integration workflows, new data synthesis routines that add value to OBIS data, and new types of products and applications for scientific and decision-making. This enables OBIS to fully embrace ecosystem Essential Ocean Variables to support the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) and the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) in their efforts to build a sustained, globally coordinated observing system on the status and trends of marine biodiversity and habitats.
If you experience any bugs or have questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.