Die Küste, 81 (2014), 29-43 
32 
The Geodata Portal of the Federal government (www.geoportal.de) and die Envi 
ronmental Information Portal of the Federal government (www.portalu.de) provide inte 
grative views of existing data from thematic perspectives. Flere the available data are 
retrievable in search portals through standardized metadata and standardized Web 
services are used for visualization and download. Especially for die coastal zone, diere 
were only die GeoSeaPortal (MELLES 2009) at BSF1 using OGC-compliant Web services 
(OGC 2011) and die coastal metadata information system NOKIS (LehfeldT et al. 
2008) joindy operated by BSF1 and BAW using ISO 19115-compliant metadata. 
SEIS 
Figure 2: Data flow and reporting within the MDI-DE information network. 
Fig. 2 illustrates the data flow from the distributed source systems in the MDI-DE 
information network to existing national and international target systems, which have to 
be supplied witii data and metadata by die Federal and State autiiorities. To ensure an 
efficient task completion in this context, first a data infrastructure for die networking of 
existing source systems must be built. The demands from government, academia, politics, 
industry and die public require integration of marine data from die existing heterogene 
ous portals. The new MDI-DE portal benefits from die technical experience witii 
NOKIS and die GeoSeaPortal. 
The demand for cross-thematic data analysis is constantly growing. The reasons for 
this are the increasing complexity of current issues in connection witii antiiropogenic 
changes in marine ecosystems and global climate change. So tiiere are new demands from 
coastal protection and increasing legal requirements for reporting obligations by the 
Marine Strategy MSFD, die Flood Risk Directive FRD (EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND 
COUNCIL 2007b) and the INSPIRE framework directives. At die same time die technical 
developments in die World Wide Web and by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC