Our next CKAN Monthly Live webinar puts CKAN datasets on the map. On Wednesday, 18 November at 13:00 UTC, the teams at datHere and the Center for Geospatial Solutions will introduce ckanext-gztr, a new open-source extension that lets publishers connect datasets to real-world places on an interactive map. You’ll see how it works in a demo and learn how CKAN portals with water data can join the Geoconnex network.
Many CKAN portals can tell you what a dataset is about, but not where it applies. Spatial metadata (when there is any) is usually a hand-typed bounding box or a free-text place name, leading to spatial metadata that isn’t exposed in a findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) manner. The question “What geospatial feature(s) are associated with this CKAN dataset?” must be answerable through FAIR principles on CKAN portals and in an easy-to-use way for dataset publishers, but how?
ckanext-gztr (“gazetteer”) is an open-source CKAN extension from datHere that attempts to resolve this issue. Dataset publishers select the geospatial features a dataset covers (e.g., cities, counties, watersheds, regions) on an interactive map instead of typing coordinates. Public users search for datasets by either drawing a bounding box on a map or searching by a geospatial feature’s name. Dataset search results visualize minimaps of each dataset’s geospatial features beside its description, and every dataset landing page shows the same map.
ckanext-gztr also exposes its geospatial features by implementing a SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) API and metadata through the new CKAN 2.12 file storage system, where STAC is a suite of specifications to describe a catalog of geospatial data, and also benefits from cloud-optimized geospatial formats including GeoParquet and PMTiles. Public users can then interact with a CKAN portal’s available geospatial features through external tools built for STAC metadata and cloud-native geospatial principles shared by the geospatial community.
One of ckanext-gztr’s flagship integrations is with Geoconnex, the Internet of Water’s open reference system for linking water data to the hydrologic features in the U.S. Geoconnex describes various real-world features such as rivers, watersheds, and more. Each geospatial feature is assigned a persistent identifier (PID), which data providers and catalogs (such as CKAN) can refer to in their metadata. Geoconnex can then harvest and index datasets and locations into one searchable graph network of water data across agencies and regions. The Center for Geospatial Solutions developed Geoconnex, and collaborates with the U.S. Geological Survey for linking real-world hydrologic features.
With ckanext-gztr’s opt-in Geoconnex sync, a CKAN portal with water data joins that network. When dataset publishers select a sub-basin, river, or other geospatial feature linked to Geoconnex, the CKAN datasets are linked to in the Geoconnex graph next to USGS and other providers’ data about the same hydrologic feature, with no extra publishing work. Public users can then find the datasets by querying the Geoconnex graph with SPARQL queries or exploring the interactive Geoconnex Explorer map.
The work grew out of datHere’s ~5 years on the Texas and New Mexico water data hubs, where datHere also built the Geoconnex reference implementation connector with ckanext-gztr. Collaborators include the Center for Geospatial Solutions, the U.S. Geological Survey, the New Mexico Water Data Initiative, the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, the Texas Geographic Information Office, the Internet of Water, and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
By attending this session, you can learn about the new ckanext-gztr CKAN extension, the Geoconnex water data knowledge graph, and how CKAN dataset publishers can associate CKAN datasets with real-world geospatial features using interactive maps to enable multiple geospatial capabilities for their CKAN instance, including spatial search and minimaps.
- Understand how ckanext-gztr helps answer “What real-world geospatial feature(s) is this CKAN dataset related to?” and vice versa
- Discover how the Center for Geospatial Solutions graphs real-world hydrologic features on a national scale
- Journey through the development of a CKAN extension to resolve GIS issues, with an overview of the tools and tech used to build it
- Watch a dataset publisher associate a dataset with real geographic features using an interactive map, then, as a public user, search by bounding box and view the dataset’s minimaps and metadata
- Learn about geospatial concepts such as STAC and cloud-optimized geospatial formats, and how they can be integrated with a CKAN portal
- Share feedback and ideas on improving geospatial capabilities with CKAN
In the presentation, Joel Natividad, Andrew Padilla, and Mueez Khan will cover:
- The benefits of sharing FAIR geospatial metadata from CKAN portals and an approach using ckanext-gztr
- The Geoconnex water data knowledge graph and its persistent identifier (PID) system for identifying real-world hydrologic features
- The journey to developing the ckanext-gztr CKAN extension, along with the issues it resolves through its various features and tech
- A demonstration of associating CKAN datasets with real-world geospatial features using ckanext-gztr
- How CKAN instances with water data can join the Geoconnex network with an opt-in integration using ckanext-gztr
Co-founder & co-CEO, datHere
Joel Natividad is co-founder and co-CEO of datHere, on a mission to make data Useful, Usable & Used. He has worked on data portals and data infrastructure since 2010. In 2011, he co-founded Ontodia, the first CKAN professional services partner in the Americas, which built open data portals for Jersey City, Newark, Boston, San Antonio and others before being acquired by OpenGov in 2016. He is the lead maintainer of qsv, the open-source data-wrangling toolkit that powers DataPusher+ for CKAN.
Director, Knowledge and Insights, Center for Geospatial Solutions, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
Andrew Padilla is Director of Knowledge and Insights at the Center for Geospatial Solutions (CGS) at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, where he leads the design and build of an integrated knowledge graph linking land, water, and other data at the parcel level. He first joined CGS as Associate Director of Technology for the Internet of Water, where he developed Geoconnex, the open-source water data infrastructure. Before CGS, he led software development for the New Mexico Water Data Initiative and founded the consulting firm Datacequia.
Principal Engineer, datHere
Mueez Khan is a fellow human focused on solving real-world problems with tech solutions for beneficial impact. His work involves several domains including full-stack/data/geospatial/infrastructure engineering along with technical/educational content creation.
Join us live on 18 November at 13:00 UTC
CKAN Monthly Live is free and open to all.
