Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) gives Denmark the possibility to claim extensions of the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles in five different areas - two around the Faroe Islands and three around Greenland. As the Convention on the Law of the Sea was ratified by the Danish government in 2004 claims should be put forward no later than 2014, but relations to neighbouring countries may result in earlier submissions in some of the areas.
The digital infrastructure of the Danish Continental Shelf Project (DIA76) was established to solve issues relating to the strict data documentation requirements put forward in the Scientific and Technical guidelines of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLSC). DIA76 offers a central data management strategy aiming to meet the challenges offered by the complexity and extensive duration of the project together with the wish to harmonise the data products used in submissions for each of the five potential claim areas. The system builds on the principles that all data used in the project - either in planning operations or directly in the documentation of claims - should be stored and maintained in a single database. Raw data are not covered by this principle, but references to the location of raw data are available from the metadata in the database. The strategy ensures that the big diversity of data from various data providers is stored in a uniform way in a central location, providing all project members with the opportunity to work on a common and updated data set. Furthermore, the approach makes the project less vulnerable to changes in manning and technology, factors that are important to consider in a project that runs for more than 10 years.
Data in the database are considered at any time to be as correct and updated as possible. An important feature of the database is that all logical relations between individual data sets are maintained. This facilitates traceability and allows thorough drill-down from the final submission points to all data that have been used for the documentation of the individual points.
Quality control of data in the database is performed by dedicated persons from the various institutions that are responsible for providing data for the project. Project member's main entrance to data is a web GIS interface designed to show all spatial data within the database. Hyperlinks from individual GIS themes facilitate the access to the underlying data and the drill-down procedures.
All maps, survey reports and other data documenting material to be used in final submissions are produced directly from data in the database; thereby ensuring that the most correct and quality controlled data are used. Furthermore, working in a centralised setup ensures consistency of material produced for the five areas and a more efficient production of maps.
