Progress report for
Marine Information and Data for Users - www.MarineFinland.fi
Achievement at a glance
The new Finland's marine information and data portal, www.MarineFinland.fi will be launched in spring in 2020.The extensive MarineFinland.fi will offer one-stop-shop access to information about the Baltic Sea in perspectives of all governance sectors. It will also serve as Finland's marine data centre, i.e. an easy access to all Finland's oceanographic, biological, chemical and other data regarding the Baltic Sea. The portal is a window for Finland's marine policies, maritime activities and research work. It will offer real time information about the state of the Baltic Sea, it has educational material, large photo bank and a mobile field guide (information about nature, cultural sites, state of the sea, etc.) for marine hikers. A well structured portal will be published in three languages (Finnish, Swedish and English).
The partners of the portal are Finnish Environment Institute, Finnish Meteorological Institute, Finnish Geological Institute, Finnish Natural Resources Institute, Finnish Forest and Park Service, Finnish Heritage Agency, land County Government, Network of Marine Spatial Planning of Finnish Centres for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment. The project has been supported by European Marine and Fisheries Fund.
Challenges faced in implementation
It has been a challenge and an achievement to pull together information of all research institutes and agencies that produce marine information in Finland. The portal has been made in horizontal cooperation by institutes of a number of different government sectors. There has been also a lot of work to harmonize data interfaces.The portal aims to be user-friendly which is why it has been prepared in principles of service design by being in structured interaction with its user groups.
Beneficiaries
The portal provide information services to all, officials, private sector, researchers, stakeholders, hikers, schools, media and wide public both nationally and internationally.