1. Introduction

At  Singapore’s World Hydrography Day celebrations in June 2019, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) officially announced the setting up of our national Marine Spatial Data Infrastructure (MSDI) initiative, called ‘GeoSpace-Sea’ (Maritime and Port Authority of
Singapore, 2019a). This initiative complements Singapore’s terrestrial-based spatial data infrastructure (SDI). The MPA collaborated with 11 other government agencies and academic representatives to deliver the marine component of the national SDI, and in doing so, bridge the land-and-sea information gap through data harmonisation and interoperable standards, in particular those that are Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) approved.

At the national level it was agreed that a continuous land to sea surface model would be fundamental to addressing issues such as sea level rise and coastal adaptation. The first phase of GeoSpace-Sea aimed to establish partnerships, implement the Geographic Information System (GIS) infrastructure and provide access to government stakeholders. The next phase is expected to create access for institutes of higher learnings and public end-user groups, enhance the repository with the integration of near real-time data, and enable hydrospatial end-user applications.

MSDIs are an embodiment and enabler of hydrospatial applications; harmonising and distributing marine and coastal spatial data and information to support a wide range of applications beyond safety and efficiency of navigation, such as marine and coastal spatial planning, marine science research and development, climate change research, and disaster response. ‘Hydrospatial’ is a new proposed branch of applied science to study the evolving marine and coastal spatial objects in the ocean and sea space, and how they are applied to serve agendas like a sustainable Blue Economy (Ponce, 2019; Hains, 2020). A key advantage of geospatial data is providing the geographical context to observations, likewise, hydrospatial data will emphasise the geography of the oceans and seas in the marine and coastal data and information acquired.

Using Singapore’s national MSDI  ̶  GeoSpace-Sea  ̶  as a case study, this paper aims to, firstly, uncover the catalysts for the development of a national MSDI in this time, and secondly, describe key challenges an emerging national MSDI would confront in order to actualise the
benefit of enabling and supporting hydrospatial end-user applications.

2. Why the need for GeoSpace-Sea for Singapore?

Maritime, marine and coastal activities have significant socio-economic impact to Singapore. The maritime industry alone contributes 7% of Singapore’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs over 170,000 people (Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, 2018). Located at the crossroads of major shipping routes, Singapore’s sea space is one of the world’s busiest. At any one time, there are about 1,000 vessels in the Singapore port and every 2 to 3 minutes, a ship arrives or leaves Singapore.

Despite the busy waters, Singapore’s sea space is home to about a third of the world’s hermatypic coral species and at least 994 marine intertidal species (Chou, et al., 2012; Lim, et al., 2020). In 2014, southern islands Small Sister’s Island and Big Sister’s Island, and the western reefs of St John’s Island and Pulau Tekukor, were officially designated as Singapore’s first Marine Park (Koh, 2015). Recently, Singapore also announced its expansion of aquaculture to the southern waters (Tan, 2020). Other uses and needs of Singapore’s sea space include recreational activities and coastal development. In the future, Singapore residents could even be living in floating apartments (Paulo & Mak, 2019).

Singapore is not spared from the potential impacts of climate change and is at risk from more frequent and extreme rainfall events, storm surges, and sea level rise, which is projected to continue beyond 2100, even if global warming is limited to 1.5°C in the 21st century (high confidence) (National Environment Agency, 2018; IPCC, 2018). As a densely populated, low-lying, small island city-state with limited resources, sustainable development and science-based climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies continue to be a focal point of Singapore’s story.

3. Catalysts of a national MSDI

While the benefits of MSDIs are endless, the implementation of government-led MSDIs have been geographically uneven due to challenges such as funding, political will and human capital. However, countries and governmental bodies have shown heightened interest in MSDIs,
especially in recent years. This is evident from the growing IHO MSDI WG Member States’ membership from 2008 to 2020 which has grown from 22 to 29. The total number of participants inclusive of Member States, IHO secretariat and expert contributors has also steadily increased from 14 in 2008, to 35 in 2019, and 58 in 2020.

Due to increased interests in the marine domain, the OGC in 2016 established a Marine Domain Working Group (OGC Marine DWG). With support from IHO Member States, the United Nations Global Geospatial Information Management Working Group on Marine Geospatial Information (UN-GGIM MGI WG) was also established in 2017 and held its inaugural face-to-face meeting in Busan, Republic of Korea, in 2019. Singapore’s timely establishment of a national MSDI is in line with these positive international trends.

This section describes four catalysts that led to the establishment of GeoSpace-Sea: the changing ocean and seascape, regional and global agendas, the role of the national hydrographic office, and the advancements and availability of standards and frameworks.

3.1 Changing ocean and seascape

The changing local seascape coupled with threats of climate change impacts were drivers for Singapore’s GeoSpace-Sea initiative. Our seascape involves diverse stakeholders that can be categorised to government, industry, academia and public users, and further broken down into diverse use-cases and activities (Figure 1). Although most of Singapore’s sea space are port waters, with its expanding users and uses, policymakers recognised the need to move beyond port planning and to produce a more comprehensive marine spatial plan and integrated urban coastal zone management. Mr Khoo Teng Chye, Executive Director, Centre for Liveable Cities, highlighted that planning requires an inventory of historical and present information and Professor Lui Pao Chuen, adviser to the Ministry of National Development and National Research Foundation, supported that “GeoSpace-Sea would be the source for integrated knowledge-based planning and development of Singapore, and the instrument for the modelling of Singapore for various applications” (Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, 2019b). The local scientists and community have also recommended, through ‘The Singapore Blue Plan 2018’, that a coordinated marine database for Singapore is required for the sustainable management of Singapore’s sea space (Jaafar, et al., 2018)