To be on the right path from BOOS to an integrated pan-European marine data management system

In order to maximise the benefit from existing national and European resources in operational oceanography the existing EU- wide marine observation systems have to be integrated in order to harmonise the flow of real time and near real time observational data. Using well defined standards, the EU-projects ECOOP (European coastal-shelf sea operational and forecasting program)and SeaDataNet design and implement an European data management system (EDMS) which is able to follow the developments of the EU- projects MERSEA, and SEP RISE, taking into account the upcoming methods of the INSPIRE directive. The EDMS is designed to ensure proper and maximum real time and near real time delivery of observational data pan-European wide, including river run-off data and real time delivery of remote sensing data. The quality of real time and near real time observational data is ensured by a series of protocols regulating the operational activity from collection, data transmission, evaluation, and dissemination. The EDMS is intending to be a high level service for the exchange of observational data avoiding diversity in data management systems for upcoming projects. It will be a basis for the EU marine observation and data network (EMODNET) following the "Integrated Maritime Policy for the European Union ("The Blue Book"). The paper will give an impression of the techniques, the metadata interface, the common vocabulary and the connection to the information system to be used to come up from the BOOS data management system to a pan-European solution.