Die Küste, 81 (2014), 29-43 
36 
The primary aim of the work was to establish an innovative Web portal for marine data 
and an infrastructure in which distributed harmonized and interoperable data are made 
available. This platform can develop into a one-stop portal for marine data from the 
German coastal zone (see section 2.1.5). It promotes the dissemination of marine infor 
mation, improves die transparency of existing data and can help to avoid duplication of 
work. 
2.1.3 Marine nature conservation 
The department "Marine and coastal conservation" of the Federal Agency for Nature 
Conservation BfN on the Isle of Vrlm concentrated on research and development work 
regarding marine nature conservation. All partners from Federal and State agencies are 
working together in Natura 2000 and MSFD issues to serve the national and international 
information and reporting systems. 
Additional scientific cooperation partners are involved such as the Research and 
Technology Centre FTZ in Biisum, die Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research IOW in 
Warnemünde and the Alfred Wegner Institute AWI in Bremerhaven. This is also true for 
the State Agency for agriculture, environment and rural areas of the State of Schleswig- 
Holstein LLUR in Flintbek, the State Agency of Environment, Nature conservation and 
Geology in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania LUNG in Güstrow and die Federal Envi 
ronmental Agency L1BA in Dessau. 
BfN uses internal information systems for nature protection and landscape conserva 
tion as well as for the collection, documentation, administration and organization of na 
ture conservation data. These are used for die reporting requirements of Natura 2000, for 
monitoring data, extensive ecological data and expert reports as well as for data tiiat is 
collected witii regard to the MSFD. A major basis is the professional tiiesaurus, which is 
supplemented on die basis of die LTMTHES Thesaurus of the Federal Environmental 
Agency and die PortalLT by a microthesauri relating to nature conservation and to marine 
nature conservation. The data documented so far are to be exchanged via the new MDI- 
DE portal witii all coastal offices and agencies and shall be reported to die ELI in a fur 
ther step. 
2.1.4 Scientific accompanying research 
The Chair of Geodesy and Geoinformatics at die LTniversity of Rostock has carried out 
scientifically and technically supporting research on MDI-DE. The system architecture 
was analyzed (RÜH et al. 2011) and implementation strategies were optimized. These in 
clude conformance and performance tests of die developed services concerning require 
ments of existing systems such as GDI-DE, PortalLT and WasserBLIcK as well as the set 
up for reporting requirements for MSFD and INSPIRE workflows. 
2.1.5 Sustainable platform for conceptual and technical operation 
Since March 2014, the former research and development partners are cooperating accord 
ing to an administrative agreement, VKoopLTS MDI-DE, between Federal and State