Environmental Data Coding Specification (EDCS)
Introduction
This International Standard establishes concepts to ensure that
environmental information is:
- unambiguously defined,
- flexibly denoted and encoded, and
- easily bound in exchange formats and to programming languages.
This International Standard was developed to fulfil the following requirements:
- flexibility and extensibility: accommodating growth by registration;
- information: define what objects are (classifications), what the states of objects are (attributes), and how
values of state are characterized (data types, units of measure, and unit scales);
- use international standard units: adopt the International System of Units;
- interoperate with existing domain-specific approaches: build on the experience gained by other
organizations, including IHO, WMO, and DGIWG, in developing information coding systems;
- organization: structure for efficient access;
- orthogonality: separate the concepts of type and state of environmental objects;
- rigor: provide unambiguous and clearly defined concepts;
- separate units of measure from attributes:
relate units of measure to attributes through unit equivalence classes; and
- unification: define a comprehensive set of general principles and specific concepts that allows
environmental information to be shared among different communities.
http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/ISO_IEC_18025_Ed1.html