DOI - BOEM - Managing Marine Minerals Business Data Assets - MRAS

The Department of the Interior (DOI), through the General Services Administration (GSA), is conducting market research to explore capabilities related to managing marine minerals business data assets. The initiative is spearheaded by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which oversees U.S. Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) energy and mineral resources while ensuring environmental protection. BOEM's mission encompasses sustainable management, economic development, and national security, as authorized by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA). This effort aligns with the National Strategy for Mapping, Exploring, and Characterizing the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone and focuses on enhancing data management systems that support marine mineral resource planning.

The requirement involves professional data and geospatial services aimed at supporting BOEM's Marine Minerals Information System (MMIS). The MMIS serves as an Enterprise Geospatial Information System that facilitates planning, leasing, and research activities related to marine minerals. Key services include database support and administration, mapping services, spatial analysis using GIS technologies such as Python and ArcGIS Arcade programming, image analysis, data modeling, data management, data conversion, and training. Additionally, these services will ensure efficient handling of vector and raster datasets in compliance with OGC standards through Web Mapping Services (WMS) or Web Feature Services (WFS).

The current MMIS infrastructure includes a comprehensive suite of ESRI's ArcGIS enterprise stack components hosted on Microsoft's Azure Cloud platform within DOI's environment. Despite its robust capabilities for managing sand resources effectively via its content model and schema structure complete with a detailed data dictionary the system requires enhancements to address emerging needs for critical mineral resource management. This includes integrating a Critical Minerals Information Management Framework to manage offshore critical mineral activities from pre-lease analysis through decommissioning.

To meet these evolving requirements, BOEM seeks to develop new business requirements alongside lifecycle workflows that incorporate advanced data models within a secure cloud-native architecture. These updates aim to facilitate authoritative management of critical mineral data while accommodating diverse mineral types like polymetallic nodules or ferromanganese crusts found in deep-sea deposits. By expanding MMIS functionalities in this manner especially concerning resource evaluation the system will better support planning efforts across both shallow-water sands as well as more complex deep-sea deposits.