Meeting the Needs of Interdisciplinary Critical Zone Scientists by
Leveraging and Linking Existing Domain Repositories
Abstract
Critical Zone (CZ) scientists study the system of coupled chemical,
biological, physical, and geological processes operating together across
all scales to support life at the Earth’s surface (Brantley et al.,
2007). In 2020, the U.S. National Science Foundation funded a new
network of Thematic Cluster projects who are working collaboratively to
answer scientific questions related to effects of urbanization on CZ
processes; CZ function in semi-arid landscapes and the role of dust in
sustaining these ecosystems; processes in deep bedrock and their
relationship to CZ evolution; recovery of the CZ from disturbances such
as fire and flooding; and changes in the coastal CZ related to rising
sea level. Given the diversity of data being collected by these
projects, supporting data collection, access, and archival for the
larger network presents significant challenges. Leveraging existing
repositories and cyberinfrastructure provides many benefits, but still
poses the questions of which repositories to use and how to enable
discovery of and access to data that may be deposited across different
repositories. This presentation describes new cyberinfrastructure
development that leverages existing, domain-specific data repositories
to enable managing, curating, disseminating, and preserving data from
the new network of CZ Thematic Cluster projects. A distributed
architecture is under development that links existing data facilities
and services, including HydroShare, EarthChem, SESAR, and eventually
other systems as needed, via a CZ Hub that provides tools for simplified
data submission, discovery and access, and links to computational
resources for data analysis and visualization in support of CZ synthesis
efforts. Our goal is to make data, samples, and software collected by
the Thematic Cluster projects Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and
Reusable (FAIR), using existing domain-specific repositories. This
collaboration among repositories to deliver integrated data services for
an interdisciplinary science program may provide a template for future
development of integrated, interdisciplinary data services. Brantley,
S.L., M.B. Goldhaber, V. Ragnarsdottir (2007). Crossing disciplines and
scales to understand the Critical Zone. Elements 3, 307-314,
doi:10.2113/gselements.3.5.307.