Toward Cyber-Infrastructure 2025: Addressing Critical Milestones for EarthCube

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

This EAGER award promotes a new paradigm in the development of an integrative and interoperable data and knowledge management system for the geosciences for a new NSF initiative called EarthCube. Led by a team of experts from academia and the private section, the funded work is focused on developing the key EarthCube cyberinfrastructure capability of brokering, which among other things enables sharing of very diverse data across disciplinary and technological boundaries. It also allows data repositories to easily expose and make discoverable their data to potential users via multiple standards and services. The approach employed utilizes an inclusive, community-driven, collaborative approach to the problem and emphasizes the testing and evaluation of different brokering technologies using community-agreed upon standard datasets and applications, such as water sustainability, geohazards, biodiversity loss, and climate change. The work substantially and positively impacts our ability to carry out quantitative data-enabled research in the geo- and environmental sciences. The project includes technical assessments of existing technologies, the development of a brokering roadmap that will mature ideas and technology over the next few years, and will engage a broad and diverse community of geoscientists, cyberinfrastructure developers, and computer scientists. Broader impacts of the work include maturation of a key capability that is required for the realization of EarthCube, a new NSF initiative in geoscience knowledge and data management, the engagement of a broad spectrum of individuals from the geoscience, cyberinfrastructure, and computer science communities, the inclusion of members of under-represented groups in the leadership team, and international collaboration with partners in France, Germany, and Canada.