Collaborative Research: Building a Cyberinfrastructure for the Critical Zone Exploration Network

Daniel Richter EAR-0533557该奖项将启动一个网络基础设施，以促进跨学科研究，调查由植被外部界限和地下水下限界定的区域，国家研究委员会将其确定为临界区。物理、化学和生物反应的复杂相互作用控制着这一临界区内的过程，并已成为来自生态学、土壤学、生物学、地球化学、水文学和地貌学的科学家社区的研究重点。来自这些学科的一个跨学科科学家小组于2003年创建了风化系统科学联合会(WSSC)，专门推进对临界区的研究。在2005年由NSF主办的一次会议上，该联盟提出了一个名为关键区域探索网络(CZEN)的计划，以研究针对关键区域的四个广泛的研究问题。CZEN被设想为一个由地点、人员、工具和想法组成的网络，它将调查关键区域对全球变化的反应，将促进系统的数据和样本收集，将提供数据库和样本存储设施，并将培训下一代关键区域科学家。CZEN的网络基础设施必须满足来自一系列学科和机构的科学家的需求。其中许多学科都有自己的风化过程概念化、命名和方法论。这项研究项目将为关键区域科学开发一种整合的语言(本体论)，这将有助于弥合学科边界。通过以社区为基础的努力建立这种本体论，不仅将产生一个有重点的、高度整合的交流标准，以推进关键区域的科学研究，还将促进传统上没有互动的群体之间的新合作和伙伴关系。这一网络基础设施的发展将集中关键区域的数据和元数据，并增加关键区域研究的有用性。将建立一个基于网络的知识管理环境，以促进全世界收集的数据的协作和共享，以实现这些目标。该项目将通过促进研究地球临界区的广泛科学家和科学学科之间的互动，直接促进CZEN倡议的发展。

Daniel Richter EAR-0533557This award will initiate a cyberinfrastructure to promote interdisciplinary research investigating the zone defined by the outer limits of vegetation and the lower boundary of ground water, identified by the National Research Council as the Critical Zone. A complex interplay of physical, chemical, and biological reactions controls processes within this Critical Zone and has become the focus of research among a community of scientists derived from ecology, soil science, biology, geochemistry, hydrology, and geomorphology. An interdisciplinary team of scientists from these disciplines created the Weathering System Science Consortium (WSSC) in 2003 specifically to advance study of the Critical Zone. In an NSF-sponsored meeting in 2005, this consortium proposed a program the Critical Zone Exploration Network (CZEN) to study four broad research questions targeting the Critical Zone. CZEN is envisioned as a network of sites, people, tools, and ideas, which will investigate the response of the Critical Zone to global change, will promote systematic data and sample collection, will provide databases and sample storage facilities, and will train the next generation of Critical Zone scientists. The CZEN cyberinfrastructure must meet the needs of scientists from an array of disciplines and institutions. Many of these disciplines have their own conceptualizations, nomenclature, and methodologies for weathering processes. This research project will develop an integrative language (an ontology) for Critical Zone Science that will serve to bridge discipline boundaries. Building this ontology through a community-based effort will not only produce a focused, highly integrative communication standard for advancing the science of the Critical Zone, it will foster new collaboration and partnerships among groups that have not traditionally interacted. The development of this cyberinfrastructure will centralize Critical Zone data and metadata and increase usefulness of Critical Zone studies. A web-based knowledge-management environment to facilitate collaboration and sharing of data collected world-wide will be created to meet these goals. This project will contribute directly to the developing CZEN initiative by fostering interaction among the wide range of scientists and scientific disciplines that study the earths Critical Zone.