EarthCube Capabilities: Reducing Time-to-science for Terrestrial Sensor Networks by Integrating Field Notes, Management, and QA/QC into Data Curation

气候变化和越来越多的极端天气事件(如干旱、飓风、洪水)促使研究人员启动监测计划，以了解气候、植被响应和地球表面过程之间的反馈，以便预测未来的条件和由此对栖息地和水资源造成的压力。该项目将对环境监测数据系统Dendra进行改进，使其可供地球科学家广泛使用。Dendra使研究人员能够使用广泛的现场仪器来测量随时间变化的环境属性(例如，降雨量、温度、土壤湿度、地下水位)，并促进从远程位置实时获得时间序列数据。对数据进行存档，检查错误，并提供工具用于即时数据分析。这些集体能力使研究人员能够管理大量不同的数据集，快速排除故障和分析数据，并测试假设和提出新的假设。Dendra目前被8个组织(例如，国家机构、非营利组织和大学研究人员)使用，它克服了同时管理来自多个不同制造商的不同环境传感器的大量数据的挑战。随着传感器价格的下降(导致部署了大量仪器)，这正成为一个常见的监测挑战。因此，新的传感器被开发出来，通过各种网络技术，实时跟踪现在成为可能。为了使Dendra更广泛地可用，该项目将进行推广工作，并将建立和共享数据管理和开发工具。该项目将把Dendra(Dendra.Science)纳入EarthCube工具集作为软件即服务(SaaS)系统。这项基于云的服务将是一个专家系统，供执行长期监测的研究小组或组织使用。Dendra将管理、故障排除、清理和分发时间序列数据的所有方面集成到单个系统中。Dendra是由鳗鱼河临界区天文台与加州大学自然保护区系统和加州心跳倡议合作开发的，由NSF的极端科学和工程发现环境(XSEDE)托管。将开展四项活动，将Dendra纳入EarthCube工具包。首先，将建立后端基础设施，提供高可用性和三个9(99.9%)的正常运行时间，网站将迁移到静态站点托管，并将通过跨网络虚拟专用网络(VPN)增强安全性。其次，为了提高可发现性，该项目将使Dendra元数据与EarthCube GeoCODES发现资源保持一致，并建立一个Water OneFlow连接器，以便在大学水文科学促进协会(CUAHSI)水文信息系统上可见。第三，将通过Dendra移动应用程序、简化登机手续的车站向导以及进一步开发注解系统的形式来改进管理。注释系统允许在不修改数据集的情况下进行数据校正，使得所有派生的数据集与源数据一起被动态校正。这些相同的修正可以回滚或动态更新。第四，该项目将提供用户援助和培训支持，包括生成培训材料，使新的研究小组更容易根据自己的需要采用Dendra系统。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Climate change and the increasing incidence of extreme weather events (e.g., droughts, hurricanes, floods) are motivating researchers to initiate monitoring programs to understand the feedbacks among climate, vegetation response, and Earth surface processes in order to anticipate future conditions and resulting stresses on habitat and water resources. This project will make improvements to Dendra, a data system for environmental monitoring, so that it is available for broad use by geoscientists. Dendra enables researchers to use a wide range of field instruments to measure time varying environmental properties (e.g., rainfall, temperature, soil moisture, groundwater levels) and to facilitate making time-series data available from remote locations in real time. The data are archived, examined for errors, and tools are provided for immediate data analysis. These collective capabilities enable researchers to manage large diverse data sets, to quickly troubleshoot and analyze the data, and to test hypotheses and advance new ones. Dendra, which is currently in use by 8 organizations (e.g., state agencies, non-profits groups, and university researchers), overcomes the challenge of managing simultaneously large amounts of data from diverse environmental sensors obtained from several different manufacturers. This is emerging as a common monitoring challenge now that sensor prices have dropped (leading to large number of instruments deployed). As a result, new sensors have been developed, and real-time tracking is now possible through a variety of networking technologies. To make Dendra more widely available, this project will conduct outreach efforts and will build and share data management and development tools.This project will bring Dendra (dendra.science) into the EarthCube toolset as a Software as a Service (SaaS) system. This cloud-based service will be an expert system for use by research groups or organizations performing long-term monitoring. Dendra integrates all aspects of managing, troubleshooting, cleaning, and distributing time-series data into a single system. Dendra was developed by the Eel River Critical Zone Observatory in collaboration with the University of California Natural Reserve System and California Heartbeat Initiative and is hosted by NSF’s Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE). Four activities will be undertaken to bring Dendra into the EarthCube toolset. First, back end infrastructure will be built out, providing high availability and three 9 uptime (99.9%) with the web site migrated to static site hosting, and security will be enhanced with a cross-network virtual private network (VPN). Second, to enhance discoverability, the project will bring Dendra metadata into compliance with the EarthCube GeoCODES discovery resource and build a WaterOneFlow connector to become visible on the Consortium of Universities for the Advancement of Hydrologic Science, Inc. (CUAHSI) Hydrologic Information System. Third, management improvements will be developed in the form of a Dendra mobile app, a station wizard to ease the onboarding, and further development of the Annotation system. The Annotation system allows for data corrections without modifying the datasets, such that all derived datasets are dynamically corrected along with the source data. These same corrections can be rolled back or updated dynamically. Fourth, the project will provide user assistance and training support, including generation of training materials to make it easier for new research groups to adopt the Dendra system for their own needs.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.