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

气候变化和极端天气事件发生率的增加（例如，干旱、飓风、洪水）正在激励研究人员启动监测计划，以了解气候、植被反应和地球表面过程之间的反馈，从而预测未来的条件以及对栖息地和水资源造成的压力。该项目将改进环境监测数据系统Dendra，以便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特性（例如，降雨量、温度、土壤湿度、地下水位），并便利从偏远地点提供真实的时间序列数据。数据被存档，检查错误，并提供工具进行即时数据分析。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目前有8个组织（例如，国家机构、非营利组织和大学研究人员），克服了同时管理来自从几个不同制造商获得的不同环境传感器的大量数据的挑战。由于传感器价格下降（导致部署大量仪器），这正在成为一个常见的监测挑战。因此，开发了新的传感器，现在可以通过各种网络技术进行实时跟踪。为了使Dendra更广泛地使用，该项目将开展外联工作，并将建立和共享数据管理和开发工具。该项目将把Dendra（dendra.science）作为软件即服务系统纳入EarthCube工具集。这项基于云的服务将是一个专家系统，供研究小组或组织进行长期监测。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一个系统中。Dendra是由鳗鱼河临界区天文台与加州自然保护区系统和加州心跳计划大学合作开发的，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工具集。首先，将建立后端基础设施，提供高可用性和三个90%（99.9%）的网站迁移到静态网站托管，并通过跨网络虚拟专用网络（VPN）增强安全性。其次，为了提高可兼容性，该项目将使Dendra元数据符合EarthCube GeoCODES发现资源，并建立一个WaterOneFlow连接器，以便在水文科学促进大学联盟上可见。水文信息系统。第三，将以Dendra移动的应用程序、车站向导的形式开发管理改进，以简化入职，并进一步开发注释系统。注释系统允许在不修改数据集的情况下进行数据校正，使得所有导出的数据集与源数据一起被动态地校正沿着。这些相同的更正可以回滚或动态更新。第四，该项目将提供用户帮助和培训支持，包括生成培训材料，使新的研究小组更容易采用Dendra系统满足自己的需求。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.