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

该奖项将启动一个网络基础设施，以促进跨学科研究，调查由植被的外部界限和地下水的下边界定义的区域，由国家研究委员会确定为关键区域。物理、化学和生物反应的复杂相互作用控制着这一关键区域内的过程，并已成为生态学、土壤科学、生物学、地球化学、水文学和地貌学等领域科学家研究的焦点。一个由这些学科的科学家组成的跨学科团队在2003年创建了风化系统科学联盟（WSSC），专门用于推进临界带的研究。在2005年由nsf赞助的一次会议上，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、工具和思想组成的网络，它将研究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。这些学科中的许多都有自己的概念、命名法和风化过程的方法。该研究项目将为临界区科学开发一种综合语言（本体），以弥合学科界限。通过以社区为基础的努力来构建这个本体，不仅会产生一个集中的、高度整合的交流标准，以推进关键区域的科学，还会在传统上没有互动的团体之间培养新的合作和伙伴关系。这种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。为实现这些目标，将建立一个基于网络的知识管理环境，以促进协作和分享在世界各地收集的数据。该项目将通过促进研究地球临界带的众多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.