Pilot Virtual Observatory

环境科学有多种碎片化的问题，在回答重大科学问题和解决重大环境问题方面的进展取决于开发新的工具来减少这种碎片化、增加知识以及开发和交流综合解决方案。具体的关切包括：&gt；数据和gt中的空间、时间差距&gt；中断的数据和gt；获取数据的多个门户网站&gt；孤立和不相关联的模型&gt；分散的学科、研究所、机构、国家(与英国境内和外部)&gt；对我们的自然资源(例如空气、土壤、水和生物多样性)的“孤岛”管理新兴信息技术可以为这种碎片化提供解决方案，但环境科学界对这些新技术的接受将需要培育，需要与计算机科学家和其他人合作。环境科学界的许多人并不愿意接受新的信息技术，而且在培训方面装备不足，无法迅速利用新的信息技术。将需要开发和测试新的标准，以便进行轻松的信息交换。试点虚拟天文台旨在开发一个概念验证或“橱窗”，以激发各级环境界对这些新技术的兴趣和参与，展示其有效性，帮助制定交换数据和模型的国际标准，并探索如何将该技术用于环境管理。我们首先将重点放在NERC产品组合中的“土壤和水的可持续利用”部分，因为它很好地展示了虚拟天文台的所有方面，同时提供了可管理的大小数据集和模型。这项工作的一个关键组成部分将是为环境科学开发一个网络基础设施(即“云”)，使各种信息源(包括完全不同的数据集、传感器数据和模型)与相关的信息服务相结合，以提供这些服务之间的互操作性，并鼓励在寻求回答重大科学问题的过程中从数据到知识到政策制定的流动。Success将在试点项目的土壤和水重点之外，成为一个积极参与和热情的学术和环境管理人员社区，并为虚拟天文台项目的下一阶段提供可靠的财政支持。

Environmental science suffers from fragmentation of many kinds, and progress in answering big science questions and tackling major environmental issues depends on developing new tools to reduce this fragmentation, add knowledge and develop and communicate integrated solutions. Specific concerns include: > Spatial, temporal gaps in data > Disrupted alignment of data > Multiple portals for access to data > Isolated and unlinked models > Fragmented disciplines, institutes, agencies, countries (within and outwith UK) > 'Silo' management of our natural resources (e.g. air, soil, water and biodiversity) Emerging information technologies can provide solutions to this fragmentation but the embrace of these new technologies by the environmental science community will need nurturing, working with computer scientists and others. Much of the environmental science community does not embrace new information technologies readily and is poorly equipped in its training to exploit new information technologies quickly. New standards will need to be developed and tested to allow easy information exchange. The Pilot Virtual Observatory (VO) seeks to develop a proof of concept or a 'shop window' to stimulate interest and engagement in the environmental community at all levels in these new technologies, to demonstrate effectiveness, to help to set international standards for exchanges of data and models and to explore how the technology can be used in environmental management. We will concentrate on the 'Sustainable use of Soils and Water' component of NERC's portfolio initially because it illustrates well all aspects of a Virtual Observatory while presenting manageable sized data sets and models. A critical component of the work will be the development of a cyber-infrastructure (i.e. the 'cloud') for environmental science that enables the integration of a variety of information sources (including disparate data sets, sensor data and models) together with associated information services to provide both interoperability between such services and encourage the flow from data to knowledge to policy setting in the quest for answering big science questions. Success will be an engaged and enthusiastic academic and environmental manager community beyond the soils and water focus of the Pilot project with secured financial support for the next phase of the Virtual Observatory project.