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  ASM 2003

2003 LTER Site Byte

LTER Site: Bonanza Creek LTER

Contributor: Scott D. Miller (Aug 07, 2003)

Site Byte:

Over the past year data management at Bonanza Creek LTER has made significant progress towards improving our data storage and access capabilities. Primarily we have focused on the following:

1. Launching an Oracle9i back end database server.
2. Renovating and improving our web-based data management system, including an overhaul of our bibliography and projects and datasets inventory.
3. Implementing an internet map server to showcase our study sites and spatial datasets
4. Capturing new datasets and continually working on archiving older datasets from the 1960s and 1970s into our databank.
5. Building a relational climate database that will integrate with climDB and hydroDB. This system will result in improved wireless data collection from our remote climate stations and offer near-realtime data access.
6. Researching the possibility of creating a joint spatial data server with Toolik Field Station, Arctic LTER.
7. Shifting the storage and management of our core datasets from text files into a client-server relational database.
8. Implementation of ecological metadata language.

We anticipate that these projects will streamline routine data collection efforts at our site as well as allow more efficient data retrieval for our investigators.

The popularity of our new spatial data server was astounding. This resource became one of our most accessed services the instant it was launched. While at present map server is very basic, we have plans to store and serve our spatial data through the new Oracle back-end database. The progress we have made has inspired collaboration with Arctic LTER as they have nearly identical needs. We hope to maximize the use of the server by having it serve as a back-end for both of our map servers.

Having a true client-server database will provide a platform for researchers to store data in a secure, centralized location where it may better be shared. One specific dataset that will be vastly improved by implementing a relational database will be the storage and distribution of climate data, but all routinely collected datasets should see a vast improvement in data quality and accessibility. These data were formerly stored as text files that were hard to work with, were scattered on different machines and suffered from quality control problems. When fully integrated into our database we anticipate that these problems will diminish.

Ongoing projects include digitizing and archiving older datasets from the Institute of Northern Forestry, as well as collecting and archiving more contemporary datasets. In between all these projects we are also trying to map our data catalog into a basic version of Ecological Metadata Language.