LTER Site Byte
LTER Site: Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES)
Contributor: Jonathan Walsh (Aug 01, 2007)
Site Byte:
1. Annual Site Byte
We underwent our mid-term review. Our report was for the most part very good. With regard to information management the report indicated we should be investing more but other than that the system was met with praise.
We are “adopting” our metadata system. The Open Research System (ORS) which we have utilized for years as our metadata repository and clearing house has run into funding shortfalls. Up until now it has been hosted by Dr Charlie Schweick’s public policy GIS lab at the University of Massachussetts Amherst. In order to continue using it, we have installed the requisite hardware – a server – and software – ColdFusion, Server 2005, SQL server 2005 – at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies and we are currently porting the existing code and data onto it.
We have continued to work with the synthesis of demographic and social data and physical data.
We now have close to seven years of stream chemistry data online and available to the public. These data represent several sites along the urban rural gradient of the city of Baltimore.
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2. Planned IM Projects
We plan to facilitate a means to combine geodatabases. This will be accomplished by means of the ORS metadata system. The metadata generated by these geodatabases – in Arccatalog – will be synthesized so the geodatabases can be polled in larger searches.
We plan to increase bandwidth of our sensing networks and move toward more wireless solutions.
We plan to collect data as part of educational outreach and involve high school students in the design and planning of the sampling and collection efforts.
We plan to improve our online databases used in collection (rather than dissemination) of data. We plan to increase the number of fields collected, adopt wireless connectivity to the data, and facilitate more streaming data collection.
Jonathan M Walsh, August, 2007
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