European Long-Term Ecosystem and Socio-Ecological Research Infrastructure D3.3 Data Models Authors: Peterseil, J., Magagna, B., Wohner, C., Oggioni, A. & Watkins, J. Lead partner for deliverable: Umweltbundesamt GmbH (EAA) Other partners involved: CNR, CEH H2020-funded project, GA: 654359, INFRAIA call 2014-2015 Start date of project: 01 June 2015 Duration: 48 months Version of this document: 1.0 Submission date: 30.5.2018 Dissemination level PU Public X PP Restricted to other programme participants (including the Commission Services) CO Confidential, only for members of the consortium (including the Commission Services) CI Classified, as referred to in Commission Decision 2001/844/EC Document ID: eLTER D3.3 Data Models © eLTER consortium Version control Edited by Date of revision Created – V1 Peterseil & Magagna 31.5.2018 Internal review Watkins Internal review Oggioni Revised – V2 Revised – V3 Revised – V4 Reviewed Haubold 31.5.2018 Revised – V5 Signed off – co-ordinator Mirtl 31.5.2018 Document ID: eLTER D3.3 Data Models © eLTER consortium Publishable Executive Summary Providing quality controlled and reliable data as the basis for scientific analysis and as input for the evaluation of existing environmental policies is one of the major aims of long-term ecosystem monitoring and research not only in Europe (Mirtl 2010) but also on a global scale (Mirtl et al. 2018). In order to foster information exchange and sharing, data must be discoverable and at least the metadata accessible (Michener et al. 1997). This requires proper documentation of data and services as well as the existence of infrastructure allowing the discovery, access and integration of data in a web-based environment. Following the FAIR data principles (Wilkinson et al. 2016) data need to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. The syntactic and semantic interoperability plays an important role for the reusability of the data. eLTER Task 3.3 aims to provide the semantic backbone for the documentation and provision of data. This not only addresses the application of metadata models and data formats for the data provisions but moreover the development of an underlying common semantics. The report focuses on a) the metadata models for the documentation of sites, datasets and sensors, b) the data formats applied for the provision of time series data, and c) the development of a common semantics. As eLTER is building on the site and organisations network of LTER Europe and ILTER metadata and data standards are adopted recommended by the regional and global network. EML and INSPIRE Metadata model are the important standards for the documentation of datasets. For research sites INSPIRE Environmental monitoring Facilities (EF) was implemented as well as a SensorML compliant community profile for any observation device. Finally, EnvThes provides the semantic backbone for the annotation (e.g. keywords) of long term observation data. Document ID: eLTER D3.3 Data Models © eLTER consortium <Blank page> Document ID: eLTER D3.3 Data Models © eLTER consortium Contents 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 LTER Europe .......................................................................................................... 2 1.2 eLTER Information System Architecture ................................................................. 3 2 Data documentation ........................................................................................................ 6 2.1 Relevant metadata standards ................................................................................. 6 2.2 LTER Metadata models .......................................................................................... 8 2.3 Sensor metadata .................................................................................................. 13 3 Data provision ............................................................................................................... 22 3.1 Relevant standards ............................................................................................... 23 3.2 eLTER Data Reporting Format.............................................................................. 26 4 Common Semantics ...................................................................................................... 34 4.1 Standards for controlled vocabularies ................................................................... 35 4.2 EnvThes ............................................................................................................... 37 5 Conclusions .................................................................................................................. 55 5.1 Metadata ............................................................................................................... 55 5.2 Data format ........................................................................................................... 57 5.3 Common semantics .............................................................................................. 58 References ......................................................................................................................... 61 6 Annexes ........................................................................................................................ 64 6.1 Annex A - Field Specification for data reporting .................................................... 65 6.2 Annex B – SensorML Implementation for DEIMS-SDR ......................................... 78 6.3 Annex C – SensorML Example DEIMS-SDR:Sensor ............................................ 89 Document ID: eLTER D3.3 Data Models © eLTER consortium List of figures Fig. 1.1 Global map of LTER sites and LTSER platforms covered by ILTER and LTER Europe .................................................................................................................................. 3 Fig. 1.2. Conceptual architecture of the eLTER Information System ..................................... 4 Fig. 2.1 Example of a site record ........................................................................................... 9 Fig. 2.2 Example of a data product record ........................................................................... 11 Fig. 2.3 Example of a dataset record ................................................................................... 12 Fig. 2.4 Relation between site, sensor and dataset ............................................................. 13 Fig. 2.5 Metadata model DEIMS-SDR:Sensor Version 0.9 .................................................. 17 Fig. 2.6 Example of a sensor record .................................................................................... 19 Fig. 2.7 EDI Metadata Editor (get-IT software suite) – Register sensor ............................... 21 Fig. 3.1 Overview of linking Sensor description and observation ......................................... 27 Fig. 3.2 Structure of the eLTER Data Reporting .................................................................. 28 Fig. 3.3 eLTER Data Reporting Format: basic observation model ....................................... 29 Fig. 4.1 OBOE core model (Madin et al. 2007) .................................................................... 39 Fig. 4.2: Tree diameter at breast height modelled in OBOE ................................................ 40 Fig. 4.3: Tree diameter at breast height modelled using protocol in OBOE ......................... 40 Fig. 4.4: Concentration of nitrate in soil water modelled in OBOE ....................................... 40 Fig. 4.5: O&M (Cox 2017) ................................................................................................... 41 Fig. 4.6: Comparison O&M and OBOE (in red).................................................................... 42 Fig. 4.7: SSO pattern .......................................................................................................... 43 Fig. 4.8: Sensor perspective of SSNO ................................................................................. 43 Fig. 4.9 SERONTO Core Model .......................................................................................... 44 Fig. 4.10: Observable Properties in O&M extension ............................................................ 46 Fig. 4.11 Complex Properties Model as extension of O&M (Leadbetter & Vodden 2016) .... 47 Fig. 4.12 Compound versus atomic concepts in EnvThes ................................................... 47 Fig. 4.13: Structure of Semantic Repositories ..................................................................... 53 Fig. 5.1 Metadata levels for LTER Data Reporting .............................................................. 58 Fig. 5.2 Conceptualisation of observation types .................................................................. 60 List of tables Tab. 2.1 DEIMS-SDR:Sensor community profile ................................................................. 18 Tab. 3.1 eLTER Data Reporting - Basic format (row) .......................................................... 30 Tab. 3.2 eLTER Data Reporting - Basic format alternative version (column) ....................... 30 Tab. 3.3 Example biophysical data basic data format.......................................................... 33 Tab. 5.1 EML Data Package Completeness levels .............................................................. 56 Document