1. Scientific Information Management Approaches Needed to Support Global Assessments: The USEPA's Experience and Information Resources
Jeffrey B. Frithsen
National Center for Environmental Assessment
Office of Research and Development
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, DC, USA
26 January 2001

2. Finding, sharing, and applying data
and information for global assessments,
now and in the future,
will require implementation of good
scientific information management
approaches

3. GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENTS
Are multi-disciplinary: Greater emphasis on integrating physical, ecological and human data
Include data collected at multiple spatial and temporal scales
Involve multiple information sources
Are completed by investigators distributed across geopolitical and organizational boundaries

4. INFORMATION DIVERSITY
Environmental assessments typically include multiple types of information
Most assessments are multi-disciplinary
Greater emphasis on integrating human and ecological data
Challenge: manage many small pieces of information, and a few very large data sets

5. MULTIPLE SCALES
Environmental assessment typically include data collected at multiple spatial and temporal scales
Regional Scale
Monitoring Studies
Large-Scale
Remote Sensing
CENR Monitoring Framework
Site-Specific
Intensive Studies

6. IM SYSTEM DIVERSITY
Multiple scientific information management systems exist, or are being developed
Individual systems optimized for program specific needs
Challenge: develop and provide interoperability between systems and with reference databases

7. DISTRIBUTED WORK FORCE
Research teams are distributed geographically and across organizations
International, Federal Agencies, Regions, States, Indian Tribes, NGO’s, Academia, etc.)
Organizations use different approaches to scientific information management
Resource limitations significant
Challenge: link teams of people

8. SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES
Technical Challenges
Management of metadata, data, and the tools needed to complete assessments
Management Challenges
Providing adequate resources and support for procedures
“Cultural” Challenges
Encouraging sharing of data and protection of intellectual property rights

9. TECHNICAL CHALLENGES
Help find relevant data and information in a distributed environment
Provide descriptions (metadata) about that information sufficient to assess usability
Provide access to environmental metadata, data, and other resources

10. ADDITIONAL TECHNICAL CHALLENGES
Develop approaches and standards to facilitate data integration
Enhance interoperability of data systems
Provide access to analytic, modeling, and visualization tools in distributed environments
Integrate multiple tools and models with data
Meeting these challenges requires
going beyond metadata

11. MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES
Commitment of adequate resources for systems development and operation
10-20% of project budget needed for IM related activities (NRC 1994)
Support for related procedures
Appropriate incentives for involvement by project participants

12. CULTURAL CHALLENGES Promote data sharing
Provide protection for intellectual property rights
Recognize that the publication of metadata and data are as important as the publication of results

13. FIFE COMMANDMENTS
“Thou shalt make thy data available even unto thine enemies.
Thou shalt release thy data from bondage.
Thou shalt not covet they neighbor’s data until they’ve had a crack at them.”
FIFE: The First ISLSCP Field Experiment.
ISLSCP: International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project

14. USEPA’S RESPONSE TO IM CHALLENGES
Leverage information management technologies to support all aspects of the assessment process
Adopt or develop approaches, standards, and procedures to maximize integration of data, data systems, models, and other analysis tools
Integrate with ongoing national and international efforts

15. METADATA REPOSITORY
USEPA has invested heavily in building a robust web-based, metadata repository called EIMS
Repository contains descriptions (metadata) of data and uses FGDC content standard
Repository expanded to contain descriptions of models, documents, and projects
Repository linked to a national warehouse: the National Spatial Data Infrastructure

16. EIMS
EIMS: Environmental Information Management System
A system to capture, store, manage, and distribute information about environmental resources collected, developed, and used by the Agency and its regional, state, and private partners

17. METADATA 20-YEAR RULE
“Will someone 20 years from now, not familiar with the data or how they were obtained, be able to find data sets of interest and then fully understand and use the data solely with the aid of the documentation archived with the data set?”
Committee on Geophysical Data, National Research Council, Solving the Global Change Puzzle, National Academy Press, 1991.

18. EXAMPLES: US GLOBAL CHANGE RESEARCH
Data and documents from the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), Regional Assessments
Mid-Atlantic
Great Lakes
Gulf Coast
Links to the USGCRP National Assessment & other Regional Assessments

19. EXAMPLES: USEPA EMAP PROGRAM
EMAP: Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program
Uses ecological indicators and a probability based sample design to estimate the spatial extent and condition of ecological resources
Potential information for WWAP include:
Indicator development approaches
Candidate indicators
Data for US aquatic resources

20. EMAP ASSESSMENT RESULTS
US aquatic resource assessment includes
3.6 million miles of streams (19%)
41.7 million acres of lakes (40%)
303 million acres of wetlands (3%)
61,000 miles of
coastline (6%)
40,000 square miles of estuaries (72%)

21. EXAMPLES: LAND USE/LAND COVER DATA

22. POTENTIAL WWAP APPROACH
Define assessment questions for biennial reports
Identify data needed to address assessment questions
Define and develop indicators
Define reference conditions (what’s good) and decision thresholds (what’s bad)
Search across distributed metadata repositories

23. REFERENCE CONDITIONS Number of streams 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Current Distribution 20
Reference Distribution 10
Number of streams 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Indicator Score

24. GLOBALLY DISTRIBUTED METADATA REPOSITORIESMR MR MR MR MR MR MR
World Water Resource Clearinghouse

25. CONTACTS Jeffrey B. Frithsen Joel D. Scheraga EIMS
Senior Ecologist, National Center for Environmental Assessment
Joel D. Scheraga
Director, USEPA Global Change Research Program
EIMS