Review of Data Platforms for Climate Change and Land Sectors

Abstract:

E-infrastructure technologies and platforms with the sharing and integration of big data and models are essential for achieving sustainable development in almost every sector. Several data platforms have been developed by incorporating analysis, data, and models from many fields and disciplines. However, the perception of data and model assimilation is yet ambiguous, and therefore, these platforms have produced insufficient firm results for researchers and policymakers. A detailed study focusing on comparisons among platforms will able to provide key directions and suggestions for improvement of these data platforms.

In this study, initially, websites of 23 global platforms and e-infrastructure technologies are reviewed to summarize their latest status and current contributions in research areas. Among them, an intensive review of Data Integration and Analysis System (DIAS), Copernicus and Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA) has been done for climate change and land sectors based on five criteria: product groups, user groups, accessibility of data, available keywords and available toolboxes/APIs. The major groups of data types under climate change and land sectors have been categorized. The hindrances during this categorization lead to formulating some major development directions for all data platforms which is the main objective of this study.

The results showed that DIAS and Copernicus have rich APIs with the metadata management system and toolboxes. On the other hand, leveraging the storage and computing power of JASMIN, CEDA provides cloud storage and computing capacities for its users. While, the open science and data repositories of these systems are highly appreciable, but, the data retrieval system still needs some attention. Moreover, before starting to search for a particular data, the thematic arrangement of a big database may provide some additional knowledge to the beginners.