TOWARD DEVELOPMENT OF A NATIONAL EARTH SCIENCE DIGITAL INFORMATION SYSTEM

The purpose of this topical session is to address how the development of a universal "digital information system" will help address important geoscience issues. "Digital data" includes virtually all earth science information: maps, remote sensing data, geochemistry, petrography, paleontology, paleomagnetics, seismic, gravity, surface water hydrology, subsurface data, etc. To be a true "system", it must encompass the needs of all the earth sciences, e.g., oceanography, meteorology, hydrology, geophysics, and geology. There are many ongoing efforts to address parts of this system, and even more are now being envisioned, planned, or implemented. This is both exciting and scary. Exciting because there is a growing community awareness of the need for such a readily available, digital information system; scary because of the existing and potential disparate approaches to the design and deployment of individual databases. Such a system should be able to accommodate all legacy as well as future data sets. It is not a question of setting standards, nor of establishing a central data repository, lead agency, etc. Rather, it is a question of: 1) inspiring the larger community to become interested and involved; 2) developing a mechanism to link the various existing and future information systems so the users can utilize a single interface to access all the data; 3) obtaining the necessary resources to implement and administer the system; and 4) establishing a mechanism so all interested parties can have access to these resources so they can be truly part of the effort. Clearly, all relevant federal and state agencies need to be involved and linked to academic researchers and hence with NSF. The needs of industry should also be accommodated. The system will undoubtedly be comprised of linked databases. The papers presented in this session underscore the need to map out a community-wide, collaborative effort. Clearly the system would help generate the need for research to supply additional high quality data - but, what are these data? What digital "tools" would make analysis of these data more effective? Finally, the implementation of such a system is also tied to a range of organizational issues, interagency cooperation, etc.; these issues can be as important as the science.