The ECOPOTENTIAL project, funded under the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme aims at building a unified framework for ecosystem studies and management of protected areas. To achieve such objective, open and interoperable access to data and knowledge is assured by the GEO Ecosystem Virtual Laboratory Platform (ECOPOTENTIAL VLab). The concept of ECOPOTENTIAL VLab stems from the need of moving from open data to open science as a new vision of participatory scientific research. Therefore, it aims not only to data sharing but more generally to support the ecosystem community-of-practice in research activities for informed decision-making in ecosystem management. The ECOPOTENTIAL VLab provides multiple entry points to access information at different semantic level depending on the user's specific interest, ranging from ecosystems, protected areas, storylines (e.g. user scenarios for protected areas study and management), workflows (e.g. business processes necessary for storylines), algorithms (e.g. models and procedures necessary for implementing workflows) and data. All the information artifacts have an open representation and are linked together according to a general ECOPOTENTIAL ontology, allowing users'navigation among different concepts. In particular, users have access to in-situ data from selected campaigns, and from European and global observation networks and programmes, like LTER DEIMS, OBIS, GBIF, LIFEWATCH. They have also access to raw and pre-processed remote-sensing data including Sentinel 1/2 and Landsat. Users have also access to workflows represented as BPMN diagrams, and through the ECOPOTENTIAL VLab they can run workflows selecting input data, to generate essential variables, indicators and indices. Users can share algorithm as code through GitHub, or processing services as OGC WPS and integrate them in new workflows. The architecture of the GEO Ecosystem Virtual Laboratory is based on a set of principles currently shared in the scientific research communities, with particular reference to the GEO initiative, including GEOSS Data Sharing Principles, GEOSS Data Management Principles and GEOSS Architecture Principles. Moreover, since ECOPOTENTIAL participates in the Horizon 2020 pilot action on open access to research data, the activities of the ECOPOTENTIAL Consortium for the definition of the ECOPOTENTIAL Data Management Plan are a fundamental input for the architecture of the ECOPOTENTIAL VLab. The design of the ECOPOTENTIAL Virtual Laboratory puts its basis on past experiences in building System of Systems through a brokering approach. The mature data brokering approach will be complemented with innovative semantic technologies - including concept-based queries and annotations - and support of discovery and invocation of workflows implementing storylines on multiple protected areas contributing to enable the open science vision in ecosystem science.
The GEO ECOPOTENTIAL Virtual Laboratory: a virtual research environment for ecosystem open science
Nativi Stefano;Mazzetti Paolo;Santoro Mattia;
2017
Abstract
The ECOPOTENTIAL project, funded under the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme aims at building a unified framework for ecosystem studies and management of protected areas. To achieve such objective, open and interoperable access to data and knowledge is assured by the GEO Ecosystem Virtual Laboratory Platform (ECOPOTENTIAL VLab). The concept of ECOPOTENTIAL VLab stems from the need of moving from open data to open science as a new vision of participatory scientific research. Therefore, it aims not only to data sharing but more generally to support the ecosystem community-of-practice in research activities for informed decision-making in ecosystem management. The ECOPOTENTIAL VLab provides multiple entry points to access information at different semantic level depending on the user's specific interest, ranging from ecosystems, protected areas, storylines (e.g. user scenarios for protected areas study and management), workflows (e.g. business processes necessary for storylines), algorithms (e.g. models and procedures necessary for implementing workflows) and data. All the information artifacts have an open representation and are linked together according to a general ECOPOTENTIAL ontology, allowing users'navigation among different concepts. In particular, users have access to in-situ data from selected campaigns, and from European and global observation networks and programmes, like LTER DEIMS, OBIS, GBIF, LIFEWATCH. They have also access to raw and pre-processed remote-sensing data including Sentinel 1/2 and Landsat. Users have also access to workflows represented as BPMN diagrams, and through the ECOPOTENTIAL VLab they can run workflows selecting input data, to generate essential variables, indicators and indices. Users can share algorithm as code through GitHub, or processing services as OGC WPS and integrate them in new workflows. The architecture of the GEO Ecosystem Virtual Laboratory is based on a set of principles currently shared in the scientific research communities, with particular reference to the GEO initiative, including GEOSS Data Sharing Principles, GEOSS Data Management Principles and GEOSS Architecture Principles. Moreover, since ECOPOTENTIAL participates in the Horizon 2020 pilot action on open access to research data, the activities of the ECOPOTENTIAL Consortium for the definition of the ECOPOTENTIAL Data Management Plan are a fundamental input for the architecture of the ECOPOTENTIAL VLab. The design of the ECOPOTENTIAL Virtual Laboratory puts its basis on past experiences in building System of Systems through a brokering approach. The mature data brokering approach will be complemented with innovative semantic technologies - including concept-based queries and annotations - and support of discovery and invocation of workflows implementing storylines on multiple protected areas contributing to enable the open science vision in ecosystem science.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
