The ITINERIS Catalogue: a case study for exploring heterogeneous environmental resources

Understanding environmental challenges requires navigating a complex network of interconnected systems. Research Infrastructures (RIs) play a crucial role in realizing a comprehensive and integrated approach that extends beyond the different environmental sub-domains for understanding and predicting the Earth's system and developing effective actionable strategies. However, the distributed nature of RIs across multiple environmental domains presents significant challenges for the integration, accessibility, and long-term sustainability of heterogeneous environmental resources (i.e., datasets, services, research products, training resources, etc.) that are fundamental to advancing scientific research and addressing global challenges. Differences in metadata schemas, data formats, and governance frameworks create barriers to seamless collaboration, limiting the potential of real-time data integration and exploration in multidisciplinary research. ITINERIS, the Italian Integrated Environmental Research Infrastructure System, is developing a unified framework to overcome these challenges, ensuring efficient data discoverability, accessibility, and interoperability across diverse environmental subdomains. A key component of this initiative is the ITINERIS Catalogue, an advanced metadata-driven platform embedded within the ITINERIS HUB. The challenge lies in the resources integration of the 22 RIs involved with the various subdomains of the Earth system domain: atmosphere, marine, terrestrial biosphere and geosphere.