Shaping the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), all of them share the goal of offering seamless access to high-quality and reusable research data and services following the FAIR principles and Open Science paradigms. We aim to implement this goal as a network of actors on both the national as well as the international level, making best use of the given opportunities.
The aim of the session is to foster the ongoing discussion on how to jointly shape the European research infrastructure landscape for EES driven by high-level and cross-disciplines scientific use cases and best practice scenarios.
We welcome contributions:
showcasing successful examples of creating synergies among different research infrastructures,
demonstrating efforts in building new products based on integrating services from multiple providers,
identifying gaps by highlighting needs deriving from specific research questions,
presenting use cases which should be taken-up by joining forces among research infrastructures.
Representatives of some international research infrastructures will be invited to elaborate on these actions.
Orals: Wed, 6 May, 16:15–18:00 | Room -2.33
European environmental Research Infrastructures (RIs) collectively produce some of the most valuable in-situ observations for Earth System Science. Yet, despite widespread adoption of FAIR principles, the ability to actually combine, reuse, and operationalise these data across infrastructures remains limited. Differences in mandates, standards, and access mechanisms continue to translate into practical barriers for transnational and cross-domain research, particularly for scientific questions that span atmosphere, ocean, land, biodiversity, and solid Earth processes.
This contribution argues that the bottleneck in Earth System Science is no longer data availability, but federation capability. Within the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), the ENVRI Node positions itself as a response to this gap by acting as a thematic federation layer for in-situ environmental research infrastructures. Central to this approach is the ENVRI-hub, which provides a shared integration environment enabling coordinated discovery, access, and interoperability across multiple RIs without centralising control or diluting infrastructure mandates.
We present concrete examples where integrating services from multiple providers through the ENVRI-hub enables new federation-level products, such as cross-domain catalogues and semantic discovery services, that cannot be delivered by single infrastructures alone. These examples highlight how interoperability, rather than new data production, becomes the key enabler for scientific progress.
Using selected Earth System Science use cases, we deliberately expose where current infrastructure boundaries fail to meet research needs, including limitations in harmonising in-situ observations, aligning access policies, and supporting machine-actionable, AI-ready data. These gaps point to use cases that cannot be solved by incremental improvements within individual infrastructures, but require coordinated action across them.
The ENVRI Node is presented as a practical, and intentionally opinionated, experiment in how international research infrastructures can move beyond coexistence towards federation, raising the question of whether future Earth System Science can afford not to.
How to cite: Hienola, A., Bundke, U., Gutierrez, M., Petzold, A., Dobler, D., and Drago, F.: The Real Bottleneck in Earth System Science Is Not Data but Federation, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-17280, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-17280, 2026.
Advancing knowledge discovery in Earth System Science requires research infrastructures to provide not only high-quality and reusable data, but also interoperable, machine-actionable services that can be combined across domains and scaled for data-intensive and AI-driven research. The Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) delivers harmonised, long-term observations of greenhouse gas concentrations and fluxes across atmosphere, land ecosystems and oceans, underpinned by common standards, persistent identifiers, rich metadata and open access services aligned with FAIR principles. These characteristics position ICOS as a mature contributor to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) and as a practical example of how domain-oriented research infrastructures can support cross-disciplinary and AI-ready science.
In this contribution, we reflect on ICOS experience in implementing EOSC-relevant recommendations and discuss how these can foster cross–research infrastructure interoperability and support large-scale AI applications. We highlight how EOSC thematic nodes can act as coordination and integration layers that align standards, workflows and services across multiple research infrastructures, lowering barriers for cross-domain discovery and reuse. Building on concrete Earth system use cases, we outline how ICOS could contribute to such a thematic node by providing interoperable data services, domain expertise and reference implementations for AI-ready workflows. We further identify remaining gaps in semantic alignment, service orchestration and scalable access, and formulate recommendations for strengthening EOSC as a federated ecosystem capable of supporting next-generation, data- and AI-driven Earth System Science.
How to cite: Laine, H., Vermeulen, A., Rivier, L., Papale, D., Sanders, R., Thiry, J., Karstens, U., and Hellström, M.: Interoperable Research Infrastructures for Earth System Science: Lessons from ICOS, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-16351, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-16351, 2026.
Advancing Earth System Science (ESS) requires seamless access to interoperable, high-quality observational data across domains, scales and national boundaries. The Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure (ACTRIS) contributes to this goal by providing harmonised atmospheric composition and cloud observations through a distributed European network of National Facilities, supported by central calibration, quality assurance and FAIR data and services.
ACTRIS Central Facilities aggregates ground-based in-situ and remote-sensing measurements of aerosols, clouds and reactive trace gases and delivers them through its Data Centre using standardised metadata, persistent identifiers and interoperable interfaces. These features enable transnational data reuse and facilitate integration with other environmental research infrastructures and modelling frameworks within the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).
An important services is the ACTRIS Virtual Research Environment (VRE) and streaming of data. The ACTRIS VRE enables efficient discovery, access, and scientific analysis of long-term observational data from ACTRIS National Facilities as well as other ground based observational sites as e.g. EMEP, EARLINET, Cloudnet and GAW. It facilitates analyses such as calculation of climatologies, long-term trend assessments, and the combination of datasets within the ACTRIS domain. Another pilot service ready is the opportunity for machine-to-machine access and streaming of data.
How to cite: Juurola, E. and the ACTRIS RI Committee and Experts: ACTRIS enabling transnational access to atmospheric data for European Earth System Science, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-18391, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-18391, 2026.
Earth System Science increasingly requires seamless integration across disciplines and domains. Leveraging AI and generative AI demands data that is interoperable in machine-actionable ways. Yet making data truly AI-ready, structured for automated discovery, integration, analysis and reuse, requires coordination across research infrastructures.
LifeWatch ERIC addresses this challenge by acting not as a standalone data repository, but as a catalyst for innovation and a connector across research infrastructures. In this role, LifeWatch ERIC provides analytical, semantic, and workflow-level bridges that enable data, services, and knowledge from infrastructures such as DiSSCo, eLTER, EMBRC-ERIC, AnaEE-ERIC and DANUBIUS ERIC, as well as global aggregators like GBIF, EMODnet and OBIS, to be combined into coherent, science- and policy-relevant networks. Concretely, LifeWatch ERIC provides a computational and semantic integration layer that turns distributed datasets and services into reusable workflows aligned with the EOSC Interoperability. We enable cross-RI composition through shared APIs, provenance-aware processing, and machine-readable descriptions of variables and methods, so that the same analytical logic can be executed across countries, domains, and observation systems.
This integrative role is realised through several ongoing initiatives: (a) within ENVRI-Hub NEXT, LifeWatch ERIC collaborates with Data Terra, ICOS, ACTRIS, and other environmental RIs to deliver interdisciplinary services through the emerging ENVRI EOSC thematic Node, directly addressing cross-compartment data integration for environmental research; (b) through FAIR2Adapt (coordinated by LifeWatch ERIC), we are developing a FAIRification Framework for creating FAIR Digital Objects, demonstrated through six case studies spanning coastal ecosystem modelling in the Bay of Biscay, urban climate risk assessment in Hamburg, and national climate change adaptation hub development; (c) within EOSC Beyond, where LifeWatch ERIC is one of the 10 pilot nodes, we show how we can jointly support research communities thanks to the integration and interoperability between EOSC and Data Spaces by exploiting federating capabilities, and (d) through OSTrails, LifeWatch ERIC contributes to the design and piloting of end-to-end Plan–Track–Assess pathways, linking machine-actionable DMPs, Scientific Knowledge Graphs and FAIR assessment services, and demonstrating how environmental research infrastructures can operationalise FAIR-by-design workflows within EOSC.
We present concrete approaches to AI-readiness, grounded in existing research practice: Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS) forproviding analysis-ready, multi-resolution data structures that unify heterogeneous sources into AI-accessible formats; AI-assisted metadata population reducing manual curation burden; and semantic interoperability through I-ADOPT, structuring variables into machine-readable components that enable cross-dataset discovery regardless of naming conventions. Rather than positioning AI as an end in itself, these demonstrate how research infrastructures can jointly shape EOSC for transnational, cross-domain challenges. To support trustworthy AI applications, we capture data licensing, provenance, quality signals, and uncertainty as first-class, machine-actionable metadata, including transparent records of when generative AI has contributed to metadata enrichment and whether human validation has been applied. This ensures that automation accelerates curation without weakening scientific accountability.
How to cite: Fouilloux, A., López Lerida, J., Sáenz Albanés, A. J., Arvanitidis, C., Vaira, L., and Zhao, Z.: LifeWatch ERIC as Catalyst and Connector: Scaling FAIR, AI-Ready Data Across Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and Climate Adaptation within EOSC, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-11348, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-11348, 2026.
The complexity of Earth, climate, environmental, and biological systems and processes, together with the significant improvement in multi-modal and multi-source data resolution and precision, implies that any scientific approach focusing on a specific area or dimension of the Earth system must increasingly integrate information and data from multiple fields of investigation. Today, it is crucial to apply multi- and interdisciplinary approaches that require easy access to qualified long-term data from other domains, as well as to data products that are easily usable by non-specialists. With this in mind, major challenges are linked to scientific knowledge of measurement data from spaceborne, airborne, and in-situ experiments, as well as from numerical models; uncertainties regarding future drivers of environmental transitions; and the effectiveness of sustainable measures in the context of evolving norms and values. These gaps and challenges particularly concern data quality and data veracity. The growing requirements for data in terms of timeliness of supply, availability across multiple spatial and temporal scales, length and stability of data records, and data product generation necessitate compliance with quality standards on the one hand. On the other hand, user support, documentation, and training materials are equally essential to ensure that data usage is truly effective, operational, and aligned with user needs. Further progress is required in terms of semantic and technical interoperability, particularly between climate, environmental, and socio-economic data. From a technical perspective, despite significant efforts already undertaken (e.g. OGC, INSPIRE), the current setup remains suboptimal in several respects.
Considering these assumptions, the recently established EOSC Node Data Terra, oriented toward Earth system scientific domains, aims to facilitate seamless access to high-quality, trusted, FAIR, and AI-ready multi-domain and multi-modal data for Earth, climate, environment, and biodiversity systems. This access is supported by rich metadata, semantic interoperability, and provenance information. The node also enables cross-domain data analysis workflows that are crucial for addressing emerging and urgent multidisciplinary research challenges related to global change, adaptation, extreme event characterisation, and societal impacts, while strengthening linkages with other data spaces and data hubs at European and global scales. Finally, through the implementation of a system-of-systems approach, the EOSC Node can support and participate to the consolidation of a thematic data space in close collaboration with other national and European environment-related infrastructures, fostering the linkages with European organisations and initiatives such as Destination Earth, AI Factories, and the HPC federation.
How to cite: Rizzo, A., Bodéré, E., and Ramage, K.: The EOSC Node Data Terra on the Earth system sciences: a way to consolidate a thematic data space, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-9855, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-9855, 2026.
Europe’s Earth and environmental observation landscape is increasingly structured around strong national initiatives that consolidate data assets, computing resources and services in close interaction with scientific communities. Initiatives such as Data Terra RI, ITINERIS Hub and NFDI4Earth illustrate how national investments organise complex ecosystems, combining EOSC nodes, advanced computing capacities and domain-specific services within coherent operational environments.
Building on these foundations, the focus goes beyond data interoperability towards designing infrastructures where data, computing capacities and services are articulated from the outset. Artificial intelligence, and in particular generative AI, acts as a key enabler by transforming FAIR data into machine-actionable resources that support cross-domain integration and operational workflows.
This evolution points towards a capability-oriented European ecosystem, where EOSC, Copernicus, Destination Earth, EuroHPC and AI Factories function as complementary layers enabling reuse and transnational collaboration. In this context, national initiatives serve as practical enablers of coherence, providing the conditions for trusted, scalable and sustainable services supporting science, public policy and societal needs.
The objective of this presentation is to highlight the Data Terra and NFDI4Earth vision on establishing strategic relationships within the EOSC, national RIs and European RIs at the benefit of the Earth and environmental science communities
How to cite: Blanke, C., Huynh, F., zu Castell, W., Malet, J.-P., Payan, S., and Bidot, T.: Strengthening Europe’s sovereignty and interoperability in Earth observation data, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-19835, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-19835, 2026.
Since 2022, researchers from 51 European institutions have been collaborating on Geo-INQUIRE, a multidisciplinary Horizon Europe project. This initiative aims to enhance, provide access to, and integrate key datasets, big data streams, and High-Performance Computing (HPC) tools critical for studying temporal variations in the solid Earth, forecasting multi-hazards, and analysing interactions between the solid Earth and its surrounding environments, including the ocean and atmosphere.
Geo-INQUIRE seeks to overcome cross-domain barriers, particularly in the land–sea–atmosphere continuum, by leveraging cutting-edge data management techniques, advanced modelling and simulation methods, developments in AI and big data, and the extension of existing data infrastructures. The project focuses on disseminating these resources to the wider scientific community, aligning them with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) framework. Although many of these resources already exhibit a high level of maturity, Geo-INQUIRE have advanced them by improving availability, quality, and spatial and temporal resolution. The initiative emphasizes adherence to FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles, the adoption of open standards and licences, and the promotion of cross-disciplinary interoperability. Integration of diverse datasets, including new observables, products, and services, is optimized through targeted activities in seven test beds. These test beds also host workshops and summer schools, providing hands-on training and engagement with project resources.
We highlight key scientific achievements, including participation by over 2,300 scientists in seminars and training activities and improved access to new datasets. We also examine new collaborative frameworks designed to increase diversity and encourage interdisciplinary research, and address the challenges of developing FAIR-compliant infrastructures adapted to machine-learning-driven science.
We finally discuss how National programmes could support alignment of national infrastructures with European-level integration to maximise the impact and sustainability of cross-domain data sharing and joint services. Experience from Geo-INQUIRE shows that sustained coordination mechanisms, shared access frameworks (e.g. Transnational Access), and targeted support for interoperability and training are essential for effective cross-domain integration and long-term community uptake, and could therefore be also embedded in national funding and governance schemes.
How to cite: Cotton, F., Strollo, A., Pedersen, H., Danciu, L., Haslinger, F., Urvois, M., Rohling, V., Lorito, S., Babeyko, A., Bailo, D., Michalek, J., Lange, O., Quinteros, J., Festa, G., Murphy, S., Majdański, M., Christadler, I., Türker, E., Weege, S., and Litwin Prestes, M.: Fostering Curiosity-Driven Research on the Solid Earth: the Geo-INQUIRE project, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-10661, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-10661, 2026.
European Earth system science increasingly depends on seamless access to authoritative and interoperable spatial data across administrative and national borders. While many European research infrastructures focus on scientific data production, long-term sustainability and reproducibility also require the systematic inclusion of legally mandated public-sector geodata, which can complement initiatives such as the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). This contribution presents how Germany’s Spatial Data Infrastructure (GDI-DE), through its national discovery and access portal Geoportal.de and its European coordination activities, supports this integration.
Geoportal.de is Germany’s central discovery and access portal for geospatial data and services provided by federal, state and local authorities. It implements a federated, legally grounded model in which hundreds of data providers publish INSPIRE-compliant metadata and services through standardized interfaces. This allows scientists to discover, evaluate and access authoritative reference data, environmental monitoring data and thematic geodata that are often not available through purely research-driven infrastructures, thereby providing a stable backbone for FAIR-aligned access to public-sector Earth system data in Germany.
Beyond national service provision, the German Coordination Office for Spatial Data Infrastructure actively contributes to European technical coordination through the MIG-T, the permanent technical subgroup of the INSPIRE MIG. Within this framework, the coordination office of the GDI-DE coordinated the German stakeholder involvement in the recent INSPIRE consolidation process, which aimed at simplifying and modernizing the INSPIRE framework while ensuring continuity for operational infrastructures. This national coordination complemented parallel activities across Europe, helping to align national and European perspectives on the future of INSPIRE.
We argue that the combination of legally mandated national SDIs and European-level technical coordination is a key enabler for Earth system science, providing long-term, quality-controlled and interoperable access to public-sector geodata while allowing research infrastructures to focus on scientific value generation.
How to cite: Wenz, K.-P.: Bridging legally mandated national spatial data infrastructures with European Earth system science: the German Geoportal and transnational coordination, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-22877, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-22877, 2026.
Addressing complex Earth System Science challenges is currently hindered by a pervasive fragmentation of the research ecosystem. This disconnect extends beyond data dispersion to include siloed organizational structures and isolated disciplinary communities, limiting the potential for holistic environmental analysis and cross-domain innovation.
In response to the session's call for successful synergy examples, we present ITINERIS (Italian Integrated Environmental Research Infrastructures System). ITINERIS serves as a strategic operational model for shaping the Research Infrastructure (RI) landscape by integrating the Italian national nodes of 22 RIs across four critical domains: atmosphere, marine, terrestrial biosphere, and geosphere. This network encompasses ESFRI Landmarks (ACTRIS, EMSO, ICOS, Euro-Argo and LifeWatch), ESFRI Projects (e.g., e-LTER, DANUBIUS), EU RIs (e.g., ECORD), and key national RIs (e.g., the Laura Bassi research ship).
We demonstrate how ITINERIS contributes to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) through three core pillars:
• The ITINERIS HUB: An integrated digital platform that transforms fragmented RI repositories into a unified discovery and analysis layer. By combining a centralized metadata catalogue (populated via automated harvesting) with thematic Virtual Research Environments and advanced access and training services, the HUB acts as a fundamental building block of the Italian EOSC Node, enabling advanced analyses, AI‑driven workflows and models across more than 500,000 environmental datasets, backed by a vast array of services and resources from diverse RIs
• Cross-Disciplinary synergies: Innovative use cases that overcome domain boundaries, such as Nature-Based Solutions and climate mitigation. These scenarios demonstrate the power of combining atmospheric observations with marine and terrestrial ecosystem data, enabling a holistic assessment of environmental compartments that was previously unattainable due to infrastructure silos.
• National Access Framework: A harmonized operational framework serving as a blueprint for future nationally-funded access programs. Building on the success of the ITINERIS-ACTRIS pilot call, which tested a unified governance for physical, remote, virtual access and hybryd access, this model provides a validated approach for reducing administrative barriers and expanding access opportunities for the wider user communities.
We invite the community to explore ITINERIS as a replicable model for national aggregation strategies, discussing the governance and sustainability challenges of this multi-stakeholder initiative and sharing best practices for other national clusters.
By aligning national strategies with European standards like FAIR and ENVRI-FAIR, ITINERIS provides a validated roadmap and a scalable template for 'joining forces' to build a unified, interoperable European environmental research landscape.
How to cite: Gargano, G., Petracca Altieri, R. M., Gagliardi, S., Saganeiti, L., Palazzo, Q., Mona, L., Dema, C., Ripepi, E., Volini, M., and Cornacchia, C.: Bridging the fragmentation gap in Earth System Science: ITINERIS as a blueprint for national RI consolidation and integration, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-20997, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-20997, 2026.
While the goal for Earth System Sciences (ESS) is a seamless, machine-actionable and AI-ready data ecosystem, the reality is different. Current infrastructures are often isolated into siloed "islands" and large data “continents” (Figure 1), separated by inconsistent technical standards and metadata conventions - like a "data archipelago". Despite major investments from consortia like NFDI4Earth in Germany and Data Terra in France, these fragments are only loosely connected by semantic bridges, leaving the ESS community with a landscape of scattered repositories rather than a unified digital environment.
To address this growing fragmentation of the ESS data landscape, the BITS 2.0 project aims to establish a Semantic Fabric for ESS. Instead of merely linking individual repositories, this approach overlays heterogeneous data holdings with an intelligent, semantic shared layer. Building on the original BITS project, which successfully established a quality-controlled hub of ESS terminologies, BITS 2.0 will develop advanced, AI-powered data annotation services combined with a sustainable, community-driven governance model.
These tools will analyze and enrich diverse data assets - ranging from well-curated repositories and institutional data lakes to individual catalogues - with consistent, interoperable, and machine-actionable metadata. For researchers, this substantially lowers barriers to data discovery, integration, and reuse across sources, enabling more efficient workflows and robust cross-domain analyzes. As an initial implementation, BITS 2.0 packages will be deployed on various types of data holdings. These include 'data continents', characterised by large, highly standardized data volumes serving multiple use cases (DKRZ), and 'data islands', consisting of smaller, project-specific datasets with heterogeneous or inconsistent standardization (GEOMAR). Based on these developments, BITS 2.0 will develop AI-empowered Blueprints 2.0 that provide a broadly transferable methodology for semantic integration across these scenarios (SGN, RWTH, TIB).
BITS 2.0 is envisioned as a trusted semantic enabler for the emerging hybrid ESS data space, providing the essential “semantic glue” required for meaningful interoperability. By transforming a fragmented infrastructure landscape into a coherent, searchable knowledge space, BITS 2.0 will support the combined use of larger and more diverse datasets to address complex Earth System research questions.
Figure 1: The scattered landscape of ESS data infrastructures, with varying challenges for semantic integration and AI-readiness depending on architectural design, depicted here as “data islands”, “data continents” and “data archipelagos”.
How to cite: Lammert, A., Anders, I., Ganske, A., Geisler, S., Kraft, A., Martens, C., Mehrtens, H., Söding, E., Thiemann, H., Weiland, C., and Wolodkin, A.: Blueprints for Semantic Integration and AI-Readiness (BITS 2.0), EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-10237, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-10237, 2026.
Posters on site: Wed, 6 May, 14:00–15:45 | Hall X4
Integrating data from multiple atmospheric research infrastructures remains a significant challenge for Earth System Science. Each infrastructure typically maintains its own data formats, access protocols, and processing workflows, creating barriers for scientists seeking to conduct cross-cutting analyses. The ATMO-Insights service addresses this challenge by providing unified access to long-term observational data from three major European research infrastructures: ACTRIS (Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research Infrastructure), IAGOS (In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System), and ICOS (Integrated Carbon Observation System).
Developed within the H2020 ATMO-ACCESS project, the ATMO-Insights service offers a web-based graphical interface for interactive exploration. The platform provides seamless access to quality-controlled Level 2 data from ACTRIS and ICOS ground-based stations, as well as Level 3 aggregated vertical profiles and regional data products from IAGOS aircraft measurements. All datasets are published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0), ensuring FAIR data principles.
The service implements a comprehensive workflow including dataset discovery through Essential Climate Variables (ECVs), interactive data filtering, and a suite of statistical analysis methods. Users can perform exploratory analysis (means, percentiles, moving averages), trend estimation (linear regression, Mann-Kendall test, Theil-Sen slope), and multivariate analysis (2D/3D scatter plots, linear regression) with customizable parameters. Results are visualized through interactive annotated plots.
The platform enables researchers to combine atmospheric observations across different measurement platforms and geographical locations. This service demonstrates how research infrastructure interoperability can be achieved through unified data access layers, common processing workflows, and harmonized analysis tools, facilitating cross-disciplinary scientific applications in climate and air quality research.
The web interface is accessible at https://services.iagos-data.fr/atmo-access/timeseries.
How to cite: Patuel, J., Boulanger, D., Thouret, V., Nicol, B., Clark, H., Eder Murberg, L., and Vermeulen, A.: ATMO-Insights: An Interoperable Platform for IAGOS, ACTRIS and ICOS Data, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-7341, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-7341, 2026.
The FAIR management, documentation, and publication of heterogeneous datasets remain key challenges in land–atmosphere (L–A) interaction research, particularly for data derived from complex three-dimensional observational systems and high-resolution modelling. A new generation of Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) Land–Atmosphere Feedback Observatories (GLAFOs) is expected to routinely generate such data. The GLAFO prototype at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, is already operational, producing advanced multi-sensor observations and high-resolution model outputs within the DFG Research Unit 5639, Land–Atmosphere Feedback Initiative (LAFI). Here, we present the research data management approach developed within LAFI to ensure FAIR-compliant handling of these complex datasets, enabling effective collaboration and accelerating scientific discovery.
Addressing LAFI’s scientific aim of closing key knowledge gaps in land–atmosphere (L-A) feedbacks that limit the accuracy of weather and climate simulations is critically dependent on robust research data management. In particular, effective data standardization, interoperability and reliable data access is required to support seamless collaboration across LAFI’s highly interdisciplinary and international community, spanning atmospheric, soil and agricultural sciences, hydrology, bio-geophysics, and neuro-informatics.
To address these requirements, ongoing activities focus on the standardization of diverse datasets to enable straightforward inter-comparison. In line with FAIR principles, LAFI datasets are being converted into Climate and Forecast (CF) convention–compliant NetCDF files and stored on a secure server hosted by the University of Hohenheim. Initially, all standardized data are freely accessible to LAFI researchers, with plans for broader public access via an API service and/or web portal. Associated data conversion and processing workflows, including Python scripts and documentation, are managed through GitLab.
In parallel, the research data management team collaborates with international initiatives such as obs4MIPs to enable the use of LAFI observations for climate model evaluation, including the development of protocols for advanced instrumentation such as Doppler, Raman, and water vapor differential absorption lidars. Beyond documenting best practices, current efforts emphasize the development of training and tutorial materials to support knowledge transfer to the wider community. These activities are aligned with broader initiatives within the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), including the NFDI4Earth service portfolio, to support FAIR-compliant dissemination across Earth system sciences.
We will present insights from ongoing research data management activities, discuss key challenges encountered, outline potential solutions, and share ideas for leveraging the potential of large-scale AI tools and generative AI. These experiences are intended to contribute constructively to improved Earth system understanding and modelling, broader discussions on research data management and shared challenges, and the development of harmonized guidance for effective scientific data stewardship through the European Open Science Council.
How to cite: Minz, J., Ziemann, A., Schwitalla, T., Jach, L., Branch, O., Breil, M., Mauder, M., and Wulfmeyer, V.: FAIR Research Data Management for Complex Land-Atmosphere Observations & Modelling: The LAFI–GLAFO Approach, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-10632, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-10632, 2026.
The volume of research data has been increasing rapidly for years, driven by technological developments and the growing recognition of data as a primary research output. At the same time, many studies require substantial financial and technical investments, research data are often not reproducible due to transient environmental conditions or political constraints, and scientific questions increasingly span multiple disciplines. These challenges are particularly pronounced in Earth System Science (ESS), which combines high spatial and temporal resolution observations and simulations with strong societal relevance, given the global impact of climate change on virtually all aspects of everyday life. Together, these factors underscore the urgent need for improved interoperability and reusability of scientific information.
Despite ongoing efforts, though, discovering relevant research data in domain-specific repositories often still requires detailed knowledge of disciplinary conventions, terminology, and practices for documentation, communication, and recherche. As one scientist aptly stated: 'You have to know what you are looking for in order to find something useful.' Which poses a significant barrier to cross-disciplinary research and limits the reuse potential of existing data.
Building on the previous comics in this series, which introduced the role of ontologies and terminologies in improving (cross-disciplinary) search, the third comic focuses on concrete enhancements to data discovery at the World Data Center for Climate (WDCC). In continuation of last year’s work, additional features to facilitate search and discovery are being explored, again relying on the systematic use of terminologies provided through a terminology service.
Terminologies constitute a core element of the technical language used within scientific communities. Key characteristics include well-defined concerted technical terms with unambiguous identifiers, rich descriptions, and explicit relationships both within a single terminology and across different terminologies. Their use supports standardization while enabling interoperability between datasets originating from different domains, disciplines, and research communities.
Terminology services (TSs) sustainably provide access to such terminologies through graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and application programming interfaces (APIs). They offer centralised, up-to-date information on the terminologies and their terms, properties, and semantic relationships, and can be seamlessly integrated into data repositories and search infrastructures. By incorporating terminology-based search and exploration features, repositories such as WDCC can lower entry barriers for users, support semantic search, and ultimately improve the findability and reuse of research data.
Through the comic format, this contribution motivates and illustrates these concepts, demonstrating how terminologies and terminology services can support FAIR data principles in practice and how semantic technologies can bridge disciplinary boundaries in Earth System Science.
How to cite: Loehden, A., Martens, C., and Lammert, A.: Lost in Translation? How Terminologies Improve Data Discovery in Earth System Science, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-11974, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-11974, 2026.
The NFDI4Earth, an Earth System Sciences (ESS) consortium within the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI), aims to mature and expand service ecosystem by strengthening service integration, governance, and technical foundations. Central to this effort is Service Portfolio Management, which coordinates the integration of existing and new services with key national and European infrastructures such as Helmholtz Earth & Environment DataHub, NFDI and European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). A Technical Review Board is intended to enable participative and evidence-based decision-making by defining technical requirements, evaluating solutions, and scouting relevant infrastructures. In parallel, NFDI4Earth aims to enhance its core services with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC) capabilities to improve functionality and direct user interaction.
To ensure long-term sustainability, NFDI4Earth aims to establish a robust technical design and operational model for its service portfolio. This includes continuous improvement of the technical backbone, maintenance, further development of core services and embedding of research outcomes. An Agile Development Team is planned to implement service integration tasks and act as Service Stewards to embed services into active research projects. This structure ensures alignment with architectural standards, interoperability, and evolving user and infrastructure requirements.
User engagement and support are addressed through the expansion of the User Support Network (USN), which provides expertise in ESS data management and serves as a bridge between users and developers. The USN is planned to integrate AI-based assistance, including Large Language Model (LLM) -powered support bot, to improve responsiveness and usability while reducing routine support load. It also aims to play a key role in usability testing, feedback management, and collaboration with other NFDI consortia toward a federated, NFDI-wide support service.
Finally, innovation and advanced technology integration are envisioned to be conducted by the Experimental Tech Lab. This measure aims to develop AI-enabled services such as natural language-based data discovery, geospatial foundation models, and direct data interaction tools. It also seeks to integrate HPC resources and standardized workflows to support large-scale data processing and modeling. Together, these activities ensure that NFDI4Earth services remain cutting-edge, scalable, and well aligned with both national and European research data infrastructures.
How to cite: Protopopova-Kakar, V., zu Castell, W., Lorenz, S., Lammert, A., and Thiemann, H.: NFDI4Earth – building the future, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-17782, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-17782, 2026.
The GEOROC and PetDB databases provide peer-reviewed geochemical data on igneous rocks, minerals and related materials for >25 years to cover the full range of igneous compositions, mantle xenoliths and minerals. Combined they provide access to more than 48.2 million individual data values from around 27,000 publications through web applications for search, filtering and download. These comprehensive datasets support large-scale regional and global geochemical data-based research spanning traditional geochemical studies to data-driven and machine-learning approaches.
GEOROC’s holdings have reached over 40.8 million data values from more than 23,000 publications focusing on ocean islands, continents and subduction zones. The PetDB database complements with ca. 7.4 million data values for igneous and metamorphic samples of the ocean floor, ophiolites, mantle xenoliths, tephra, and arc rocks.
The DIGIS project is modernizing the GEOROC data infrastructure in alignment with FAIR principles by introducing a new API, improved web interface, and unified data model. Further, topical global collections of data are extracted into individual DOI-minted data sets that are regularly updated from the GEOROC data holdings. These compilations and additional author-contributed data sets with rich metadata are accessed through GFZ Data-Services. GEOROC has recently been reconnected with the updated GeoReM database on geochemical reference materials. PetDB is part of the EarthChem data services and the IEDA2 data facility. PetDB was migrated to a new architecture and a new, simplified search interface was released in 2025 to improve usability. EarthChem also offers repository services where researchers can publish and archive their data.
Based on close collaborations between PetDB and GEOROC, the EarthChem Portal has provided for nearly 20 years a central access point to the content of both databases, as well as several smaller databases. Today, nearly 50 million data values are accessible at the ECP.
While the EPOS data resources are strong on geophysical (and other types of) data, EPOS has lacked a systematic inclusion of geochemical data from rocks on the European continent. The data services that the geochemical research community provide on geochemical compositions of rocks minerals and ore deposits globally has the potential to become a strong contribution to the EPOS data platform. To this end, we offer collaboration with EPOS to provide access points for two types of geoscience data: curated geochemical data on rocks and minerals in a domain-specific data base and large compiled selected data sets on specific types of rocks and minerals and/or from specific geological or geographic settings in the DIGIS-GEOROC repository at GFZ-data services.
This also requires further developments: Under the umbrella of OneGeochemistry and NFDI4Earth, DIGIS, EarthChem and other initiatives such as the Australian Geochemistry Network are developing authoritative vocabularies and metadata standards, as well as interoperability and integration across different global geochemical databases. Further, together we develop tools for data quality assessment for improved data usability. These advances also broaden the applicability of geochemical data beyond hardrock oriented research to fields such as environmental science, archaeology and geohealth, demonstrating how FAIR-aligned geochemical infrastructures enhance reproducible research in Earth System Science and interdisciplinary collaboration.
How to cite: Wörner, G., Klöcking, M., Lehnert, K., and Elger, K. and the DIGIS-GEOROC Team: Significance and Future of Data Infrastructures for the Geochemical Research Community , EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-18653, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-18653, 2026.
The French national research and innovation program OneWater – Eau Bien Commun (2022–2032) addresses key scientific and societal challenges related to the protection and sustainable management of water as a common good. The program brings together a large number of interdisciplinary projects producing highly heterogeneous datasets, including in-situ sensor measurements, Earth Observation products, model outputs, samples, and social/citizen science data. These datasets are complemented by long-term observations from research infrastructures, environmental observatories, and national public monitoring services. However, a significant part of these data is not yet compliant with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable), limiting their reuse and cross-disciplinary exploitation.
To address these challenges, the OneWater FAIR Water Data Platform, maintained by the DATA TERRA research infrastructure through its thematic Datahub on Continental Surfaces THEIA, aims to go beyond a traditional data catalogue by fostering a FAIR Water Data ecosystem based on international standards and semantic interoperability. The platform promotes the production of FAIR-compliant data by design, enabling efficient data sharing, integration, and reuse across scientific and operational communities.
On top of research data, the OneWater Data Platform also interfaces with national public policy data services and associated monitoring networks. At the international level, the initiative contributes to and benefits from the global FAIR Water community through collaborations with the OGC Hydrology Domain Working Group, WMO, UNEP, UNESCO-IGRAC, eLTER, TERENO, and the Water4All partnership, ensuring alignment with international best practices.
This contribution presents the OneWater FAIR approach, including: (i) the definition of a framework to achieve high FAIRness levels for water data by interpreting the FAIR principles in the context of existing standards and best practices (OGC, W3C, INSPIRE, RDA); (ii) the development of FAIR Implementation Profiles and FAIRness analysis templates applied to datasets from the French water community (research, public monitoring) including THEIA/OZCAR; and (iii) the design of a FAIR Data Platform architecture relying on state-of-the-art interoperability standards, open-source solutions, and recent FAIR Open Science prototyping initiatives; and (iv) the active support to help water observatories climb up the stairway to FAIR”.
How to cite: Puissant, A., Grellet, S., Braud, I., Adam, M., Arnaud, F., Bressan, H., Chaffard, V., Coussot, C., Debard, S., Fozzani, J., Le Bras, Y., Lecaudé, E., Maussang, K., Moine, F., Ollagnier, S., Squividiant, H., Sudre, J., and Valarcher, L.: Towards a FAIR Water Data Ecosystem: The OneWater FAIR Water Data Platform, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-19384, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-19384, 2026.
Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) is forging a public dataspace for Earth system data. Data will be made available on both storage clusters at JSC, ExaStore and Jülich Storage Cluster (JUST), which provide petabyte-scale storage to the exascale system JUPITER and our pre-exascale systems, respectively. We provide insights in the ongoing implementation of new services for the data management as well as the selected tools for data access. This also covers the creation of a metadata catalog based on the SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) specifications.
Background:
Improvements in computational speed lead to better simulations in Earth System Modeling (ESM), by allowing them to resolve scales of a few kilometers. The volume of the resulting data greatly increases with the improvements in resolution and poses challenges for data processing and storage.
Currently a widespread use case gaining popularity in ESM is the training of machine learning (ML) models for weather and climate applications. They require fast access to datasets, which is supported by a special structure within the datasets with anemoi-zarr being a prominent file structure.
Numerical and ML applications demand an easy and FAIR access to datasets. The simplification of subsequent data processing and analysis requires access without the necessity to create individual local copies, either through shared storage or through access over the web.
JSC is a multipurpose high performance computing (HPC) center with ESM being a major user group. With Europe's first exascale system JUPITER, JSC has become the host for a second HPC infrastructure including the dedicated storage cluster ExaStore. ExaStore is designed to provide the high bandwidth, low latency and scalability required to efficiently support data-intensive workloads on JUPITER.
Jülich MeteoCloud is a central data repository for meteorological data on JUST, which is accessible from our pre-exascale systems, such as JUWELS and JURECA-DC. It covers a wide range of datasets, from reanalysis data to satellite observations with the total amount of data being currently about 4PB. With the extension to ExaStore we introduce a new branch for ML-ready datasets. The limited overall storage capacity at JSC calls for a reduction of data duplicates, in particular across project data spaces, and requires services for data movement and also staging of ML-ready datasets on demand.
Within the WarmWorld Easier project JSC and the German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ) co-develop and deploy services for data access. A core aspect is the findability of data, which is ensured with STAC. Each asset provides the necessary information to open the dataset described by the particular catalog entry in a specific way like, using file path when accessing from disk or URL for access through a web service.
With a combination of these approaches we will improve the infrastructure for Earth system sciences at JSC and provide reliable, low-latency access to stored datasets. As a first use case we will include ML-ready datasets for the WeatherGenerator project in the MeteoCloud.
How to cite: Hinz, C., Grießbach, S., Hoffmann, L., Kreshpa, E., Modali, K., Peters-von Gehlen, K., Rushchanskii, K., Saini, R., Stein, O., and Schultz, M.: Creation of a Public Dataspace for Earth System Data at Jülich Supercomputing Centre, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-19486, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-19486, 2026.
Massive Fiber-Optic Distributed Acoustic Data (FO-DAS) streams pose major challenges in archiving, dissemination, and exploitation due to their extreme data rates, long acquisition durations, and high spatial-temporal resolution. Efficient storage is constrained by bandwidth, cost, and metadata standardization, while dissemination is limited by network capacity and interoperability. Scientific exploitation is further hindered by the need for scalable preprocessing, real-time analytics, and robust noise characterization to extract actionable signals from petabyte-scale, heterogeneous datasets.
This contribution targets the presentation of the DATA TERRA (FormaTerre, Odatis, THEIA) approach to describe, store, disseminate and exploit, through the GAIA-Data distributed data and computing infrastructure, massive FO-DAS datasets. Key infrastructure aspects are presented allowing to construct a national and AI-ready FO-DAS dataspace allowing easy and interactive exploitation of massive FO-DAS data for seismological source identification, event characterization and seismic parameter estimation generalizing across volcanoes, glaciers, fault zones, landslides, and urban areas,
FO-DAS bottlenecks are addressed via AI-driven compression (e.g. variational autoencoders), selective archiving, and data augmentation to ensure scalable monitoring. Integration of the dataspace in the DATA TERRA EOSC node will ensure interoperability with other national (NFDI4DEarth) and European research infrastructures (EPOS, EMSO, eLTER).
How to cite: Mouchené, M., Caër, G., Malet, J.-P., Hibert, C., Detoc, J., Ramage, K., Bodéré, E., Cunin, A., Chaljub, E., and Quimbert, E.: Building an AI-Ready National Dataspace for Exploiting Massive Fiber-Optic DAS Data, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-20309, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-20309, 2026.
The One Forest Vision Initiative (OFVi) was introduced at the One Forest Summit held in Libreville in March 2023 and formalized within the Libreville Plan. It contributes to international negotiations on tropical forest conservation and aligns with the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (COP15), notably the target to protect 30% of the Earth’s terrestrial and marine areas by 2030. OFVi is closely linked to the Country Packages (CPs) launched at the G7 Summit in Hiroshima in May 2023, which emerged from coordination between the Positive Conservation Partnerships proposed by France at COP27 and the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership. Within this framework, OFVi provides structured scientific support to the research components of several CP signatory countries.
The initiative is led by six major French research organisations—CEA, CIRAD, CNRS, INRAE, IRD and MNHN—and coordinated by INRAE, CIRAD and IRD. It mobilises higher education institutions through joint research units and national research infrastructures.
OFVi aims to strengthen scientific capacities in tropical forest countries through cooperative research partnerships grounded in internationally recognised scientific standards. A core component of the initiative is the development of data access and processing services, including spatial and in situ observations, value-added products and open knowledge compliant with FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable). Supported by shared data and expertise infrastructures, this approach ensures full national sovereignty over the entire lifecycle of scientific data related to forest conservation.
The initiative promotes interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research approaches that integrate climate regulation, biodiversity conservation, water resources, and the rights and knowledge of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Its scientific outputs are designed to directly support national conservation strategies implemented within the CP framework.
This contribution presents this original initiative supporting tropical forest conservation by generating and integrating distributed data infrastructures based on FAIR and CARE approaches, including : i) facilitates the transfer of reference datasets, ii) monitoring of environmental change and progress, iii) co-production of knowledge with local communities, iv) capacity building for data production and use in partner countries, v) and the promotion of best practices in data management and openness in line with FAIR principles.
Finally, OFVi supports the development of national interdisciplinary data infrastructures for research and conservation, in close connection with the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) ecosystem.
How to cite: Norvez, O., Palla, F., Puissant, A., Le Bras, Y., Durieux, L., Lacroux, C., and Degoute, T.: Co-design a FAIR data framework through an International data platform for a better tropical biodiversity forest management : the case study of the One Forest Vision initiative, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-21056, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-21056, 2026.
Posters virtual: Mon, 4 May, 14:00–18:00 | vPoster spot 1b
EGU26-19784 | Posters virtual | VPS21
Operationalising Semantic Interoperability for Cross-domain Discovery with LUMISMon, 04 May, 14:03–14:06 (CEST) vPoster spot 1b
Significant heterogeneity in metadata schemas, vocabularies, and ontologies hinders the discovery, reuse, and integration of European environmental data infrastructures across national and disciplinary boundaries. Recent initiatives have identified semantic interoperability as a vital enabler of FAIR data flows between infrastructures, paving the way for sophisticated, AI-driven, large-scale analyses.
Powered by OntoPortal technology, EarthPortal is a specialised catalogue of semantic resources (ontologies, thesauri and controlled vocabularies) for Earth and environmental sciences. It provides navigation, multi-ontology searching, mapping management, text annotation and recommendation services via web interfaces and REST APIs. These support data catalogues and repositories in an interoperable way.
EOSC LUMEN builds an interoperable discovery ecosystem across multiple domains (including Earth System Science, Social Sciences and Humanities, and Mathematics) to enable cross-platform search and meaningful reuse across communities. Rather than focusing only on metadata aggregation, LUMEN targets the practical enablers of interoperability that make resources discoverable and machine-actionable across infrastructures.
LUMIS (LUMEN Infrastructure for Semantics) is the shared semantic layer of LUMEN. It supports the end-to-end lifecycle of semantic artefacts (ontologies and controlled vocabularies, including SKOS resources) from scoping and requirements to implementation, publication and long-term maintenance. LUMIS focuses on governance, provenance, versioning and quality checks, while adopting an integration-first strategy: it connects and orchestrates established community tools (deployed services and/or API-based components) into coherent workflows, so that semantic resources can be created, aligned, validated and delivered in reusable forms for discovery platforms.
Integrating EarthPortal into LUMIS links a domain-specific semantic catalogue to a cross-domain discovery ecosystem. This enables repositories to annotate metadata using EarthPortal resources, while making use of LUMIS’s lifecycle-driven workflows and FAIR-aligned governance and quality checks.
In this presentation, we will demonstrate how integrating EarthPortal into the LUMIS platform supports more consistent semantic interoperability and FAIR-aligned practices across European Earth System Science infrastructures. We will showcase practical data workflows to enhance interdisciplinary research.
How to cite: Homo, J., Pierkot, C., Darty, K., and Allem, H.: Operationalising Semantic Interoperability for Cross-domain Discovery with LUMIS, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-19784, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-19784, 2026.
