GAIA DATA: A DISTRIBUTED DATA AND SERVICES INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE OBSERVATION, MODELLING AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE EARTH SYSTEM, BIODIVERSITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
As part of the Equipex/PIA 3 programme, the GAIA Data project brings together 21 partners from the IT and Earth sciences sectors around three research infrastructures dedicated to the observation of the planet. Supported by CLIMERI-France, PNDB and Data Terra, the GAIA DATA project proposes to establish an ecosystem of data and services allowing total flexibility for users. With a budget of 65 million euros, the teams have 8 years to set up an integrated and distributed platform of data and services for the observation and understanding of the Earth system, biodiversity and the environment.
The system will make it possible to manage the entire data cycle (observation, modelling) from its acquisition (space, soil, in-situ) to its multiple uses. Services respecting the FAIR principles and adapted to the needs of the scientific communities will be proposed for all types of data.
Dedicated services will be set up to enable data discovery, access and management: a unified catalogue, an access and search system, a long-term archive, advanced data visualisation and identification services (DOI attribution), etc. Cross-disciplinary services will facilitate transdisciplinary work: establishment of a common data grid, data management and processing through a cloud, implementation of a user support system and a knowledge portal. On-demand services will offer data analysis and processing capabilities to complement regular mass processing services for value-added products.
GAIA DATA is therefore aimed at the scientific community but also provides access to its data and services for local authorities, public and private actors, with the ambition to simplify the interpretation of data by simplifying access to them.
AERIS and Gaia Data
AERIS, as a component of DATA TERRA, is fully involved in this ambitious project: 2 of its data and service centres have been selected to be part of the eight backbone centres of the project infrastructure: ICARE in Lille and ESPRI in Paris.
In addition, AERIS will use its expertise in data FAIRness, its support service for measurement campaigns and also its skills in data authentication, cataloguing and visualisation to propose the basic building blocks required to set up virtual research environments (VRE).
