Thursday 10 February, 2011

2011 and Beyond...

Welcome to 2011.

For TERN, our New Year has been shaped by the Federal Government’s confirmation, in late December, of the EIF project plan. So, after an intense period of discussion and strategy development last year, we begin 2011 with an expanded TERN capability – however, this still has to engage with the ecosystem science community across Australia. We now have some of the people required to build this resource to be shared across the ecosystem science community and the next stage is to engage the community in building and using it. Please keep your eye on our web page www.tern.org.au . The website will be updated as each facility opens its portal and will also contain full details on how you can engage with the portal developers, provide data or download data.

I would also like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the people in the TERN network across Australia who contributed directly to the development of the EIF Plan. I would also like to pay tribute to all of those people who contributed indirectly to the plan by offering ideas and submitting proposals, some of which ultimately could not be funded under the current plan. Please be assured that your contribution was significant in helping the TERN Board to set the priorities.

The current set of NCRIS and EIF funded facilities are listed below and the conceptual model shows where these sit within the Australian ecosystem context.

A full list of the funding provided and collaborating partners can be found here.

1. TERN Central and Australian Ecosystem Portal
To build and deliver an active, engaged and accessible network for supporting long term ecosystem research and making its data available and useable.

2. ACEAS Australian Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
To foster the development of teams of scientists and resource managers to define and address critical regional to national scale natural resource management issues that require new understanding of ecosystem function.

3. Multi-Scale Plot Network

3.1 LAMPS (Long term Australian Multi-scale Plot System)
To provide multi-scale integration across the data collation, analysis and systems learning activities of the AusPlots, LTER and Supersite sub-facilities

3.2 AusPlots (previously National Scientific Reference Site Network)
To establish a Continental network of ecosystem surveillance and baseline monitoring plots that will provide data relevant to the ecological, remote sensing and modelling communities and government agencies involved in managing the landscape and Australia’s biodiversity and ecosystem assets.

3.3 Long Term Ecosystem Research (LTER) Sites
To integrate research in key plot networks and transects across Australia to tackle critical questions associated with the impacts of disturbance and climate change on Australian ecosystems.

3.4 Supersites
Establishment of a nationally consistent network of multidisciplinary and intensive ecosystem observatories – Supersites - to provide a comprehensive set of ecosystem measurements(vegetation dynamics/stocks, biodiversity, micrometeorology (climate, radiation, C and H2O fluxes), hydrology and biogeochemistry to serve the ecosystem dynamics, earth system science and modelling communities and ultimately provide information on how ecosystems will respond to future environmental change.

4. OzFlux (CO2, water and energy flux measurement)
A network of flux stations to provide nationally consistent observations of fluxes of energy, carbon and water to serve the land-surface and ecosystem modelling communities.

5. AusCover (satellite image monitoring)
Production and delivery of nationally consistent long-time series of satellite-based biophysical map products and next generation remote sensing research data that is validated for Australian conditions.

6. Scaling and Model Development
To create and develop research infrastructure capable of integrating multiple data streams to enable benchmarking, evaluation and optimisation of next-generation terrestrial ecosystem models in support of ecosystem science, impact assessment and management.

7. Australian Coastal Ecosystems Facility
To provide national and enduring access to key coastal datasets that inform the wise use of Australia’s coastal assets.

8. Soil and Landscape Grid for Australia
A comprehensive fine-scale soil and landscape information grid with functional soil attributes and key landscape features – in two stages.

9. Ecoinformatics
The Ecoinformatics Facility aims to use a federated data model to provide a single framework for data and information management and discovery for Australian ecosystems data, and to broker access and incorporate into the system datasets from various sources to facilitate development of a ‘one stop shop’ for ecosystem data.

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Implementing TERN’s Plans and Principles

As we have learnt from our experience so far with the NCRIS funded components of TERN, establishing a facility, engaging with the appropriate ecosystem science communities and enabling the communities to access and use the infrastructure are significant tasks.

In implementing the TERN EIF facilities and building TERN as a whole for the ecosystem science communities to participate in and use, there will need to be significant consultation and we all need to focus on communicating clearly the principles, processes and benefits of TERN. This will be done from the TERN Office and each Facility to stress that:

• TERN is being built as a resource to be shared by the ecosystem science community;
• Understanding and advancing knowledge of Australia’s ecosystems and the challenges they face, requires sharing of knowledge and data in appropriate ways.
• By establishing a “network” of like-minded scientists with common requirements for quality assured, archived long term data sets, the ability to act collaboratively to request research and infrastructure funding is increased
• TERN’s success depends on individual ecosystem scientists being willing to share their knowledge and data, based on the understanding that it is contributing to the collective benefit of the ecosystem science community now and in the future.
• TERN data sets will be shared and used under appropriate licensing conditions that enables free and public access, but enables the data user and coontributer to advance their work.

At the present time we have selected people and groups within each ecosystem science community establishing TERN’s structure. It is critical that we continue to point out that we are building a resource on behalf of, or to be shared with the ecosystem science communities. A major part of TERN’s activities this year and beyond, is engagement across each ecosystem science community to seek input from all relevant scientists. This input may be the provision of their data sets, or assistance in designing a part of the current infrastructure, or developing our for future plans.

The key message is that TERN is a resource being built to be shared – but it will take a little time to get it to the stage where people can submit data, and search and retrieve data.

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One TERN and TERN’s Decadal Strategic Plan

As our EIF activities become established, all TERN Facility Directors, the TERN Board and the Office will begin working on one “TERN” – that is independent of its funding components (the NCRIS and EIF programs). Essentially this means presenting TERN as a single entity, a network of ecosystem scientists, and sets of infrastructure allowing the capture, storage, analysis and sharing of ecosystem data and knowledge. Communicating this representation of TERN will enable us to obtain support across the ecosystem science communities, link more effectively with cognate programs (IMOS), and establish a path to sustaining TERN as an ongoing part of the nation’s research and information infrastructure. A key task for the TERN Facility Directors, the TERN Board and the Office will be the production of a new Strategic Plan, which will be done in cooperation with the Integrated Marine Observing System.

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