Enabling FAIR data in Earth and environmental science with community-centric (meta)data reporting formats

This paper addresses the challenges of data interoperability and reuse in Earth and environmental science by promoting the Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) principles. The authors describe eleven community-centric (meta)data reporting formats designed to improve data accessibility and reusability across various Earth science disciplines. These formats encompass cross-domain metadata (dataset, location, and sample metadata), file-formatting guidelines (file-level metadata, CSV files, terrestrial model data), and domain-specific formats for biological, geochemical, and hydrological data. The paper also provides guidelines for creating new (meta)data formats, highlighting their potential to accelerate scientific discovery.

Robert Crystal-Ornelas, Charuleka Varadharajan, Dylan O'Ryan, Kathleen Beilsmith, Benjamin Bond-Lamberty, Kristin Boyes, Madison Burrus, Shreyas Cholia, Danielle S. Christianson, Michael Crow, Joan Damerow, Kim S. Ely, Amy E. Goldman, Susan L. Heinz, Valerie C. Hendrix, Zarine Kakalia, Kayla Mathes, Fianna O'Brien, Stephanie C. Pennington, Emily Robles, Alistair Rogers, Maegen Simmonds, Terri Velliquette, Pamela Weisenhorn, Jessica Nicole Welch, Karen Whitenack, Deborah A. Agarwal