GCE

This has been a challenging but productive first year at the Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER. We began building our information system last fall by purchasing a dual-processor Dell PowerEdge 2400 server, with SCSI RAID storage and three 100Mbps Ethernet cards, and a Dell Precision 420 workstation. The server is currently running Microsoft® Windows NT 4 and hosting the GCE public and project web sites as well as the database server (Microsoft® SQL Server 7). Limited file sharing and FTP services are also provided to support data submission. The workstation is used for data processing and software development, and also runs Windows 2000 with firewall software to provide more secure 'near line' storage in case server security is compromised. We have regular access to a 40GB DLT tape drive for backing up both systems.

The network infrastructure at our administrative headquarters in the Marine Sciences Department at the U. of Georgia was recently upgraded with fiber optic cable and a new managed switch to support multi-Gbps transmissions. Our field station at the UGA Marine Institute on Sapelo Island was also upgraded with multiple ISDN lines to improve Internet connectivity. We will continue to use UGA campus networking resources to provide general communications services for GCE computers and personnel (e.g. switches and wiring, DNS, IMAP, SMTP, LISTSERV, and individual WWW hosting) to maximize the resources available for core data management activities.

This winter we finished selecting and characterizing our study sites for marsh and tidal creek monitoring activities. We used ASP technology to create a database-driven web page that displays site descriptions and customizable geographic descriptions of each site on the web, along with links to available maps and photos (see http://gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/lter/asp/studysites.htm). Links to corresponding data sets and site histories will be added when these resources are available. We recently established transect and station locations for the quarterly GCE hydrographic surveys; similar database pages are under development for these stations as well.

We also formalized our data management policies and practices this winter, and published a preliminary set of overview documents on our web site (http://gce-lter.marsci.uga.edu/lter/research/guide/gce-is.htm). A principle strategy of our information system is to provide all data sets and metadata in computer-parseable, dynamic formats to facilitate data analysis and re-sampling. To meet this goal we are using a relational database management system to organize all metadata information and store long term data sets from our monitoring efforts. For smaller or shorter term data sets we developed software to store fully-documented tabular datasets as Matlab® data structures, and wrote tools for managing and analyzing the data and metadata stored inside. This technology allows us to minimize database administration overhead and provides better data portability. The tools in the GCE Data Toolbox are used to validate data from submissions and data loggers, perform QC flagging, generate summary statistics, and provide additional processing and analysis of data sets prior to archival or transmission to the database. A generalized metadata parsing and formatting scheme allows documentation to be generated in various formats, and updated automatically to reflect changes due to data set manipulation or processing. Metadata fields are also queried by automatic statistical routines to enforce data semantics and prevent inappropriate or unwarranted analyses. This scheme will be updated to accommodate the new LTER metadata standard, when adopted.

A total of six data sets from monitoring studies have been submitted and processed so far this year. We also completed a number or special projects while waiting for more data streams to come online, including: scanning and georeferencing high resolution color infrared photographs of our study areas taken in 1999, establishing a GCE publications database, generating custom tide tables for stations across the GCE domain, building a collection of general site photos, publishing informational web pages describing our various monitoring activities, and building web forms for submitting various information on our intranet site.

Over the next year we plan to expand our use of database-driven web applications to provide immediate access to project information and resources as they become available. We have also started using Dreamweaver® Ultradev 4 to develop an interactive web application for submitting and updating data set documentation to replace the current boilerplate documents and Excel templates. We have also completed several graphical user interface applications for working with GCE Data Structures, which are currently being tested in several labs. We will use the Matlab Web Server to provide similar online functionality using HTML forms as the user interface, and tables, text files and charts as output. We are also exploring the use of ESRI® ArcIMS, in collaboration with the CWT site, to provide interactive display of GIS coverages being developed by Alice Chalmers at our site.