Environmental Disasters Data Management Workshop Report

The Environmental Disasters Data Management (EDDM) project seeks to foster communication between collectors, managers, and users of data within the scientific research community, industry, NGOs, and government agencies, with a goal to identify and establish best practices for orderly collection, storage, and retrieval. The Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC) is assisting NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration (ORR) with this effort. The objectives of the EDDM project are to: Engage the community of data users, data managers, and data collectors to foster a culture of applying consistent terms and concepts, data flow, and quality assurance and control; Provide oversight in the establishment and integration of foundational, baseline data collected prior to an environmental event, based on user requirements; Provide best‐practice guidance for data and metadata management; Suggest infrastructure design elements to facilitate quick and efficient search, discovery, and retrieval of data; Define the characteristics of a “gold standard” data management plan for appropriate data sampling, formatting, reliability, and retrievability; and Deliver workshop conclusions to end users in order to promote the use of the protocols, practices, or recommendations identified by participants