Managing Data for the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)

The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a network of 81 field sites across the continental U.S. that gather sensor and field data from a diverse range of terrestrial and non-marine aquatic ecosystems. These observatory sites are already generating tremendous volumes of data, which will continue to grow as the remaining observatories come online and additional environmental data points are added. The National Science Foundation, which funds the project, needed an environmental informatics solution to collect, store and manage the observatory data and allow researchers to perform complex queries and data analysis.

Battelle built a cyberinfrastructure to manage all the data collected from the NEON observatories and make it accessible for researchers. The cyberinfrastructure and NEON data portal allow unprecedented visibility into ecological data at a continental scale.

Researchers can select one or more data products from the NEON data portal and download data from any platform or instrument at any NEON site. Battelle has also developed customized application program interfaces (APIs) tailored to support specific research programs.