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The Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW), a member institute of the Leibniz Association, is a non-university marine research institute in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In its four departments Physical Oceanography, Marine Chemistry, Biological Oceanography and Marine Geology, the basic disciplines of marine research are represented. Its interdisciplinary research programme is directed towards a holistic view of coastal and marginal seas with a special focus on the Baltic Sea ecosystem. The IOW provides research and data infrastructures with access for a broader scientific community.

As a founding member of the Leibniz Research Network “Earth & Societies” (formerly “Integrated Earth System Research”), the IOW has been in close contact for many years with other Leibniz institutions that have already been members of the NFDI4Earth consortium. Through these contacts and IOW's membership within the DAM (Deutsche Allianz für Meeresforschung) there has long been an interface to the NFDI4Earth consortium. In September 2024, the IOW has been included as the 65th partner in NFDI4Earth and will now actively participate in the User Support Network (USN). In addition, IOW is currently seeking an official partnership in NFDI4Biodiversity where it aims for enhancing availability and FAIRness of marine biodiversity-related data.

As part of NFDI4Earth, IOW will support the existing USN team in responding to user queries on aspects of FAIR handling of research data and associated infrastructures. The existing USN expertise will be expanded and strengthened by IOW’s many years of experience in the areas of oceanographic databases for hydrochemical and biological data, as well as data curation, software development, model data solutions and support for FAIR data publication.

Manja Placke (IOW Warnemünde)

Our third call for NFDI4Earth Pilots attracted 24 excellent proposals, all showing remarkable potential for advancing Earth System Sciences. From this strong field of candidates, five projects have been selected to form our 3rd NFDI4Earth Pilot Cohort. We extend our sincere thanks to all reviewers whose expertise and dedication made this rigorous selection process possible. The projects are:

1. CAMELS-DE PLUS. Dr. Mirko Mälicke and his team at the KIT will enhance and update their already well-established hydrological dataset CAMELS by implementing a new community standard.
2. GeoLabel, led by Prof. Dr. Teja Kattenborn at the University of Freiburg, will create a WebGIS-based annotation tool that supports georeferenced labeling.
3. At the University of Göttingen, Prof. Dr. Matthias Willbold and his team will develop an adaptable quality evaluation tool for the GEOROC geochemical database.
4. 4D-WORKS, under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Katherina Anders at TU Munich, will develop a curation workflow and best practice metadata for 3D time series data acquired through laser scanning or photogrammetry. The project addresses the current lack of standards and will improve data interoperability and reusability.
5. The Geofresh platform is now in its third funding round and the team of Dr. Sami Domisch at IGB will continue to enhance their well-established platform by connecting various geospatial tools to improve freshwater research capabilities.

Find out more details about our NFDI4Earth Pilots on our webpage. 

Kolja Nenoff (University of Leipzig)

Welcoming our 2nd NFDI4Earth Academy Cohort

The 2nd NFDI4Earth Academy Cohort fellow‍s during their kick-off-meeting in Potsdam.

We are very happy to announce that our second NFDI4Earth Academy cohort has started on June 1st 2024. Our selection committee accepted 34 excellent fellows from 23 research institutions from across Germany, which met during the kick-off meeting (see above).

Our Kick-off meeting took place from June 10th to June 12th, 2024, in Potsdam. This first gathering set the stage for the upcoming two years of collaborative learning, research, and innovation. In addition to scientific exchange, networking, and community building, we identified these core areas for the NFDI4Earth Academy: machine/deep learning & explainable and trustworthy AI, programming skills, statistical and time series analyses, satellite data and FAIR data management.

Between July and September, the fellows participated in a series of online lectures and discussions centred around research data management and various topics in data science. From September 30th to October 2nd, we held our cross-cohort meeting, bringing together the first and second cohort. This event included a workshop on visualising science projects, opportunities for inter-cohort exchanges, an excursion, and a farewell celebration for the first cohort. Looking ahead, our next in-person event will be the Spring School in 2025, where we will focus on FAIR data principles and data manipulation techniques

For more information about the NFDI4Earth Academy and our open events, please visit our webpage.

We thank all attending fellows for their valuable contributions!

 Jonas Kuppler (GFZ Potsdam & Geo.X), Effi Drews (FZ Jülich & Geoverbund ABC/J) & Kristin Sauerland (MARUM & Deutsche Allianz Meeresforschung) with support of ChatGPT

Spot on... NFDI4Earth

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NFDI Success Stories

NFDI4Earth FAIRness and Openness Commitment



Participate in NFDI4Earth

Helpdesk: Question of the Quarter

The User Support Network (USN) answers the questions submitted to the public helpdesk. To give you an impression of the USN's work, this regular section presents questions and answers for broadly relevant topics.

Question: Where to find a digital repository for spatial data of finished and ongoing projects including several processing levels and how get people from different institutes into one workflow?

Answer: We had a consulting meeting, showing examples of datasets available in a data repository from different projects, formats and processing levels. A data policy was recommended to explain the workflow, including a standardised project name, location vocabulary, moratorium rules and processing levels or methods. The form where to submit data to the repository and the functions how to filter data were explained.

Feedback: The person was very pleased to get all questions answered. We will keep an eye on the first submission! 

Hela Mehrtens (GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel)

 Join the NFDI4Earth Academy Coffee Lectures!

Please keep in mind to join the NFDI4Earth online Coffee Lecture series, scheduled from October 2024 to March 2025, every second Tuesday from 11:00 to 12:00 hrs. We will explore a wide array of exciting topics, including the newly established Data Competence Centers, the OneStop4All, and the advancements in Large Language Models.

For detailed information on upcoming lectures and registration, please visit our webpage.

Everybody is welcome and participation is free of charge! 

Effi-Laura Drews (FZ Jülich & Geoverbund ABC/J, Kristin Sauerland (MARUM & Deutsche Allianz Meeresforschung) & Jonas Kuppler (GFZ Potsdam & Geo.X)

NFDI4Earth Outcomes

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NFDI4Earth Interest Group on FAIR HPC data at NHR conference

The NFDI4Earth Interest group HPC (High performance commuting) participated in the NHR conference, held from 9 to 12 September at Darmstadt. In the joint networking session on 'Envisioning a NHRNFDI Collaboration on enabling FAIR implementation on HPC' aspects of the definition of data projects were discussed. A preliminary view into the results of a recent survey on data management from the NHR DataLake project underlines the importance to open data silos by additional services. The current challenge is to define re-use of HPC-data as an integral part of HPC service provision.

Stephan Hachinger (LRZ Munich), Stephan Frickenhaus (AWI Bremerhaven)

NFDI4Earth involved in the FAIR-IMPACT Support Action Recommendations

The EOSC FAIR-IMPACT is a European initiative that aims to support data repositories in complying with the FAIR guidelines in order to improve transparency and trust in repositories. In this context, the NFDI4Earth Label team is involved in a FAIR-IMPACT support action from May till September 2024 on the topic of 'Recommendations for trustworthy and FAIR-enabling data repositories'.

In this support action, the NFDI4Earth Label team had the opportunity to learn more about the upcoming FAIR-IMPACT guidelines, and to critically evaluate and shape them. This is very relevant for the NFDI4Earth, as these guidelines will apply to a number of NFDI4Earth repositories. The knowledge gained on the guidelines, and on the challenges repositories face when improving their FAIRness will also directly benefit the development of the NFDI4Earth Label.

Tim Schäfer (Senckenberg), Ronny Gey (UFZ Leipzig), Claudia Müller (AWI Bremerhaven)

Spatial Data Science across Languages (SDSL) Workshop 2024

The second iteration of the Spatial Data Science across Languages (SDSL) Workshop took place from 18-19th September 2024 at the Geographical Institute of Charles University in Prague, Czechia with a total of 28 in-person and 25 online participants. The first SDSL workshop was held at the University of Münster last year. The workshop series aims to bring together software developers and users across the various programming languages, such as R, Python, Julia, and Rust, to discuss commonalities and differences, as well as how to bridge them.

This year, topics included vector data cubes, with an in-depth discussion on the stars package in R and its counterpart xvec in Python and the potential for similar developments in Julia. GeoArrow, an extension of Apache Arrow for geo-applications, was introduced as a novel solution for accelerated cross-language exchange and compute. An introduction to Rust showcased its rise as an efficient low-level programming language. Spherical geometry was another key topic, highlighting the limited support currently available in Python. A niche discussion on trajectory data emphasized the lack of clear standards. Additionally, a session on containerization and polyglot notebooks in Quarto explored the challenges of creating reproducible environments across languages.

The workshop series is set to continue, with the third iteration planned at Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, Austria.

Yomna Eid (University of Muenster)

DMG Data Science Short Course 2024 at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main

The in person participants of the DMG Data Science Short Course 2024 in Frankfurt

©Thomas Rose.‍

The DMG Data Science Short Course 2024, led by PD Dr. Dominik Hezel and colleagues, ran from 11th to 20th September, offering a blend of online and in-person training. The online segment introduced participants from various German institutions to Python basics, with a focus on geochemical data processing using Jupyter Notebooks. The participants first learned for themselves with video tutorials and exercises, followed by Zoom meetings with group exercises in breakout sessions.

After the online segment, the participants met for a three day workshop at Goethe University Frankfurt. Dominik Hezel opened by covering key concepts like open-source principles, FAIR data standards, and metadata. Leander Kallas presented the Georoc database and its integration with EarthChem, inviting participants to try its new API. Jie Xu introduced NFDI4Earth, followed by a lecture on how to use markdown for NFDI4Earth Living Handbook articles. Thomas Rose demonstrated Git and GitHub, publishing workflows in Quarto, and explored the distinctions between databases and repositories. Hands-on exercises enriched each session, with activities on data parsers, Streamlit visualizations, diffusion modeling, and machine learning, rounding off a course that emphasized practical skills to meet modern data challenges in geosciences.

The workshop online teaching material is available via a Streamlit app here, and another workshop is planned for 2025.

Lara Friedrichs (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt / M.), Jana Franz, Ali Mohammed & Christiane Schmidt (GFZ, Potsdam)

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NFDI cross-consortia collaboration on Large Language Models

in scientific publishing

A one-day workshop on ‘Large Language Models and the Future of Scientific Publishing’ will take place on 11 February 2025 in Frankfurt/Main. The transdisciplinary event is jointly organised by six NFDI consortia (NFDI4Chem, MatWerk, KonsortSWD, Text+, NFDI4DataScience and NFDI4Earth) from different domains bringing together representatives from the scientific community, the publishing industry and other stakeholders to discuss the opportunities and challenges of using LLMs in the publishing process.

Participation is free of charge, but places are limited, and registration is still possible here.

Franziska Eberl (Friedrich-Schiller University of Jena, NFDI4Chem)
& Auriol Degebelo (TU Dresden)

NFDI4Earth meets NFDI DMP Basic Service

We cordially invite data management plan enthusiasts and service providers to our NFDI4Earth meets NFDI DMP Basic Service Workshop. The workshop is scheduled as an online event on 13 December 2024 from 11:00 to 13:00 hrs.

We will give an overview of the DMP4NFDI Base Service activities, a related NFDI4Earth use case and experiences from NFDI4Earth DMP service providers.

In the following interactive part, we invite you to give feedback and to contribute potential use case scenarios for the DMP basic service within the NFDI4Earth community.

If you are interested, please register here!

Hannes Fuchs & Martin Hammitzsch (Helmholtz DataHub Earth & Environment),

Jürgen Windeck & Sabine Schönau (DMP4NFDI), Christin Henzen & Christiane Schmidt (NFDI4Earth)

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NFDI4Earth @ EGU 2025

NFDI4Earth will join next year's EGU General Assembly from 27 April to 2 May 2025 at Vienna, Austria.

After the big success of our persormance at the EGU2024, NFDI4Earth will again be present with a booth directly neighbouring to the booths of our partners DKRZ, University of Hamburg, DLR and LRZ Munich to represent activities and our organisations. All three booths are directly located in the heart of the entrance hall - a perfect spot to bring our activities to a broad audience.

Among others and in order to foster the international exchange of NFDI4Earth, our co-spokspersons Hannes Thiemann, Peter Braesicke and Wolfgang zu Castell proposed an ITS session called 'Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Earth System Science Data Centers'. Please find further details here - contributions are very welcome from the NFDI4Earth community and beyond.

The abstract submission deadline is Wednesday, 15 January 2025, 13:00 CET.

The preparations of the booths and an interesting programme will be intensified at the beginning of next year. Your ideas and proposals for concrete activities and contributions at the booth are already welcome! For this, as well as for more information about how to contribute to the booth, please contact nfdi4earth-coordination@tu-dresden.de.

We are looking forward to meeting you end of April 2025 at Vienna!

Jörg Seegert (TU Dresden)

International News

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1st EOSC Node is operational after EOSC Symposium 2024

A key highlight of the EOSC Symposium 2024 taking place from 21 to 23 October 2024 at Berlin was the launch of the EOSC Federation’s inaugural node - the EOSC EU Node is a suite of services to support Open Science. The node provides free access to many services. This marked a significant step forward in the establishment of the EOSC Federation, an overarching theme throughout the meeting. All NFDI stakeholders are encouraged to take a look at these services, login, explore the credit system, and test the services.

Participants had access to the EOSC EU Node information booth, allowing for direct engagement with representatives to discuss potential applications and gather insights. It was a great opportunity to network with different countries considering applying to be a candidate node. Any input is welcomed on the ongoing efforts around the EOSC Handbook which will be a collaborative effort to understand the development steps in setting up the federation.

Several dedicated sessions focused on the EU Node and broader EOSC Federation topics. Outcomes, including videos, presentations, and slides, are available on the EOSC Symposium outcomes page and the European Commission’s website.

An NFDI and EOSC side-event was intended to further bring together the European community with the NFDI community, particularly around certain topics such as governance, basic services, training and RDM practices. Hannes Thiemann (DKRZ) from NFDI4Earth gave a lightning talk titled 'Example of an international data infrastructure in climate research', highlighting aspects of the international networking of NFDI4Earth at EOSC level and beyond.

Christiane Schmidt (GFZ), Najla Rettberg (Base4NFDI)

The NFDI4Earth project has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the project NFDI4Earth (DFG project no. 460036893, https://nfdi4earth.de) within the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI, https://www.nfdi.de).‍