Advanced Research Data Management to Enhance Reuse and Societal Impact of Flux Data

Flux measurements play a critical role in informing climate mitigation, ecosystem management, and land–atmosphere interaction studies. However, their broader societal impact is often limited by fragmented data management, insufficient metadata, and unclear version histories that hinder reproducibility, citation, and effective reuse. Here, we demonstrate how the DBRepo data repository system can be used to operationalize principles, dataset versioning, precise identification of arbitrary subsets, and citation practices for flux data, while maintaining alignment with established standards such as those used by FLUXNET. Using flux datasets deposited in DBRepo, we illustrate how explicit versioning and persistent identifiers enable users to track updates, assess the impact of data revisions on analytical outcomes, and ensure that derived results remain interpretable and citable over time. This is particularly relevant for educational and applied contexts, where students, researchers, and non-academic stakeholders require clarity on which data version underpins a given conclusion. Mapping the data representations to established ontologies and FLUXNET conventions, to capture their semantics and units of measurements, further enhances interoperability and lowers the barrier for integrating locally managed flux datasets into broader analysis workflows. By framing versioned, FAIR flux data as a learning and decision-support resource rather than static research output, this work highlights how data infrastructure can directly enhance data literacy, analytical skills, and trust in flux-based evidence. Such practices are essential for translating flux observations into robust, actionable insights with immediate societal benefits.