The data and services strategy of ODATIS, the marine cluster of the French Research Infrastructure DATA TERRA

Over the past few decades, there has been a significant increase in marine observation data, collected through both in situ measurements and remote sensing. For example, high-frequency monitoring of physical-chemical parameters (such as temperature, salinity, fluorescence, dissolved oxygen, and others) has become an essential tool to assess the natural and human-influenced changes in coastal and deep sea waters, and their societal and management implications. The number and variety of data require now efficient tools to make such large datasets accessible to the research community.

The Odatis Ocean cluster (www.odatis-ocean.fr), part of the French DATA TERRA Research Infrastructure, is a national network of Data and Service Centres (DSC) operated by seven research organizations and the French Marine Universities. Odatis is an essential tool for the marine community to describe, quantify and understand the global ocean and its evolution across various disciplines: physic, chemistry, biogeochemical cycles and marine ecosystems. Easier and broader access to marine data is  crucial for addressing the Ocean Decade Challenges, in particular in coastal regions directly affected by human activities.

The innovative nature of Odatis is to develop a marine portal for data producer and users. The first challenge of Odatis is to catalog all open ocean and coastal data and facilitate data collection and access (discovery, visualization, extraction) through its web portal. Repositories already exist all over the world; some have abundant experience but many do not fully comply with FAIR data principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). A second challenge is to develop data analysis and interpretation services. A specific task is to develop tools for handling large amounts of data and generate products for policymakers, practitioners and academics. A last challenge is to inform and train the community. Access to multi-source data is still relatively new, and many researchers are not yet accustomed to searching and manipulating such datasets, let alone doing so remotely.

The aim of this presentation is to outline the French organisation for the management of marine research data, which could serve as a guideline for future national or thematic data repositories.