BonaRes: a community-driven Data Portal for interoperable Agricultural Data

Sustainable soil management implies the efficient utilization of natural resources including water, energy, land, and nutrientsThe resource efficient optimization of such soil services requires a systemic understanding of the biological, chemical and physical processes interacting in the soil system as well as its dynamics with soil management.  

BONARES INITIATIVE

 - funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) - 

focuses on the sustainable use of soils for the bioeconomy. To this end, BonaRes conducts research to improve the evidence base for sustainable soil management.

The ultimate goal of BonaRes is to extend the scientific understanding of soil ecosystems and to improve the productivity of soils and other soil functions while developing new strategies for a sustainable use and management of soils

The BonaRes initiative integrates the BonaRes Centre as well as 10 interdisciplinary collaborative projects that help ensure securing productivity and efficiency of soil as a resource in the long run by researching possibilities to optimize soil function and asking questions such as:

  • how can the use of water and nutrition be made more efficient?
  • how can land use strategies and land use management be optimized?

BONARES CENTER IS...

... the transfer of existing and newly generated knowledge on soil functions into an operational scientific evidence base for decision-making on soil management in the context of a sustainable bioeconomy. Main tasks are:

  • the establishment of required infrastructure for an efficient communication and the exchange of soil-related data,
  • modelling concepts and assessment tools for a sustainable soil management.

The future vision is that decisions on soil management options can be based on improved and operational scientific evidence that will lead to an improved maintenance of the fertility of soils and their diverse functions and services for a sustainable utilization in the context of the bioeconomy.

The Centre supports and integrates different collaborative projects and reaches out to a wider soil-scientific community, farmers, administrative and political decision makers as well as an interested public. The BonaRes Data Centre is a central warehouse for soil relevant research data, e. g. taken from long-term field experiments. It offers the following support:

  • Saving and archiving research data
  • Publishing of reserach data
  • Usage of research data

THE BONARES DATA PORTAL...

... provides information about the BonaRes projects, access to data, knowledge and models, as well as to decision support options for a sustainable soil management. 

The provision of documented research data on the BonaRes Portal follows standardized forms which are part of an international networking data infrastructure:

  • Data is registered first, which means it gets a so called DOI (digital object identifier) to therefore make it quotable and long-time available. The Data Centre complies with the DataCite-Schema aiming at the facilitation of research data.; 
  • By registering, a description of data by metadata is also connected;
  • To structure the data base, the multilingual thesaurus AGROVOC of FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) is being used;
  • Detailed information on research data can be received from metadata which is freely available in principle. Further options on visualization or on data download depend on regulations within the data guideline. Check BonaRes metadata editor

The Data Portal offers the possibility to search for local, temporal (check here) and addressed criteria within the data base of the BonaRes Data Centre.

To learn more about the BonaRes community driven repository for interoperable agricultural data please check here

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