The role of data and metadata archives in environmental monitoring and research programs

Environmental monitoring and research programs depend on being able to store, retrieve, and understand data that are collected over long periods. However, long-term accessibility of high quality data is hindered by "data entropy," the natural tendency for data to degrade in information content over time. Two approaches are necessary to impede data entropy: developing comprehensive documentation (i.e., metadata) for the data and contributing both the data and metadata to secure data archives. Tn this chapter, I discuss data archives, identify metadata content and format standards relevant to spatial and non-geospatial data, and present examples of several North American data archives. The long-term, integrated inventory and monitoring of forest ecosystem resources depend on the availability of high quality metadata and archives for supporting data and metadata storage and retrieval.