Comprehensive quality control for both metadata and data precedes database archival. It contains about 40 years of meteorological and hydrological records for the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest, up to 80 years of forest growth and mortality records in 6 Western States, and 30 years of continuous data on vegetation succession. Important databases established more recently include a multinational LTER woody debris decomposition project, large-scale bird and bird habitat surveys, and a historical fish habitat database for the Columbia River Basin based on a survey by the Fish and Wildlife Service in the 1930's and 40's. New research projects planning to use our services include the DEMO project and the Wind River Canopy Crane. Structure A set of central catalogs stores information about databases, table structures, and datafiles.
Dedicated server subdirectories house individual databases, both data and metadata.
Our set of metadata, which includes the information stored in the catalog, conforms substantially to the standard established by LTER data managers. Data Production Data production activities include the assembly of abjective and interpretative descriptions of databases, key entry and data imports, quality control of both metadata and data, and archiving. Quality control for metadata covers checks by program for completeness and consistency of all metadata information. Quality control of data is based on metadata specifications applied by a generic program to the data. Selected datasets and metadata are available through this World Wide Web server, as well as a collection of GIS coverages.