A citation index is a kind of bibliographic index, an index of citations between publications, allowing the user to easily establish which later documents cite which earlier documents. A form of citation index is first found in 12th-century Hebrew religious literature. Legal citation indexes are found in the 18th century and were made popular by citators such as Shepard's Citations (1873). In 1961, Eugene Garfield's Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) introduced the first citation index for papers published in academic journals, first the Science Citation Index (SCI), and later the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI). American Chemical Society converted its printed Chemical Abstract Service into internet-accessible SciFinder in 2008. The first automated citation indexing was done by CiteSeer in 1997 and was patented. Other sources for such data include Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic, Elsevier's Scopus, and the National Institutes of Health's iCite.
The World Data Centre (WDC) system was created to archive and distribute data collected from the observational programmes of the 1957–1958 International Geophysical Year by the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). The WDCs were funded and maintained by their host countries on behalf of the international science community.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) is a United States information and referral center in support of polar and cryospheric research. NSIDC archives and distributes digital and analog snow and ice data and also maintains information about snow cover, avalanches, glaciers, ice sheets, freshwater ice, sea ice, ground ice, permafrost, atmospheric ice, paleoglaciology, and ice cores.
Soil classification deals with the systematic categorization of soils based on distinguishing characteristics as well as criteria that dictate choices in use.
The World Ocean Database Project, or WOD, is a project established by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC). The project leader was Sydney Levitus, who was also director of the International Council for Science (ICSU) World Data Center (WDC) for Oceanography, Silver Spring. Sydney Levitus retired in 2013. In recognition of the success of the IOC Global Oceanographic Data Archaeological and Rescue Project, a proposal was presented at the 16th Session of the Committee on International Oceanographic Data and Information Exchange (IODE), which was held in Lisbon, Portugal, in October–November 2000, to establish the World Ocean Database Project. This project is intended to stimulate international exchange of modern oceanographic data and encourage the development of regional oceanographic databases as well as the implementation of regional quality control procedures. This new Project was endorsed by the IODE at the conclusion of the Portugal meeting, and the IOC subsequently approved this project in June 2001.
Digital soil mapping (DSM) in soil science, also referred to as predictive soil mapping or pedometric mapping, is the computer-assisted production of digital maps of soil types and soil properties. Soil mapping, in general, involves the creation and population of spatial soil information by the use of field and laboratory observational methods coupled with spatial and non-spatial soil inference systems.
A soil map is a geographical representation showing diversity of soil types or soil properties in the area of interest. It is typically the result of a soil survey inventory, i.e. soil survey. Soil maps are most commonly used for land evaluation, spatial planning, agricultural extension, environmental protection and similar projects. Traditional soil maps typically show only general distribution of soils, accompanied by the soil survey report. Many new soil maps are derived using digital soil mapping techniques. Such maps are typically richer in context and show higher spatial detail, yet are not necessarily more accurate, than traditional soil maps. Soil maps produced using (geo)statistical technique can also include an estimate of the model uncertainty.
The Global Ocean Data Analysis Project (GLODAP) is a synthesis project bringing together oceanographic data, featuring two major releases as of 2018. The central goal of GLODAP is to generate a global climatology of the World Ocean's carbon cycle for use in studies of both its natural and anthropogenically forced states. GLODAP is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation.
European Digital Archive on Soil Maps(EuDASM) is a digital inventory of the maps holding valuable information pertaining to soil that are highly demanded in various environmental assessment studies focusing on policy issues. The EuDASM is a common platform established by Joint Research Centre in Italy of the European Commission and the International Soil Reference and Information Centre(ISRIC) of Wageningen University in The Netherlands to store soil and related maps in digital format and to provide free access to the global community. The archive is typically unique at the present times, for it is the only archive that holds nearly 6000 maps online related to soils and are freely accessible to the public around the world. Moreover, the major focus of the EuDASM initiative is towards the developing nations of Africa, South America, Asia etc., in order to assist them to arrest the loss of existing information and prevent the quality deterioration.
Carbon monitoring as part of greenhouse gas monitoring refers to tracking how much carbon dioxide or methane is produced by a particular activity at a particular time. For example, it may refer to tracking methane emissions from agriculture, or carbon dioxide emissions from land use changes, such as deforestation, or from burning fossil fuels, whether in a power plant, automobile, or other device. Because carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas emitted in the largest quantities, and methane is an even more potent greenhouse gas, monitoring carbon emissions is widely seen as crucial to any effort to reduce emissions and thereby slow climate change.
PANGAEA - Data Publisher for Earth & Environmental Science is a digital data library and a data publisher for earth system science. Data can be georeferenced in time and space.
HadCRUT is the dataset of worldwide monthly instrumental temperature records formed by combining the sea surface temperature records compiled by the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office and the land surface air temperature records compiled by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia.
Pedometric mapping, or statistical soil mapping, is data-driven generation of soil property and class maps that is based on use of statistical methods. Its main objectives are to predict values of some soil variable at unobserved locations, and to access the uncertainty of that estimate using statistical inference i.e. statistically optimal approaches. From the application point of view, its main objective is to accurately predict response of a soil-plant ecosystem to various soil management strategies—that is, to generate maps of soil properties and soil classes that can be used for other environmental models and decision-making. It is largely based on applying geostatistics in soil science, and other statistical methods used in pedometrics.
The global freshwater model WaterGAP calculates flows and storages of water on all continents of the globe, taking into account the human influence on the natural freshwater system by water abstractions and dams. It supports understanding the freshwater situation across the world's river basins during the 20th and the 21st centuries, and is applied to assess water scarcity, droughts and floods and to quantify the impact of human actions on e.g. groundwater, wetlands, streamflow and sea-level rise. Modelling results of WaterGAP have contributed to international assessment of the global environmental situation including the UN World Water Development Reports, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the UN Global Environmental Outlooks as well as to reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. WaterGAP contributes to the Intersectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project ISIMIP, where consistent ensembles of model runs by a number of global hydrological models are generated to assess the impact of climate change and other anthropogenic stressors on freshwater resources world-wide.
Temperature anomaly is the difference, positive or negative, of a temperature from a base or reference value, normally chosen as an average of temperatures over a certain reference or base period. In atmospheric sciences, the average temperature is commonly calculated over a period of at least 30 years over a homogeneous geographic region, or globally over the entire planet.
The World Soil Museum (WSM) displays physical examples of soil profiles (monoliths) representing major soil types of the world, from the volcanic ash soils from Indonesia to the red, strongly weathered soils from the Amazon region. The museum is managed by the International Soil Reference and Information Centre (ISRIC), an independent, science-based foundation. Physically, the museum is located on the campus of Wageningen University and Research Centre in Wageningen, The Netherlands.
Forensic colorimetry, or forensic color analysis, is the examination of specimen color for purposes of forensic investigation. Typical specimens involved in color analyses include pigments, dyes, or other objects that are distinguishable by their intrinsic color. Analyses may be conducted by-eye or by computational methods, both by matching specimen colors to a standardised chart or database.
The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) is a multiscalar drought index based on climatic data. It was developed by Vicente-Serrano et al. (2010) at the Institute Pirenaico de Ecologia in Zaragoza, Spain. It can be used for determining the onset, duration and magnitude of drought conditions with respect to normal conditions in a variety of natural and managed systems such as crops, ecosystems, rivers, water resources, etc.
Ezio Todini is an Italian academic, hydrologist and civil engineer.
