Data constitute the raw material of scientific understanding. They are distinguished in analytical data (i.e. numbers with units) and meta-information (i.e. context describing analytical data). Data management is the control of data handling operations such as acquisition, analysis, quality check, processing, storage, retrieval, distribution, and sharing of data. However, it is not necessarily the generation and use of data. Data management ensures integrity of research, confidentiality, compliance with sponsor's requirements, and protects intellectual property. Scientific data management in Earth Sciences covers at least the four major fields of scientific activities, namely the geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. Data cover time scales ranging from seconds to millions of millennia and provide baseline information for research in many disciplines, among them monitoring environmental changes—gradual or sudden, foreseen or unexpected, natural or man made.

Scientific data gathering has...