MOSES Data

The MOSES Data Management (DM) team is coordinated by the Helmholtz Centre Potsdam GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and consists of representatives of all participating centers. The tasks of the MOSES DM team consist of:


  • the elaboration of and ensuring compliance with the MOSES Data Policy,
  • the provision of a tool to support scientists in preparing data management plans (DMPs)  
  • the development of a Data Management Infrastructure to allow access to MOSES data.


The Data Policy, the DMP Tool and the Data Management Infrastructure will be implemented in an iterative development process, in which the requirements from the event working groups will be prototypically realized. As part of the MOSES implementation phase, a data management concept and respective data management tools are developed and subsequently tested and evaluated during MOSES campaigns. Here, the distributed nature of the MOSES infrastructure components poses challenges for the integration of its similarly distributed data. Therefore a centralized metadata collection management is a prerequisite if MOSES data is to meet the scientific criteria of tracing specific products back to their acquisition.

MOSES-Datamanagement-Architecture Schematic diagram illustrating the architecture of the MOSES data management (Fig.: D. Kerschke, GFZ).

The MOSES data management platform architecture is based on common and standardized data models, protocols, and encodings. It fosters the re-use of existing software systems and components available at Helmholtz Centers and allows access to multidisciplinary datasets. Through the use of standards, this architecture supports the integration of long-term monitoring networks and platforms providing complementary data for the event-driven campaigns.

For all MOSES campaigns and datasets, metadata is collected based on ISO/OGC standards. The metadata collection is facilitated via campaign-specific data management plans (DMPs) that record roles and responsibilities as well as the volume, characteristics, processing and use of data and data flows before, during, and after campaigns via an online tool (https://moses-dmp.gfz-potsdam.de).

For subsequent (meta)data discovery and access, we use the OneStop search software of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA OneStop, version 2.0.6). The NOAA search software relies on modern web technologies and ensures interoperability through web services based on RESTful APIs. The MOSES Data Discovery Portal (https://moses-data.gfz-potsdam.de) integrates these services into a graphical user interface that allows a user-specific search and discovery of campaign metadata and datasets, their initial visualization, and respective download. To further support, optimize, and semi-automate the data management workflows, additional tools for fast data provision, quality control and assurance, and quick visualization will be developed.