Towards a Long-term Preservation Infrastructure for Earth Science Data.

The effective preservation of both current and historical scientific data will underpin a multitude of ecological, economic and political decisions that shape the future of our society. The SCIDIP-ES project addresses the long-term preservation of the knowledge encoded in scientific data by providing preservation einfrastructure services which support the persistent storage, access and management needs. Using exemplars from the Earth Science domain we highlight the key preservation challenges and barriers to be overcome by the SCIDIP-ES infrastructure. SCIDIP-ES augments existing science data e-infrastructures by adding specific services and toolkits which implement core preservation concepts, thus guaranteeing the long-term access and exploitation of data assets across and beyond their designated communities.