Abstract
Geoscientists often spend significant research time identifying,
downloading, and refining geospatial data before they can use it for
analysis. Exploring interdisciplinary data is even more challenging
because it may be difficult to evaluate data quality outside of one’s
expertise. QGreenland, a newly funded EarthCube project, is designed to
remove these barriers for interdisciplinary Greenland-focused research
and analysis via an open data, open platform Greenland GIS tool.
QGreenland will combine interdisciplinary data (e.g., glaciology, human
health, geopolitics, hydrology, biology, etc.) curated by an
international Editorial Board into a unified, all-in-one GIS environment
for offline and online use. The package is designed for the open source
GIS platform QGIS. QGreenland will include multiple levels of data use:
1) a fully downloadable base package ready for offline use, 2)
additional disciplinary and/or high-resolution data extension packages
for select download, and 3) online-access-only data to facilitate
especially large datasets or updating time series. Software development
has begun and we look forward to discussing techniques to create the
best open access, reproducible methods for package creation and future
sustainability. We also now have a beta version available for
experimentation and feedback from interested users and the Editorial
Board. The version 1 public release is slated for fall 2020, with two
subsequent annual updates. As an interdisciplinary data package,
QGreenland is designed to aid collaboration and discovery across fields.
Along with discussing QGreenland development, we will also provide an
example use case to demonstrate the potential utility of QGreenland for
researchers, educators, planners, and communities.