About TerraC
What is Terra C?
The Terrestrial Carbon (TerraC) Information System is dedicated to advance terrestrial carbon science through sharing of carbon and environmental data. It provides information about carbon cycling as it relates to global climate and land use change. TerraC offers tools to upload, store, manage, query, analyze, and download data characterizing terrestrial carbon dynamics from various sources, including soils, plants/biomass, atmosphere, water, and whole ecosystems.
The purpose of Terra C is three-fold: (i) advance terrestrial carbon science through sharing of carbon and environmental data; (ii) facilitate environmental synthesis; and (iii) enhance collaboration among researchers, scientists, and extension specialists through shared resources.
Research projects involving carbon and related properties are many and spread across multiple disciplines and spatial and temporal scales. TerraC aims to integrate data from these widespread sources in a shared information system to facilitate cross-cutting analysis of carbon and environmental data, synthesis of carbon research, and enhance communication and collaboration among researchers.
Data stored in TerraC conform to quality standards and can be shared privately among selected users or publicly with any user. Detailed information about the data sharing options available in TerraC is listed in the data sharing and usage policy.
Objectives of the Terra C Project
(1) Build the Terra C Information System: (i) Develop a coherent, searchable, and expandable database that integrates terrestrial carbon and associated environmental datasets, and (ii) provide information about carbon related to environmental stressors such as climate and land use change.
(2) Data synthesis: Synthesize multiple large carbon datasets to gain insight into carbon cycling and dynamics across various spatial and temporal scales; upscaling of site‐specific carbon observations to landscape scales.
(3) Geospatial outreach: Build a ‘GoogleEarth’ application to deliver and share terrestrial carbon data in form of a Google carbon application.
MotivationRising CO2 emissions in the atmosphere and effects on global climate change have been well documented, and future impacts are uncertain but potentially devastating. Florida's natural and agro-forest ecosystems have much potential to sequester carbon in biomass and soils due to unique climatic and landscape conditions. However, research gaps exist to accurately assess carbon pools and fluxes at coarse scales, ranging from county to the region and larger scales. The overarching objective of this project is to address these obstacles by creating a database infrastructure for the carbon science community, focused on ecosystems in Florida and the southeastern United States. The database engine of TerraC is administered through the UF Carbon Resources Science Center, a multi-disciplinary Center dedicated to research in support of enhanced agricultural and natural resource carbon management. The TerraC project aims to provide the framework to synthesize carbon and environmental data to facilitate meta-analysis, modeling of carbon dynamics and biogeochemical cycles, and to conduct applied and cutting-edge carbon science research.
