SCB-CERN Data Portal

Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (CERN), one of the founding members of the International Long Term Ecosystem Research Network (ILTER), and Global Terrestrial Observation System (GTOS), supported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), was established in 1988 under the auspices of the Chinese government and the World Bank Loan. Through years of effort, it is now well placed to address important issues, serving as a functional network to meet the needs of both the national and international ecological research.

The Mission of CERN is to promote ecosystem conservation and improvement, environmental quality enhancement and agricultural development, and to advance the studies in ecology and related inter-disciplines. Its mandate includes monitoring, research and demonstration on typical ecosystems in China.

CERN consists of 44 research stations representing diverse ecosystems, as well as five disciplinary centers (Sub-center for Biology, Soil, Water, Atmosphere and Aquatic Ecosystems) and a Synthesis Research Center. CERN stations includes 15 agriculture stations, 12 forest stations, 2 grassland stations, 6 desert stations, 2 marshland stations, 3 lake stations, 3 bay stations and 1 urban station. More than 1000 scientists and graduate students from over 20 institutes in the fields of ecology, natural resources and environment have been involved in the activities of CERN.

Long-term biological observation data of CERN are collected since 1998. The data portal involve species composition of plant community, aboveground/belowground biomass, leaf area index, litter seasonal dynamics, phenology, soil microbiology, and chemical elements contents of dominant plants of natural ecosystems (forest, grassland, desert, marshland), and also include data of agricultural ecosystems, such as crop development dynamic, aboveground/belowground biomass, crop characters at harvest time, yield, energy and chemical elements contents. Up to now, there are totally 87 datasets and 420 thousands records.

The long-term biological observation data of CERN was collected by 38 terrestrial stations. Among these 38 stations, there are 15 agriculture stations, 12 forest stations, 2 grassland stations, 6 desert stations, 2 marshland stations and 1 urban station.

Article 1 To promote the sharing of long-term biological observation data of CERN, and protect intellectual property of data creators and data provider, the “Policy for the sharing of Long-term Observation Data of Sub-center for Biology of Chinese Ecosystem Research Network” (simplified as “Policy” in the following section) was made based on the “Statute of Chinese Ecosystem Research Network” and “Policy for Long-term Observation Data Sharing and Management of Chinese Ecosystem Research Network”.

Article 2 The “data” referred in the “Policy” is the long-term biological observation data. The data creators are the stations of CERN. The data provider is the Sub-center for Biology of CERN.

Article 3 Sub-center for biology is responsible for the management of the data.

Article 4 In order to safeguard rights and interests of data creators and data provider, and protect the intellectual property, the data shall receive two years of protection.

Article 5 Use of the data will be restricted to academic, research, educational, government, or other not-for-profit professional purposes.

Article 6 The data applied are limited to personal use by data applicants. It is neither allowed to spread, publish the data or translate the data into other language, nor allowed to make the original data and data products be part of any database of external services.

Article 7 Data users should indicate the data sources and data creators in the papers or reports (or other kinds of achievements) based on or derived from the data（SCB-CERN Data Portal，http://159.226.89.77:8080/cern_biocenter/index.jsp）.

Article 8 Data users should notify data provider when any derivative work or publication based on or derived from the data set is distributed. The data user will provide the data contact with two reprints of any publications resulting from use of the data set and will provide copies of, or on-line access to, any derived digital products.

Article 9 The Data User may be held responsible for any misuse that is caused or encouraged by the Data User's failure to abide by the terms of this agreement. The Data Owner and provider shall have the right to terminate this agreement immediately.

Article 10 While substantial efforts are made to ensure the accuracy of data and documentation contained in this Data Set, complete accuracy of data and metadata cannot be guaranteed. The data provider is not responsible for any consequences caused by the defects of the data.