The rise of information science: a changing landscape for soil science

Soil Change Matters 2014

Roudier, Pierre^1 ; Ritchie, Alistair^2 ; Hedley, Carolyn^1 ; Medyckyj-Scott, David^1

Landcare Research, Manaaki Whenua, Manawatu Mail Centre, Private Bag 11052, Palmerston North

4442, New Zealand^1

Landcare Research, Manaaki Whenua, PO Box 69040, Lincoln

7640, New Zealand^2

关键词: Computing hardware;    Data and information;    Emerging technologies;    Knowledge brokers;    Legacy soil datum;    Parallel development;    Science communications;    Scientific method;   

Others  :  https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/25/1/012023/pdf
DOI  :  10.1088/1755-1315/25/1/012023

来源: IOP

【 摘 要 】

The last 15 years have seen the rapid development of a wide range of information technologies. Those developments have been impacting all fields of science, at every step of the scientific method: data collection, data analysis, inference, science communication and outreach. The rate at which data is being generated is increasing exponentially, giving opportunities to improve our understanding of soils. Parallel developments in computing hardware and methods, such as machine learning, open ways to not only harness the '"data deluge", but also offer a new way to generate knowledge. Finally, emerging data and information delivery protocols are leveraging the outreach power of the World Wide Web to disseminate scientific data and information, and increase their use and understanding outside the boundaries of a given scientific field. However, the nature of this data is mostly new to soil science, and requires adaptation to its diversity and volume. In particular, the integration of the significant amount of legacy soil data collected throughout decades of soil science can be problematic when all necessary metadata is not available. Likewise, knowledge accumulated by our scientific field needs to be acknowledged by - rather than opposed to - numerical methods. While the introduction of this set of emerging technologies is enabling soil science from different points of view, its successful implementation depends on the ability of soil scientists to act as knowledge brokers and support numerical methods.