The rapid growth in the volume of scientific and technical data has led to unprecedented challenges in data and information management. These data have also led to unprecedented opportunities to gain new understanding of geophysical and related economic and social processes. Cross-disciplinary research is a key to understanding the causes and consequences of environmental phenomena, thus it has become necessary to integrate data and information across scientific disciplines, platforms, and instruments. Data and information are being used in new ways and by a variety of new users. Scientists who have expertise in one discipline are using data from other disciplines. In addition, society at large is finding greater value in the application of complex data and derived information for navigation, hazard mitigation, sustainability, and many other uses.

Data management systems and processes continually evolve to address these new applications and user requirements; yet significant challenges remain to adequately archive, describe, and distribute the ever-increasing volume and complexity of data. Groups of scientists, data managers and technologists are working together to address some of the challenges and they recommend standards and best practices to use. These standards and practices focus primarily on data archiving, basic cataloging, distribution, and visualization. Less work has been done to describe the best practices for managing environmental data in ways that facilitate data integration and greater scientific understanding.

The results of the eGY/CODATA working group on best practices convened in Boulder, Co – USA in 2006 are presented here. The working group has developed a set of recommended practices covering areas like metadata, user communities, long-term preservation and other data management activities. These results are of interest to those managing active data archives as well as to those starting new ones as with the IPY and IHY programs.