The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a continental research platform designed to extend our understanding of the biosphere to regional and continental scales. Through remote sensing, in-situ observation, experimentation, synthesis, and modeling, NEON will provide researchers with a unique capability to quantify the strong and weak forces regulating the biosphere and predict its response to climate and landuse change. NEON infrastructure will include field deployed instrumented towers and sensor arrays, remote sensing capabilities, cutting-edge laboratory instrumentation, natural history archives, and facilities for data analysis, modeling, visualization, and forecasting, all networked through a cyberinfrastructure backbone. Infrastructure will be deployed across the continental US, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico using a statistically determined design, stratified by climate and landuse. The knowledge base NEON will create, its real time and continuous integrated data, simulation and observation capabilities, and its networked communication will be an asset for formal and informal education and training. A NEON gateway will provide resources to support informal public education and provide opportunities for citizens to actively participate in scientific investigations.
This award will support NEON, Inc. and the NEON Project Management Office to complete the NEON final design and Project Execution Plan. Funds will support NEON, Inc. business operations, corporate management, governance, and advisory committees. The Project Management Office will add technical, engineering, and project management staff necessary to transition from planning to construction. This award will enable the NEON Project Management Office to develop a site-dependent final design, cost and schedule baseline, Project Execution Plan, finalize the operations and maintenance plan, and implement project management accounting and reporting functions. Risks associated with instrument installation will be quantified and mitigation strategies developed. A robust set of activities will be conducted to continue the engagement of the research community including recruitment of the Domain Chief Scientists.
The National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a continental-scale research platform for understanding and forecasting the impacts of climate change, land use change, and invasive species on ecological processes and on interactions of the biosphere with the geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. By observing global environmental changes and consequences, NEON will enable a basis for the next-generation ecological theory, modeling, and prognostic capability. The observatory will consist of distributed sensor networks, observations and experiments linked by advanced cyberinfrastructure. Using standardized protocols and an open data policy, NEON will gather essential data for developing the understanding and theory required to manage the nation’s ecological challenges for a 30-y operational period. This award was to provide the resources to NEON needed to complete its Design & Development phase and transitioning to construction-ready status and receive construction support. NEON had successfully completed numerous extensive reviews leading up to this award. The NEON Project Preliminary Design Review and Final Design Review were successfully conducted in 2009. NEON has since requested funds from the National Science Foundation Major Research Equipments and Facilities Construction account at May 2011, and was awarded MREFC funds July 2011. This award allowed NEON to develop the needed prototyping, risk reduction, development of preliminary infrastructure, and management and programmatic structures in order to be construction ready. This award allowed the NEON to develop organizational structures and detailed planning for i) rapid growth in anticipation of doubling and tripling of the worksforce, ii) hybrid academic and corporate culture, iii) extensive workflows to accommodate the rapid and extensive production of both physical and informational infrastructures, and iv) providing detailed reporting functions to NSF management which included numerous periodic- and project-team-specific reviews. We also continued our NEON Satellite Site development in partnership with underrepresented groups. Lastly, this award allowed NEON Inc to engage with the user communities and develop stronger relationships with scientists, educators, researchers, universities, Federal agencies and international institutions. Part of the engagement activities and in developing our scientific workforce/capital included our staff providing NEON information to scientific communities, societies, universities, etc. through meetings, seminars, reports, publications, posters, etc. As part of these award resources, another key engagement activity that contributed toward developing NEON’s intellectual capital is the establishment of our Technical Working Groups, which included: Aquatic, Atmospheric Chemistry, Breeding Birds, Data Standards, FIU algorithms and QA/QC, FIU Sensor advisory, Flux Data Quality, Ground Beetle, Infectious Disease, LIDAR, Microbial, Mircometeorology and Flux Scales, Mobile Deployment Platform, mosquito, Plant Diversity, Plant Phenology, Plant Productivity and Biomass, Reaeration and Metabolism (streams), Remote Sensing, Remote Sensing Sensor Calibration, STREON, Scientific Research Collections, Small Mammals, Soils, Spatial Sampling, Terrestrial Biogeochemistry, and Urban Ecology.
