BASIN-3D: An Open-Source Data Synthesis Framework for Earth Science

Earth scientists expend significant effort synthesizing data often from multiple data sources for both modeling and empirical analyses. We give a tour of BASIN-3D (Broker for Assimilation, Synthesis and Integration of eNvironmental Diverse, Distributed Datasets) as a prototype data brokering approach to reduce the scientist's data processing burden. BASIN-3D synthesizes diverse data from a variety of remote sources in real-time without the need for additional storage. BASIN-3D is an extendable Django web framework application using a generalized data synthesis model that makes the synthesized data available via REpresentational State Transfer (REST) Application Programming Interface (API). We have currently implemented our data synthesis model to represent sensor-based time series earth science observations across a hierarchy of spatial locations. Supporting our data synthesis model is a plugin framework that allows developers to map data sources of interest to the BASIN-3D synthesis model. In this tour, we will give an overview of BASIN-3D's synthesis model and plugin framework. Additionally, we will demonstrate an interactive web portal built on top of BASIN-3D that provides a usable interface for scientific users including features such as an interactive map, data visualization, and download.