ESS-DIVE Reporting Format for Location Metadata

The ESS-DIVE location metadata reporting format provides instructions and templates for reporting a minimum set of metadata for discrete point locations in geographic space represented by x, y, and z coordinates. This format was created based on a need for earth and environmental science researchers to more consistently provide metadata about locations where they conduct studies. To create the format, we incorporated elements from ESS-DIVE’s community reporting formats as well as 12 additional data standards or other data resources (e.g., databases, data systems, or repositories). In the template, we ask researchers to indicate unique locations using Location IDs and indicate hierarchies of locations through parent location IDs. We also provide additional optional fields for researchers to indicate how they measured the point location and the date and time that the location was first used as a research siteThis dataset contains support documentation for the reporting format (README.md and instructions.md), a terminology guide (guide.md), a crosswalk indicating how this reporting format relates to existing standards and data resources (Location_metadata_crosswalk.csv), a data dictionary (dd.csv), file-level metadata (flmd.csv), and the location metadata templates in both CSV (Location_metadata_template.csv) and Excel formats (Location_metadata_template.xlsx).

ESS-DIVE 位置元数据报告格式（ESS-DIVE Location Metadata Reporting Format）为以x、y、z坐标表征的地理空间离散点位，提供了最小元数据集的报告规范与配套模板。该格式的研发初衷，是为满足地球与环境科学领域研究者更统一地提交其研究开展地点相关元数据的需求。为制定本格式，我们整合了ESS-DIVE社区现有报告格式的元素，以及12项额外数据标准或数据资源（如数据库、数据系统或数据仓储）的相关内容。在模板中，我们要求研究者通过位置ID（Location IDs）标识唯一点位，并通过父位置ID（parent location IDs）体现点位的层级关系。此外，我们还设置了若干可选字段，供研究者说明点位的测量方式，以及该点位首次作为研究场地启用的日期与时间。本数据集包含该报告格式的支撑文档（README.md 与 instructions.md）、术语指南（guide.md）、用于阐明本格式与现有标准及数据资源关联关系的交叉对照表（Location_metadata_crosswalk.csv）、数据字典（dd.csv）、文件级元数据（flmd.csv），以及两种格式的位置元数据模板：CSV 格式（Location_metadata_template.csv）与 Excel 格式（Location_metadata_template.xlsx）。