The ITINERIS Catalogue: a case study for exploring heterogeneous environmental resources

Understanding environmental challenges requires navigating a complex network of interconnected systems. Research Infrastructures (RIs) play a crucial role in realizing a comprehensive and integrated approach that extends beyond the different environmental sub-domains for understanding and predicting the Earth's system and developing effective actionable strategies. However, the distributed nature of RIs across multiple environmental domains presents significant challenges for the integration, accessibility, and long-term sustainability of heterogeneous environmental resources (i.e., datasets, services, research products, training resources, etc.) that are fundamental to advancing scientific research and addressing global challenges. Differences in metadata schemas, data formats, and governance frameworks create barriers to seamless collaboration, limiting the potential of real-time data integration and exploration in multidisciplinary research. ITINERIS, the Italian Integrated Environmental Research Infrastructure System, is developing a unified framework to overcome these challenges, ensuring efficient data discoverability, accessibility, and interoperability across diverse environmental subdomains. A key component of this initiative is the ITINERIS Catalogue, an advanced metadata-driven platform embedded within the ITINERIS HUB. The challenge lies in the resources integration of the 22 RIs involved with the various subdomains of the Earth system domain: atmosphere, marine, terrestrial biosphere and geosphere. The Catalogue serves as a central registry for resources - including datasets, services, and research facilities - facilitating cross-disciplinary collaboration and aligning with FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles and European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) guidelines to facilitate automated data ingestion, analysis, and integration across heterogeneous infrastructures. The contribution provides an overview of the methodologies and technologies adopted, along with the lessons learned in designing an effective data integration strategy in the framework of the ITINERIS project. The ITINERIS catalogue represents a model for the broader environmental community, showing a solution for: metadata management, resources interoperability and discoverability, and sustainable resource governance. metadata management, resources interoperability and discoverability, and sustainable resource governance. By fostering a more connected and accessible research ecosystem, ITINERIS aims to empower scientists and stakeholders with the tools needed to drive innovation and informed decision-making in environmental sciences. For metadata management: this study, starting from an in-depth analysis of metadata technologies, leads to the selection of the most suitable solution for the ITINERIS Catalogue. To achieve this, several factors were considered, including the adoption of common schemas that enable communities to describe the same resources in a consistent and standardized manner. This ensures interoperability and discoverability with existing RI systems, compliance with open data policies, and support for expanded integration of future resources. In this way the ITINERIS Catalogue can efficiently bridge gaps between diverse RIs, enabling harmonized data management and discovery mechanisms. In selecting and managing technologies and metadata, the long -term sustainability of the Catalogue is built upon the participating RIs of the ITINERIS project, as they are the guarantors of long-term, standardized, and high-quality data, services and each type of research product. To this end, a structured onboarding strategy has been designed to ensure that resources continue to be integrated and maintained for several years after the completion of the ITINERIS project. this study, starting from an in-depth analysis of metadata technologies, leads to the selection of the most suitable solution for the ITINERIS Catalogue. To achieve this, several factors were considered, including the adoption of common schemas that enable communities to describe the same resources in a consistent and standardized manner. This ensures interoperability and discoverability with existing RI systems, compliance with open data policies, and support for expanded integration of future resources. In this way the ITINERIS Catalogue can efficiently bridge gaps between diverse RIs, enabling harmonized data management and discovery mechanisms. In selecting and managing technologies and metadata, the long -term sustainability of the Catalogue is built upon the participating RIs of the ITINERIS project, as they are the guarantors of long-term, standardized, and high-quality data, services and each type of research product. To this end, a structured onboarding strategy has been designed to ensure that resources continue to be integrated and maintained for several years after the completion of the ITINERIS project. This includes governance models, automated metadata ingestion workflows, and support mechanisms for providers, ensuring that the platform remains a living and evolving tool for the environmental research community. By offering standardized access to a wide array of environmental research resources, the Catalogue Increases awareness and promote adoption of sustainable practices and technologies, facilitates multi-disciplinary collaboration and enhances the scientific community’s capacity to tackle pressing challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and sustainable resource management.