Helmholtz Coastal Data Center

The Helmholtz Coastal Data Center (HCDC) merges heterogeneous data of coastal and ocean observatories, ship campaigns, and numerical models pertinent to coastal zones. The data will be accessible for scientists and the public, and will seamlessly feed into national and international Earth System data networks.

HCDC Banner: Three images symbolyzing sample data, sensor data and model data.

Coastal research at HZG and at partner institutions generates data and information to enable and to facilitate research into and management of the coastal zone and its fascinating environment. HCDC is being created as a digital infrastructure to capture, process, archive and disseminate observation and model data, as well as for communicating research results of scientists in the Institute of Coastal Research and of partners.

HCDC overview diagram. Describes the HCDC infrastructure from the databases via the Coastal Cloud and the coastal data Hub to the users and cooperation partners.

The HCDC infrastructure is a comprehensive data and information structure that complies with general standards and thus ensures cooperation and workflows with other existing data centres and data structures of the Helmholtz Association, the German Alliance for Marine Research (DAM) and the NFDI4EARTH consortium in the national research data infrastructure. In cooperation with AWI’s O2A and GEOMAR’s OSIS data centres HCDC creates the Mare Hub, which will form in conjunction with the Hubs Atmo and Terra the data infrastructure of the HGF research area Earth and Environment and thus an essential part of NFDI4EARTH.

The existing portals coastMap, COSYNA and coastDat at the Institute for Coastal Research will be merged and HCDC will be scientifically and technically established as the regional node for coastal research.