The 2021 Annual Work Summary Meeting of the National Ecological Science Data Center and the Launch Meeting of the Ecological Science Data Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) was recently held at the Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the CAS.

At the meeting, the 2021 Stations of High Standard in Informationization Construction and Service were picked out. Two field stations affiliated with the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the CAS were awarded the honor. The (Hunan) Huitong Forest Ecosystem National Field Scientific Observation and Research Station (Huitong Station) was awarded because of its excellent work in both informationization construction and data sharing service, and the (Liaoning) Qingyuan Forest Ecosystem National Field Scientific Observation and Research Station (Qingyuan Station) was selected as the Station of High Standard in Informationization Construction.

In 2021, Huitong Station uploaded and shared 8.2 GB of data, including 882,000 rows of data records, 165 data sets, and data of more than 20 long-term manipulation experiments. In addition, a total of 150 sets of its instruments and equipment such as isotope analyzers and C/N element analyzers are now opened up to users of other institutes and universities.

In 2021, Qingyuan Station also made great progress in informationization. It now has built a multi-functional data center, and the 5G base station built at Qingyuan Station has achieved network coverage of all its observation plots and stable transmission of data to the data center of the CAS Ecosystem Research Network. Through its Internet of Things system and Cloud Technology, ecological data collected by equipment at different locations and experimental platforms can now be transmitted in real time to the server at the station, which realizes the centralized storage, management, and online computing and analysis of big data. A number of data support systems such as the Smart Forest Sustainable Management System, the Forest Carbon-Water Data Intelligent Monitoring System and the Forest Biological Resources Intelligent Monitoring System have realized the automatic monitoring and computing of data, the sharing of data resources and the customized development, which greatly support research such as the regional carbon budget accounting, forest water conservation, and multiple trophic level biological studies.