PAMbase: Passive acoustic monitoring database for Earth System Science

Duration: 01/04/2022 – 31/03/2023

Summary: PAMbase is a pilot project within the NFDI4Earth consortium, funded by the DFG and led by Anna Cord, Jan Engler, Léa Courteille, and coordinated by Kevin F.A. Darras.

Earth System Sciences make use of a variety of passive acoustic sensing methods to monitor the different spheres: for instance, glacier movements, earthquakes, precipitation, anthropogenic activity, and the presence of soniferous organisms can all be monitored with acoustic waves.

The goals of PAMbase are twofold: First, we are probing Earth System scientists’ needs and developing a roadmap to identify best practices and possible synergies among different fields (cryospheric science, seismology, ecoacoustics, etc.). We strive to assemble a first database of Earth System Science soundscape datasets. Second, we are extending the functionality of an online, open-source platform (ecoSound-web) to make it fit for use in the field of Earth System Sciences with specific data standardisation, quality control, and sharing features. Together, both goals will result in a novel, collaborative project uniting scientists working with soundscapes from different research fields.

Funding: This work has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) through the project NFDI4Earth (Task Area 1 Measure 1.1, DFG project no. 460036893, https://www.nfdi4earth.de/) within the German National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI, https://www.nfdi.de/).

For more information about the project, check out the webpage below.