6.2 Well-curated data are gold
A key lesson is that long-term meticulously collected field data has an inestimable value (Rosi et al., 2022). While ever more sophisticated models can integrate insights, enhance process-based understanding, test hypotheses and provide a basis for prediction; to be of most value, they need to be grounded in high quality data (Blair et al., 2019).
It follows that careful management, quality control, documentation and curation of data is crucial. Over long periods, staff, field methods, instruments, data storage capabilities and analytical tools all change. The accuracy and precision of data can therefore also change and there can almost never be enough documentation of meta-data to help later researchers utilise data effectively. Even where data are carefully quality controlled and archived, it is often only when time series are analysed in a robust manner that potential errors and biases become apparent (Glover et al., 2019). In some cases, in the Girnock study researchers have had to revert to original field notebooks to try and understand and correct data inconsistencies in very time-consuming data archaeology (Glover et al., 2020).