Team Name: OpenTopography Facility. The team members are: Chris Crosby (role: Co-PI, institution: EarthScope Consortium); Ramon Arrowsmith (role: Co-PI, institution: Arizona State University); Viswanath Nandigam (role: PI, institution: University of California San Diego); and Chelsea Scott (role: Co-I, institution: Arizona State University)

Since 2009, the OpenTopography Facility has served as the gateway to open-access high-resolution topography data critical for advancing Earth sciences. OpenTopography is an exemplar for scientific data management and, through tool development, workshops, training and a strong social media presence, has been instrumental in broadening access to high-resolution topography data. The proliferation of high-resolution topographic data in the past 20 years from lidar, radar and photogrammetry is one of the most important and wide-ranging recent advances in Earth sciences. Geomorphology, earthquake geology, structural geology, volcanology, stratigraphy and sedimentary processes, critical zone science, hydrology and snow science — nearly every subdiscipline in Earth sciences has been touched by the revolution in high-resolution topography. Throughout this period of explosive growth, the OpenTopography Facility has been the primary repository for open-access high-resolution topographic data across the globe, efficiently sharing trillions of data points with a global audience of over 100,000 registered users. Starting out as a platform for hosting airborne lidar data, OpenTopography has also emerged as a key portal to open-access regional and global topographic datasets from international space agencies (U.S./NASA, Europe/European Space Agency, Japan/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency). The resulting concentration of open-access topographic data has been transformative in the analysis of Earth’s surface. One of the superpowers of OpenTopography is the integration of data access and data processing into a streamlined and accessible interface. The OpenTopography team includes expertise in both cyberinfrastructure and domain science, resulting in a uniquely smooth user interface that enables inexpert users to perform high-level data processing and visualization tasks. Additionally, through webinars, workshops and short courses, the OpenTopography team has been dedicated to providing community training opportunities. The result is a huge user base that also extends beyond the Earth science community, as shown by the wide-ranging applications highlighted on OpenTopography’s social media feed (3D printed models of landscapes, cartography, artwork, etc.). The profound impact of OpenTopography has arisen from an ideal execution of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) data principles that underpin the spirit of open science and AGU’s Open Science Recognition Prize: (1) OpenTopography data are readily findable through intuitive map-based visualization and metadata. (2) The integration of high-level processing tools make OpenTopography data accessible to a broad user base and interoperable across different software environments. (3) The highly general nature of topographic data (including the land surface, vegetation, snow, etc.) and the outward-facing profile of OpenTopography through social media have led to a remarkably high reuse of hosted datasets.— Roman DiBiasePennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania

This award is a tremendous recognition of the team who has built and maintained OpenTopography over the last 15 years. Credit is due to our advisory committee members past and present, as well as our funders, especially the National Science Foundation. Most importantly, it honors the trust of our partners and the vast community of users who rely on us to make available topographic data, data products and knowledge about those products and their applications open. Since 2008, OpenTopography has been focused on facilitating efficient access to topography data, tools and resources to advance understanding of Earth’s surface, vegetation and built environment.Topography of Earth’s surface is a fundamental geomorphic and geophysical observable, marking the boundary across which the lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and atmosphere interact. These data are essential to the Earth sciences, and OpenTopography democratizes access to the data, tools and knowledge resources necessary to fully utilize the data in research and education.It has been exceptionally rewarding to watch OpenTopography’s user community grow and diversify as the system has become the most comprehensive source of topographic data on the internet. OpenTopography’s impact on research and education has been large, but the system is also regularly used by industry, governments and hobbyists from around the world. This Open Science Recognition Prize acknowledges the global impact of open data and an OpenTopography platform that makes these data easy to access and use regardless of computing resources and specialized skills.This award would not have been achievable without the unwavering dedication and collective efforts of every member on the OpenTopography team, including Matthew Beckley, Minh Phan, Kai Lin, Emily Zawacki and Kate Kaya, as well as multiple past team members and interns.— Christopher Crosby EarthScope Consortium — Viswanath Nandigam University of California, San DiegoLa Jolla, California — Chelsea ScottArizona State UniversityTempe, Arizona — J. Ramon Arrowsmith Arizona State UniversityTempe, Arizona