Tracking progress towards meeting conservation and sustainability goals requires transforming diverse types of data into useful information. However, freshwater ecosystems in many regions are data-sparse, lacking sufficient data collection and/or access to existing data to track progress towards such goals. On the other hand, data-replete regions often struggle with a lack of data coordination or comparability that hinders data dissemination and collaboration of large/numerous datasets. We describe these challenges in creating scientific inference to inform decision making across gradients in both data abundance and data accessibility. We illustrate how data disparities result in challenges to creating inference from a diverse set of underlying mechanisms, which can differ in importance between data-scarce and data-replete regions. Finally, we provide specific examples of strategies and opportunities for addressing data disparities and improving inference in both data-scarce and data-replete systems. The comparison of data-scarce and data-replete regions illustrates areas where the scientific community can improve data access and collection efforts or work to improve data equity across different regions involving different communities. These strategies offer concrete actions that can be adopted by the global research community to narrow the data disparities hindering understanding of both local and global processes and improve the ability to make data driven decisions about resource management.

Authors:

Adrianne Smits, Environmental Science and Policy, University of California,  (adriennesmits@gmail.com)

Ed Hall, Ecosystem Science and Sustainability Department, Colorado State University  (ed.hall@colostate.edu)

Carolina Barbosa, Ecosystem Science and Sustainability Department, Colorado State University  (carollcbarbosa@gmail.com)

Stephanie Carlson, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California,  (smcarlson@berkeley.edu)

Kaelin Cawley, NEON project operated by Batelle  (kcawley@battelleecology.org)

Bridget Deemer, U.S. Geological Survey, Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center, Southwest Biological Science Center  (bridget.deemer@gmail.com)

Hans-Peter Grossart, Department of Plankton and Microbial Ecology, Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Research and Inland Fisheries  (hanspeter.grossart@igb-berlin.de)

Stefano Mammola, Molecular Ecology Group (MEG), Water Research Institute (IRSA), National Research Council (CNR)  (stefanomammola@gmail.com)

Matthew Pintar, Institute of Environment, Florida International University  (matthew.pintar@gmail.com)

Caleb Robbins, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks,  (Caleb_Robbins@baylor.edu)

Albert Ruhi Vidal, Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California  (albert.ruhi@berkeley.edu)

Mattia Sacco, Department of Chemistry, Life Sciences and Environmental Sustainability, University of Parma  (mattia.sacco@curtin.edu.au)

Facundo Scordo, Instituto Argentino de Oceanografía, Universidad Nacional del Sur (UNS)-CONICET  (scordo@agro.uba.ar)