A thesaurus for improved communication and data integration in sandy beach ecosystem research

Sandy beaches are important interfaces between land and sea that support unique biodiversity and provide ecosystem services on which many coastal communities depend. However, beaches are under significant anthropogenic pressures, compounded by global change impacts. These contemporary challenges require greater multidisciplinary research and collaboration to develop management solutions that meet social, economic and ecological demands. Communication gaps among scientists from different disciplines can arise when similar variables or features are described using different terms, or when the same term is used with different meanings, thereby hindering progress in multidisciplinary research. To address this, we developed a Sandy Beach Thesaurus that provides a standardised set of terms and definitions for beach geomorphological features, environmental factors, and sampling methods. We followed a structured, multi-phase approach including: (1) literature review, (2) term extraction, (3) hierarchical organisation, (4) mapping and alignment, and (5) review and validation. The thesaurus was developed using VocBench, which follows the Simple Knowledge Organisation System (SKOS). Finally, the Sandy Beach Thesaurus was published on EcoPortal, a platform of LifeWatch ERIC, where it supports data and metadata comparability and facilitates data integration across studies.