Use-Inspired Science at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information: Incorporating User Feedback into Product Improvement

NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is the one of the world’s largest and most diverse archives of environmental data, in addition to being the Nation’s leading authority for environmental information. It is critical for NCEI to understand the uses and benefits of its data in order to evolve its suite of use-inspired data and information and to ensure the data is applicable to operations, planning, and decision making. Over the past several years, NCEI’s Center for Weather and made a concerted effort to understand and document the uses and benefits of its data to decisions makers in multiple sectors of the national economy and to use that understanding along with dedicated feedback, to evolve its suite of use-inspired datasets, products, and services. This presentation will demonstrate the gaps in the product suite that NCEI has uncovered, as well as how NCEI plans to address those gaps and user needs going into the future. Results from the 2019 NCEI Users’ Conference, and interaction with 14 of the 24 sectors of the US economy, will figure prominently in the results and the path forward.