Today you'll find a myriad of different
Earth observation systems covering all from local to global areas,
collected from sub-sea to ground to air and of course space.
Providers of these Earth observation services come from both public
and private sector. Some of the collected data are required through
national regulations while others are in demand because of global
challenges such as climate change etc. The need for Earth
observations permeates the entire global society.
Answering this need for Earth
observation capacity several Earth observation systems have been
built. Agenda 21, G8 meetings and other international declarations
(the latest from Rio +20) lend political support and reference for
this capacity building. Below you will find the description of a
handful of Earth observation systems that have been or are being
constructed. The question is then; are we as a global society
coordinated enough when answering this need of Earth observation
capacity?
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Global Monitoring for Environment
and Security - GMES
The European initiative for the Global Monitoring for Environment
and Security (GMES) provides data to help deal with a range of
disparate issues including climate change and border surveillance.
Land, sea and atmosphere - each is observed through GMES, helping to
make our lives safer.
GMES was initiated 1998 by the main national space agencies in
Europe, the European Space Agency - ESA, the European Commission –
EC, and the European organization for the Exploitation of
Meteorological Satellites - EUMETSAT.
GMES consists of a complex set of systems which collects data from
multiple sources (earth observation satellites and in situ sensors
such as ground stations, airborne and sea-borne sensors), processes
these data and provides users with reliable and up-to-date
information through the services mentioned above. Some of these
systems and data sources already exist today, as well as prototype
services but many developments are still required in all domains.
GMES is an EU-led initiative. The coordination and management of
the GMES programme is ensured by the European Commission. The
developments related to the observation infrastructure are performed
under the aegis of the European Space Agency for the space component
(i.e. Sentinel missions) and of the European
Environment Agency and the Member States for the in situ
component.
Website(s):
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/space/gmes/
Group of Earth Observations - GEO
The Group on Earth Observations is coordinating efforts to build a
Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS.
GEO was launched in response to calls for action by the 2002 World
Summit on Sustainable Development and by the G8 (Group of Eight)
leading industrialized countries. These high-level meetings
recognized that international collaboration is essential for
exploiting the growing potential of Earth observations to support
decision making in an increasingly complex and environmentally
stressed world.
GEO is constructing GEOSS on the basis of a 10-Year
Implementation Plan for the period 2005 to 2015. The Plan defines
a vision statement for GEOSS, its purpose and scope, expected
benefits, and the nine “Societal Benefit Areas” of disasters,
and biodiversity.
Website(s) http://www.earthobservations.org
http://www.geoportal.org/web/guest/geo_home#
Eye On Earth
Eye on Earth is a global public information service to share data
and information from diverse sources. Eye on Earth allows you to
manipulate tha data for collective discovery. Eye on Earth is the
result of a public-private partnership joining expertise from
industry and public organisations. The European Environment Agency
(EEA), Esri and Microsoft
Corporation collaborated to launch the Eye on Earth Network, the
online community for sharing and discovering data about environment.
This new cloud computing-based network promotes the principles of
public data access and citizen science.
The first Eye on Earth Summit was held in Abu Dhabi in 2011.
Website: http://www.eyeonearth.org
http://www.eyeonearthsummit.org/
EarthCube
In 2011 EarthCube was initiated by
USA's National Science Foundation. The goal of EarthCube is to
transform the conduct of research by supporting the development of
community-guided cyberinfrastructure to integrate data and
information for knowledge management across the Geosciences.
Website(s):
http://www.nsf.gov/geo/earthcube/index.jsp
ICSU's World Data System (WDS)
In 2008 ICSU decided to establish the World Data System – WDS.
The WDS supports ICSU’s mission and objectives, ensuring
the long-term stewardship and provision of quality-assessed
data and data services to the international science community
and other stakeholders. WDS covers more that the Earth system
sciences.
The WDS concept aims at a transition from existing stand-alone
WDCs and individual Services to a common globally interoperable
distributed data system, that incorporates emerging technologies
and new scientific data activities.
The new system will build on the potential offered by advanced
interconnections between data management components for
disciplinary and multidisciplinary scientific data applications.
Applications for the new WDS are already being investigated,
including the WDC online portal which is being considered as
a proof of concept for an element of the new system.
WDS will enjoy a broader disciplinary and geographic base
than previous ICSU bodies and will strive to become a
worldwide ‘community of excellence’ for scientific data
Website: http://www.icsu-wds.org/
Future Earth
Future Earth is a
new 10-year international research initiative that will develop the
knowledge for responding effectively to the risks and opportunities
of global environmental change and for supporting transformation
towards global sustainability in the coming decades. Future Earth
will mobilize thousands of scientists while strengthening
partnerships with policy-makers and other stakeholders to provide
sustainability options and solutions in the wake of Rio+20. Future
Earth was launched in 2012 and his a common effort of a number of
international research programs, funding agencies, ISSU and ICSU.
Website:
http://www.icsu.org/future-earth
~~~
The blue marble by NASA
As a politician, science policy maker
or funding agency I would ask myself: Where shall I invest my money?
They all look so similar. Redundancy is necessary and good, but are
we funding capacity building that will result in too much overlap?
As an end-user, in science, industry,
government or as a civil citizen, I would ask myself, where can I
find the right information for me in the most effective and quality
assured way? It is a jungle of portals out there. Who can I trust?
In both cases I would be confused, and
it would take me some time to figure out where to spend my money and
where to go for information. Maybe this is how it has to be or even
ought to be, but it sure looks like governments have lost track of
the original idea and motivation behind the establishment of GEO;
namely to created a global interoperable system of systems that
increase capacity yet avoids unnecessary overlaps.
The question asked in the title
deserves a thorough analysis. Science policy, socio-economic and
political research is needed as a basis for answering my follow-up
questions and I suspect there are no easy answer or solution for
them. All the same, the unanswered questions reflect part of reality.
We, who work both on funding strategy and are trying to fill the gap
between the available knowledge and the end-users, have to deal with
this rather confusing and messy reality. Even as insiders we get lost
sometimes.
The author has experience from all
elements of the research system, including a national funding agency
where she worked both on national and international science policy
and program funding. Today she runs BLB,
an European SME and partner in the EU-funded project Egida.
One of BLBs tasks is to help develop a funding scheme for GEO.
