Recent research project: EuroGEOSS
NGI is contributing to the European section of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (EuroGEOSS), as part of international efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) which are coordinated by the Group on Earth Observations (or GEO). This emerging public infrastructure is interconnecting a diverse and growing array of instruments and systems for monitoring and forecasting changes in the global environment. The 'system of systems' is designed to support policymakers, resource managers, scientific researchers and many other experts and decision makers.
The complexity of the Earth system requires scientists to go beyond their disciplinary boundaries and integrate information resources from multiple disciplines to understand the cumulative impacts and interactions that are taking place across multiple geographical scales and temporal dimensions. This aspect of multi-disciplinary interoperability remains a fundamental challenge that informs the GEOSS initiative and other related efforts such as the development of e-science.
This project has the following objectives:
- To enable emerging new Earth Observation systems or improve existing ones, adopting more innovative tools and establishing partnerships between European and International stakeholders.
- To support the work of the GEOSS Architecture and Data Committee and the development of the INSPIRE technical implementing rules and the creation of a Global Spatial Data Infrastructure (GSDI).
- To offer initial operating capacities in three Societal Benefit Areas to GEOSS and establish a bridge between them through a multidisciplinary approach and cross-cutting research issues.
- To address complex scientific challenges that the fragmentation and cultural diversity of Europe presents (syntactic and semantic interoperability, data heterogeneity, multilingual issues, social and economic aspects etc) through research and innovative methods.
- To facilitate Member States' connection and contribution to GEOSS with their National monitoring capacities.
- To share the European experience with developing countries, thus helping them in being integral part of GEOSS supporting capacity building.
- To assess the economic value of GEOSS through cost-benefit analysis.
- To engage the scientific community more fully in the construction of GEOSS in order to encourage further breakthroughs in our understanding of the Earth system and of all GEO societal benefit areas.
EuroGEOSS builds on three strategic application areas for which the Joint Research Centre has institutional responsibilities:
- Forestry
- Biodiversity
- Drought
NGI involvement falls mainly within the Work Package 2 (see diagram). The focus within Work Package 2 is in two main areas:
- Integrated multi-scale and multisource modelling
- Natural language discovery and query interface
Funded by: European Commission Seventh Framework Programme
Project partners: There are numerous project partners, please see the external project website for more details.
Project runs: 2009-2012
Project website: http://www.eurogeoss.eu/
EuroGEOSS Plenary Meeting
Members of NGI will be attending the next EuroGEOSS Plenary Meeting that will take place at the Joint Research Centre in Italy (Ispra) between the 4th-6th October 2010. Just after a year after its launch, the meeting will discuss eventual developments, achievements and future actions of the entire project based on the Earth observation and monitoring and focussed on three main areas of investigation: biodiversity, forest and drought.
Publications
Qualifying geospatial workflow models for adaptive controlled validity and accuracy; Leibovici, D.G., Hobona, G., Stock, K., Jackson, M. In IEEE, 17th International Conference on Geoinformatics. Fairfax, US. August 12th-14th 2009.
Workflow Uncertainty using a Metamodel Framework and Metadata for Data and Processes; Leibovici, D.G., Pourabdollah, A. OGC TC/PC Meetings, 20th-24th September, Toulouse, France, 2010.
Project contact: Didier Leibovici or Kristin Stock.