Earth Observation Open Science And Innovation

This book is published open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. Over the past decades, rapid developments in digital and sensing technologies, such as the Cloud, Web and Internet of Things, have dramatically changed the way we live and work. The digital transformation is revolutionizing our ability to monitor our planet and transforming the way we access, process and exploit Earth Observation data from satellites. This book reviews these megatrends and their implications for the Earth Observation community as well as the wider data economy. It provides insight into new paradigms of Open Science and Innovation applied to space data, which are characterized by openness, access to large volume of complex data, wide availability of new community tools, new techniques for big data analytics such as Artificial Intelligence, unprecedented level of computing power, and new types of collaboration among researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and citizen scientists. In addition, this book aims to provide readers with some reflections on the future of Earth Observation, highlighting through a series of use cases not just the new opportunities created by the New Space revolution, but also the new challenges that must be addressed in order to make the most of the large volume of complex and diverse data delivered by the new generation of satellites.

Over the past decades, rapid developments in digital and sensing technologies, such as the Cloud, Web and Internet of Things, have dramatically changed the way we live and work. The digital transformation is revolutionizing our ability to monitor our planet and transforming the way we access, process and exploit Earth Observation data from satellites.This book reviews these megatrends and their implications for the Earth Observation community as well as the wider data economy. It provides insight into new paradigms of Open Science and Innovation applied to space data, which are characterized by openness, access to large volume of complex data, wide availability of new community tools, new techniques for big data analytics such as Artificial Intelligence, unprecedented level of computing power, and new types of collaboration among researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and citizen scientists. In addition, this book aims to provide readers with some reflections on the future of Earth Observation, highlighting through a series of use cases not just the new opportunities created by the New Space revolution, but also the new challenges that must be addressed in order to make the most of the large volume of complex and diverse data delivered by the new generation of satellites. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

The result of a workshop bringing together an international advisory board of experts in science, satellite technologies, industry innovations, and public policy, this book addresses the current and future roles of satellite Earth observations in solving large-scale environmental problems. The book showcases the results of engaging distinct communities to enhance our ability to identify emerging problems and to administer international regimes created to solve them. It also reviews the work of the Policy and Earth Observation Innovation Cycle (PEOIC) project, an effort aimed at assessing the impact of satellite observations on environmental policy and to propose a mission going forward that would launch an "innovation cycle". The achievements of such a mission would feed back to innovations in next-generation observation technology, thus contributing to global policy demand for policy-relevant information. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

The result of a workshop bringing together an international advisory board of experts in science, satellite technologies, industry innovations, and public policy, this book addresses the current and future roles of satellite Earth observations in solving large-scale environmental problems. The book showcases the results of engaging distinct communities to enhance our ability to identify emerging problems and to administer international regimes created to solve them. It also reviews the work of the Policy and Earth Observation Innovation Cycle (PEOIC) project, an effort aimed at assessing the impact of satellite observations on environmental policy and to propose a mission going forward that would launch an “innovation cycle”. The achievements of such a mission would feed back to innovations in next-generation observation technology, thus contributing to global policy demand for policy-relevant information. This book is open access under a CC BY license.

We live on a dynamic Earth shaped by both natural processes and the impacts of humans on their environment. It is in our collective interest to observe and understand our planet, and to predict future behavior to the extent possible, in order to effectively manage resources, successfully respond to threats from natural and human-induced environmental change, and capitalize on the opportunities â€" social, economic, security, and more â€" that such knowledge can bring. By continuously monitoring and exploring Earth, developing a deep understanding of its evolving behavior, and characterizing the processes that shape and reshape the environment in which we live, we not only advance knowledge and basic discovery about our planet, but we further develop the foundation upon which benefits to society are built. Thriving on Our Changing Planet: A Decadal Strategy for Earth Observation from Space (National Academies Press, 2018) provides detailed guidance on how relevant federal agencies can ensure that the United States receives the maximum benefit from its investments in Earth observations from space, while operating within realistic cost constraints. This short booklet, designed to be accessible to the general public, provides a summary of the key ideas and recommendations from the full decadal survey report.

Satellite Earth observation (EO) data have already exceeded the petabyte scale and are increasingly freely and openly available from different data providers. This poses a number of issues in terms of volume (e.g., data volumes have increased 10× in the last 5 years); velocity (e.g., Sentinel-2 is capturing a new image of any given place every 5 days); and variety (e.g., different types of sensors, spatial/spectral resolutions). Traditional approaches to the acquisition, management, distribution, and analysis of EO data have limitations (e.g., data size, heterogeneity, and complexity) that impede their true information potential to be realized. Addressing these big data challenges requires a change of paradigm and a move away from local processing and data distribution methods to lower the barriers caused by data size and related complications in data management. To tackle these issues, EO data cubes (EODC) are a new paradigm revolutionizing the way users can store, organize, manage, and analyze EO data. This Special Issue is consequently aiming to cover the most recent advances in EODC developments and implementations to broaden the use of EO data to larger communities of users, support decision-makers with timely and actionable information converted into meaningful geophysical variables, and ultimately unlock the information power of EO data.

This open access book is a consolidation of lessons learnt and experiences gathered from our efforts to utilise Earth observation (EO) science and applications to address environmental challenges in the Hindu Kush Himalayan region. It includes a complete package of knowledge on service life cycles including multi-disciplinary topics and practically tested applications for the HKH. It comprises 19 chapters drawing from a decade’s worth of experience gleaned over the course of our implementation of SERVIR-HKH – a joint initiative of NASA, USAID, and ICIMOD – to build capacity on using EO and geospatial technology for effective decision making in the region. The book highlights SERVIR’s approaches to the design and delivery of information services – in agriculture and food security; land cover and land use change, and ecosystems; water resources and hydro-climatic disasters; and weather and climate services. It also touches upon multidisciplinary topics such as service planning; gender integration; user engagement; capacity building; communication; and monitoring, evaluation, and learning. We hope that this book will be a good reference document for professionals and practitioners working in remote sensing, geographic information systems, regional and spatial sciences, climate change, ecosystems, and environmental analysis. Furthermore, we are hopeful that policymakers, academics, and other informed audiences working in sustainable development and evaluation – beyond the wider SERVIR network and well as within it – will greatly benefit from what we share here on our applications, case studies, and documentation across cross-cutting topics.

This open access book offers a summary of the development of Digital Earth over the past twenty years. By reviewing the initial vision of Digital Earth, the evolution of that vision, the relevant key technologies, and the role of Digital Earth in helping people respond to global challenges, this publication reveals how and why Digital Earth is becoming vital for acquiring, processing, analysing and mining the rapidly growing volume of global data sets about the Earth. The main aspects of Digital Earth covered here include: Digital Earth platforms, remote sensing and navigation satellites, processing and visualizing geospatial information, geospatial information infrastructures, big data and cloud computing, transformation and zooming, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and social media. Moreover, the book covers in detail the multi-layered/multi-faceted roles of Digital Earth in response to sustainable development goals, climate changes, and mitigating disasters, the applications of Digital Earth (such as digital city and digital heritage), the citizen science in support of Digital Earth, the economic value of Digital Earth, and so on. This book also reviews the regional and national development of Digital Earth around the world, and discusses the role and effect of education and ethics. Lastly, it concludes with a summary of the challenges and forecasts the future trends of Digital Earth. By sharing case studies and a broad range of general and scientific insights into the science and technology of Digital Earth, this book offers an essential introduction for an ever-growing international audience.

This book is the proceedings of the 5th China High-resolution Earth Observation Conference (CHREOC). The series conference of China High Resolution Earth Observation has been becoming the influential academic event in the earth detection area, and attracting more and more top experts and industry users of related fields. The CHREOCs focus on the popular topics including military-civilian integration, the One Belt and One Road project, the transformation of scientific research achievements, and it also discusses the new ideas, new technologies, new methods, and new developments. The CHREOCs have effectively promoted high-level institutional mechanisms, technological innovation, and industrial upgrading in the high-resolution earth observation area, and arouse the influence of the national-sponsored major project. All papers in this proceeding are from the 5th CHREOC, and most authors are the researchers and experts participating the state major project CHEOS. The papers are the extraction of research results and reflect the technique level and research direction of the field high-resolution earth observation. All articles have gone through the scientific and strict reviews for several rounds by the experts from the related fields, and therefore reflect the research level and technology innovation of the high-resolution field earth observation. This proceedings will be an informative and valuable reference for both academic research and engineering practice.

This open access book discusses how the involvement of citizens into scientific endeavors is expected to contribute to solve the big challenges of our time, such as climate change and the loss of biodiversity, growing inequalities within and between societies, and the sustainability turn. The field of citizen science has been growing in recent decades. Many different stakeholders from scientists to citizens and from policy makers to environmental organisations have been involved in its practice. In addition, many scientists also study citizen science as a research approach and as a way for science and society to interact and collaborate. This book provides a representation of the practices as well as scientific and societal outcomes in different disciplines. It reflects the contribution of citizen science to societal development, education, or innovation and provides and overview of the field of actors as well as on tools and guidelines. It serves as an introduction for anyone who wants to get involved in and learn more about the science of citizen science.