Designing a Global Interoperable Information Network

Gilberto Câmara National Institute for Space Research, Brazil

Eye on Earth Summit, Abu Dhabi, 2011

Framework for environmental information

Data collection

Archival Sharing

AnalysisModelling

Decisions Actions

Communication

Political Economic Social Technical Legal

Source: Recommendations for the Technical Design of a Global Interoperable Information Network

Framework for environmental information

Data collection

Archival Sharing

AnalysisModelling

Decisions Actions

Communication

Political Economic Social Technical Legal

How hard is to carry out this vision?

Best practicesSocial

http://www.cormtech.com/

Standards Data clouds

Best practicesSocial

http://www.cormtech.com/

Standards Data clouds

What’s missing? What should be done first?

Data (we need a lot of it)

Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia (1988-2011)dropped from 27,000 km2 to 6,200 km2

166-112

116-113

116-112

30 Tb of data500.000 lines of code

150 man/years of software dev200 man/years of interpreters

How much it takes to survey Amazonia?

Communicating location is easy

Deforestation hotspots in Amazonia

Weather

source: WMO

11,000 land stations (3000 automated)900 radiosondes, 3000 aircraft 6000 ships, 1300 buoys5 polar, 6 geostationary satellites

Communicating about data is feasible

Communicating concepts is hard

Image source: WMO

vulnerability? climate change? poverty?

degradation

We’re bad at representing meaning

deforestation? degradation? disturbance?

Communicating concepts is hard

When did the Aral Sea reach the tipping point?

Communicating change is very hard

Describing events and processes is very hard

When did the flood occur?

© GEO Secretariat14

A Global, Coordinated, Comprehensive and Sustained System of Observing Systems

GEOSS

GEOSS

GEOSSregistry

GEO Web Portal

searches

Offerors

registers

GEOSSClearinghouse

Catalogues

User

accesses

accesses

searches

references

GEOSS

GEOSSregistry

GEO Web Portal

searches

Offerors

registers

GEOSSClearinghouse

Catalogues

User

accesses

accesses

searches

references

There is not a uniform, consistent way that data are registered, stored, and accessed in

GEOSS (Evaluation Report, 2011)

100,000

10,000

1,500

1,000

Services

Data sets

Systems 500

191 43 141 2010

Growth of Discoverable Resources 10,000,000

1,000,000 Users could not find data they wanted

No incentive to share

source: R.Shibasaki

28,000,000+ Data sets

100,000

10,000 1500+

Services 1,500

1,000

Systems500+

500 191

43 141

2011(Nov.)

2010

Growth of Discoverable Resources

10,000,000

1,000,000

source: R.Shibasaki

What happened?

28,000,000+ Data sets

100,000

10,000 1500+

Services 1,500

1,000

Systems500+

500 191

43 141

2011(Nov.)

2010

Growth of Discoverable Resources

10,000,000

1,000,000

Big space agencies loaded their

metadata

source: R.Shibasaki

catalogue

GEOSS Broker catalogue

catalogue

catalogue

The future: improving GEOSS with brokers

source: R.Shibasaki

Data democracy = community building through knowledge hubs

Full and open access to environmental data is indispensable for global sustainable

development

RDC forest surveillance service(Brazilian support thru FAO)

Data democracy needs to reach the masses!

photo: Yann Arthus Bertrand