Introducing Next-Generation Earth Science

Sven Schade (@innovatearth)

Institute for Environment and SustainabilityDigital Earth and Reference Data Unit

www.jrc.ec.europa.eu

Serving society

Stimulating innovation

Supporting legislation

BiDS’1412 November 2014ESRIN, Frascati, Italy

Organisational Background -Digital Earth and Reference Data unit

• INSPIRE: Implementation, Maintenance and Evolution

• Open Data Strategy of the JRC

• Complex data handling with geospatial informatics

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Content – in 3 Parts

• 3 trends, underlying visions, and the “Citizens’ Observatories” example

• 3 implications on the evolution of (Earth) science

• 3 (simple?) take-home messages

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This talk is about change, NOT (much) about past work.

The content presents my personal view and does not necessarily reflect

the position of the European Commission.

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History of Data Communities

Emerging culture of knowledge sharing and Open Data

Big Data

volume variety velocity veracityv…

Big Data – Trend Part I

Big Data – Vision5

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Research infrastructures crossing disciplines

Integrated modelling and assessment

Scientific treasureslocked in silos

Global System Science – Trend

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Global System Science – Vision7

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Culture of volunteering,incl. Citizen Science

Digital Social Innovation and the Social Machine

(Living) Laboratories in physical and cyber space

Collaborative Platforms – Trend

9Collaborative Platforms – Vision

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- overview

• WeSenseIt focuses on water-related issues

• OMNISCIENTIS aims at the perception of odour

• COBWEB addresses the concept relating to the biosphere

• CITI-SENSE concentrates on the improvement of quality of life in cities

• Citclops develops an observatory for optical monitoring of coasts and oceans

Only one example along these lines

http://www.citizen-obs.eu

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Five FP7 Projects develop “Citizens' Observatories" using earth observation

technologies in order to raise awareness about environmental issues and

empower citizen to take informed decisions

Concept demonstrations requested in H2020 (Topic SC5-17-2015)

• Big Data: rather from various sources than large volumes

e.g. COBWEB combining sensors, crowdsourcing and authoritative data sets

• Global System Science: environmental data integration into ‘foreign’ domains

e.g. CITI-SENSE combining air quality, noise and health, or

Citclops coupling ocean color with recreation, fishing and health.

• Collaborative Platforms: serving new structures for citizen engagement

e.g. OMNISCIENTIS enabling people to share their perceptions of bad smell, or

WeSenseIt with a feedback environment for services, policies, plans, decisions

http://www.citizen-obs.eu

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- mapping to trends

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Research, society, policy, industry

Impacts13

Part II

• New methods for (ethic) data handling and processing

• New models for integrating open, commercial and private sources

• New forms of engagement (democracy and cultural change)

• New forms of quality assurance (e.g. review, see below)

• New challenges for repeatability and reproducibility (models and simulations)

• New requirements for building the right skills (current and next generations)

Peer Review and Quality Control, S. Funtowicz & J. RavetzInternational Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, 2015

“Collegial peer review is being rapidly transformed to review by an ‘extended peer community,’ raising important issues to the governance of science.”

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Research, society, policy, industry

Impacts

Next-generation Earth science

Impacts con’t15

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Unifying Geospatial, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Impacts con’t16

A burden…

1. Develop integral methodological framework

2. Master a rich set of (web-based) standards

3. Simplify complexity (for ‘foreign’ experts)

…and a blessing

A burden…

1. Develop integral methodological framework

2. Master a rich set of (web-based) standards

3. Simplify complexity (for ‘foreign’ experts)

• Can use location as an integrator

• Rich set of standards and tools available

• Maps and images are powerful

(to communicate and engage)

Impacts con’t16

Unifying Geospatial, Earth and Environmental Sciences

an opportunity not to be missed!

17And finally…

• High resolution data about land, ocean and the atmosphere

• Step-change in data volume and quality (and that on a daily basis)

• New integration potential (to serve geospatial reference framework)

• Data policy makes Copernicus a unique source for Open Big Data

Potential to drive this next-generation of ‘united’ Earth science

Part III

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Earth Scientists of today…

…design targeted products for

new stakeholders (incl. citizen)!

…engage ‘foreign’ communities

to co-create EO-based methods

and tools!

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…(re-)use data sets and

streams from new sources!

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Earth Scientists of today…

…design targeted products for

new stakeholders (incl. citizen)!

…engage ‘foreign’ communities

to co-create EO-based methods

and tools!

Thank you!

sven.schade@jrc.ec.europa.eu

@innovatearth

Final slide, really

…(re-)use data sets and

streams from new sources!

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