A European perspective on Digital Earth

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the definition of a European perspective on Digital Earth (DE), identify some actions that can contribute to raise the awareness of DE in the European context and thus strengthen the European contribution to the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE). The paper identifies opportunities and synergies with the current policy priorities in Europe (Europe 2020, Innovation Union and Digital Agenda) and highlights a number of key areas to advance the development of DE from a European perspective: (1) integrating scientific research into DE; (2) exploiting the Observation Web with human-centred sensing; and (3) governance, including the establishment of stronger linkages across the European landscape of funding streams and initiatives. The paper is offered also as a contribution to the development of this new vision of DE to be presented at the next International DE Conference in Perth, Australia, in August 2011. The global recognition of this new vision will then reinforce the European component and build a positive feedback loop for the further implementation of DE across the globe.     

Digital Earth: a new challenge and new vision

ABSTRACT

Digital Earth has seen great progress during the last 19 years. When it entered into the era of big data, Digital Earth developed into a new stage, namely one characterized by ‘Big Earth Data’, confronting new challenges and opportunities. In this paper we give an overview of the development of Digital Earth by summarizing research achievements and marking the milestones of Digital Earth’s development. Then, the opportunities and challenges that Big Earth Data faces are discussed. As a data-intensive scientific research approach, Big Earth Data provides a new vision and methodology to Earth sciences, and the paper identifies the advantages of Big Earth Data to scientific research, especially in knowledge discovery and global change research. We believe that Big Earth Data will advance and promote the development of Digital Earth.     

志愿者地理信息数据质量研究现状与趋势

针对志愿者地理信息的质量评价问题,对当前的研究现状和存在问题进行了较为全面的综述。有关志愿者地理信息数据质量分析与评估的研究也是该领域的研究热点,国内外学者从不同的角度进行了研究,依据是否使用参考数据分为基于参考数据的方法和基于数据分析的方法。总结了基于参考数据方法的基本流程,论述了两种评价方法中具有代表性的研究成果,分析了这些方法的特点和不足,最后指出了现有研究中存在的问题和进一步需要研究的方向。     

Assessing quality of volunteer crowdsourcing contributions: lessons from the Cropland Capture game

Volunteered geographic information (VGI) is the assembly of spatial information based on public input. While VGI has proliferated in recent years, assessing the quality of volunteer-contributed data has proven challenging, leading some to question the efficiency of such programs. In this paper, we compare several quality metrics for individual volunteers’ contributions. The data were the product of the ‘Cropland Capture’ game, in which several thousand volunteers assessed 165,000 images for the presence of cropland over the course of 6 months. We compared agreement between volunteer ratings and an image's majority classification with volunteer self-agreement on repeated images and expert evaluations. We also examined the impact of experience and learning on performance. Volunteer self-agreement was nearly always higher than agreement with majority classifications, and much greater than agreement with expert validations although these metrics were all positively correlated. Volunteer quality showed a broad trend toward improvement with experience, but the highest accuracies were achieved by a handful of moderately active contributors, not the most active volunteers. Our results emphasize the importance of a universal set of expert-validated tasks as a gold standard for evaluating VGI quality.     

Advancing Digital Earth: beyond the next generation

The Digital Earth (DE) movement is gaining momentum. Much of it is unstructured. This paper examines a number of recent developments including those in health sensors (Wearable Absence, Q-Sensor, and Guardian Angels) and systems frameworks (Gelernter's Mirror Worlds, Virtual Australia, and New Zealand). Consideration is given to the implications of DE for citizens and on citizen science, including those of ethics. A suite of principles to guide the development of DE is proposed.     

从数字地球到智慧地球

分析了数字地球的发展及其取得的成就,探讨了伴随着IT技术、通信技术和传感器技术的发展而出现的传感器网络和物联网这一新的基础设施,设计了基于全IP架构的物联网的平台框架和典型应用,并展望了从数字地球发展到智慧地球的趋势和美好前景。     

数字地球与3维地理信息系统研究

美国副总统戈尔关于“数字地球”的演讲引起许多国家政界、学术界的关注。基于“数字地球”的概念,在全球信息数字化过程中,３维地理信息系统起着重要作用。由于空间对象和３维ＧＩＳ的复杂性,在处理各种空间现象时,如地质现象的表示和矿山应用,宜根据实际应用的需要,采用不同的数据结构和可视化方式,包括２维、２．５维、３维的以及它们的结合,以取得良好效果和效益。     

一种基于参考数据的志愿者地理信息质量评价方法

志愿者地理信息数据大都依靠志愿者上传,数据质量未知,阻碍了志愿者地理信息的广泛应用,因此是志愿者地理信息首要解决的问题。本文分析了影响志愿者地理信息质量的相关因素和基于参考数据评价方法的相关研究成果,在此基础上提出了一种基于参考数据的志愿者地理信息质量评价方法,以最常见的数据完整性和数据精度作为质量评价的质量元素,详细论述了这两种质量元素的内涵。针对数据完整性评价,提出了与匹配相结合的几何数据完整性度量方法和基于属性项饱和度的属性数据完整性度量方法;针对几何数据精度评价,提出了基于变缓冲区的度量方法。然后给出了该评价方法的一般流程。最后,以深圳市Open Street Map数据为例,选取最新导航数据作为参考数据进行试验验证。实验结果表明,深圳市Open Street Map数据点要素完整性较差,但是线要素完整性与精度都非常高,可以作为基础地理信息的更新数据源。     

Overview and preliminary idea for building Digital Earth with Grid computing technology

Abstract

Digital Earth is an important field of information technology and a research frontier of geosciences in the 21st century. So far, the Grid computing technique is one of the best solutions for Digital Earth infrastructure. Digital Earth can only be realised through the interaction of people, heterogeneous computing resources, information systems, and instruments, all of which are geographically and organisationally dispersed. Earth observation (EO) includes information acquisition, processing and applications. Information acquisition provides a vast amount of spatial data for building the fabric resource infrastructure. Information processing means that spatial information processing middleware is used with large amounts of secure Grid computing resources for real-time processing of all kinds of spatial data. We are currently working on the development of core-middleware for EO data processing and applications for the Digital Earth Prototype System, which is available in the Institute of Remote Sensing Applications (IRSA), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) The further results will be available soon.     

A framework for user-generated geographic content acquisition in an age of crowdsourcing

ABSTRACT

Obtaining useful geographic information from the flood of user-generated geographic content (UGGC) data is of significant interest, but comes with challenges in an age of crowdsourcing. To address this issue, we adopt Maslow’s model of human needs to frame UGGC. Synthesizing across literature about volunteered geographic information and participatory GIS, we present a conceptual framework for characterizing collection of UGGC. The framework is composed of multiple dimensions and levels that include perspectives about motivations, participatory methods, and participants. We also articulate four levels of participants (stakeholders, core-engaged participants, semi-core-engaged participants, and engaged citizens) together with four work principles (communication, cooperation, coordination, and collaboration). Finally, a case study describes an example we use to evaluate the conceptual framework for its suitability in design of a UGGC system. We conclude by reflecting on how and why this framework offers a valuable perspective for deriving useful geographic information and offer future research directions.     

迎接"数字地球"的挑战

从地球科学发展战略的角度,分析了“数字地球”对中国的挑战以及“数字地球”本身所面临的挑战,论述了发展“中国数字地球”的必要性和可能性,提出了发展“中国数字地球”的战略措施     

数字地球中的数据处理理论

数字地球这一概念一经提出，立即引起了全世界的广泛关注，数字地球对于促进国民经济的发展、满足社会发展的需要以及迎接信息社会的挑战都具有非常重要的意义。数字地球的基础和关键是数据，文中首先扼要归纳了数字地球中数据的特点，然后重点介绍了数字地球中的数据处理理论，并对数字地球中的数据处理理论这一领域今后的发展作了展望。     

Rating crowdsourced annotations: evaluating contributions of variable quality and completeness

Crowdsourcing has become a popular means to acquire data about the Earth and its environment inexpensively, but the data-sets obtained are typically imperfect and of unknown quality. Two common imperfections with crowdsourced data are the contributions from cheats or spammers and missing cases. The effect of the latter two imperfections on a method to evaluate the accuracy of crowdsourced data via a latent class model was explored. Using simulated and real data-sets, it was shown that the method is able to derive useful information on the accuracy of crowdsourced data even when the degree of imperfection was very high. The practical potential of this ability to obtain accuracy information within the geospatial sciences and the realm of Digital Earth applications was indicated with reference to an evaluation of building damage maps produced by multiple bodies after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Critically, the method allowed data-sets to be ranked in approximately the correct order of accuracy and this could help ensure that the most appropriate data-sets are used.     

"数字地球"的体系结构

根据我们一年来对“数字地球”的研究,从地理信息与信息技术发展和信息化社会的角度出发,系统地介绍了“数字地球”涉及的研究内容、关键技术、应用前景等问题,比较客观地阐明了“数字地球”的相关内容。     

在统一的总体框架下建设“数字中国”

当前在我国正在兴起“数字省市”、“数字行业”、“数字工程”等建设工作,这些都是“数字中国”的组成部分。为了建设“数字中国”,这些数字化领域的建设必须在国家统一的地理空间基础框架下进行。从“数字地球”和“数字中国”的基本概念入手,叙述了地理空间基础框架中的地理空间基准和地理基础框架数据的内涵及其在建设“数字中国”中的作用,最后阐述了必须在统一的总体框架下建设“数字中国”的理由。     

Distributed geospatial information processing: sharing distributed geospatial resources to support Digital Earth

Abstract

This paper introduces a new concept, distributed geospatial information processing (DGIP), which refers to the process of geospatial information residing on computers geographically dispersed and connected through computer networks, and the contribution of DGIP to Digital Earth (DE). The DGIP plays a critical role in integrating the widely distributed geospatial resources to support the DE envisioned to utilise a wide variety of information. This paper addresses this role from three different aspects: 1) sharing Earth data, information, and services through geospatial interoperability supported by standardisation of contents and interfaces; 2) sharing computing and software resources through a GeoCyberinfrastructure supported by DGIP middleware; and 3) sharing knowledge within and across domains through ontology and semantic searches. Observing the long-term process for the research and development of an operational DE, we discuss and expect some practical contributions of the DGIP to the DE.     

Improvement of a location-aware recommender system using volunteered geographic information

Abstract

Recommender systems (RS), as supportive tools, filter information from a massive amount of data based on the determined preferences. Most of the RS require information about the context of users such as their locations. In such cases, location-aware recommender systems (LARS) can be employed to suggest more personalized items to the users. The most current research projects on LARS focus on the development of algorithms, evaluation methods and applications. However, the role of up-to-date spatial databases in LARS is not a well-researched area. The up-to-date spatial information would potentially improve the accuracy of items which are recommended by LARS. Volunteered geographic information (VGI) could be a low-cost source of up-to-date spatial information for LARS. This article proposes an approach to enrich spatial databases of LARS by VGI. Since not all records of VGI are fitted for use in LARS, a mechanism is developed to identify useful information. Some VGI data sets refer to existing spatial data in the database while other VGI data sets are shared for the first time. Therefore, the proposed method assessed the quality of VGI with reference source (for VGI which is existed in the database) and VGI without reference source (for VGI which is shared for the first time). To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach, a mobile application has been developed to recommend suitable restaurants to the users based on their geospatial locations. The evaluation of the method indicates that VGI can potentially enhance the functionality of the LARS in predicting the users’ interests.     

基于数字城市的数字九台公众服务系统设计

数字城市是城市现代化、信息化不可或缺的支撑和保障,基于数字城市建设的公众服务系统是服务民生的重要举措。本文在综述数字城市建设的基础上,以九台市为例,着重介绍了数字九台公众服务系统设计目标和系统特点、系统总体设计、系统开发与集成,阐述了公众服务系统实现了面向公众的数字化地理信息服务的重要意义。     

基于GIS的数字绿化系统设计与开发

随着城市化进程的迅猛发展,城市各类绿地数量、面积、密度不断增加,城市园林绿化的复杂性越来越大,采用传统的管理方式,难以准确统计城市各类绿地的信息,也难以为政府各相关部门提供准确的城市园林规划发展的决策依据.本文以地理信息系统技术为基础,紧紧围绕园林绿化中心工作、服务业务需求,以应用和服务为重点,推动信息技术与园林绿化工作相结合,满足园林绿化生产和管理需要.