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Satellite imagery has become a major source for identifying and mapping terrestrial and planetary landforms. However, interpretating landforms and their significance, especially in changing environments, may still be questionable. Consequently, ground truth to check training models, especially in mountainous areas, can be problematic. This paper outlines a decimal format, [dLL], for latitude and longitude geolocation that can be used for model interpretation and validation and in data sets. As data have positions in space and time, [dLL] defined points, as for images, can be associated with metadata as nodes. Together with vertices, metadata nodes help build 'information surfaces' as part of the Digital Earth. This paper examines aspects of the Critical Zone and data integration via the FAIR data principles, data that are; findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable. Mapping and making inventories of rock glacier landforms are examined in the context of their geomorphic and environmental significance and the need for geolocated ground truth. Terrestrial examination of rock glaciers shows them to be predominantly glacier-derived landforms and not indicators of permafrost. Remote-sensing technologies used to track developing rock glacier surface features show them to be climatically melting glaciers beneath rock debris covers. Distinguishing between glaciers, debris-covered glaciers and rock glaciers over time is a challenge for new remote sensing satellites and technologies and shows the necessity for a common geolocation format to report many Earth surface features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel method to create a physicalization of Digital Earth resulted a new type of analogue and tactile geographic information system (GIS). The model was tested by students in Australia, who shared insights into how the model supported their learning about the concept of "overlay" while providing an interesting and engaging learning platform. Observations suggest the model promoted collaborative learning, and provided a bridge between paper maps and digital GIS. This study offers insight into preferences of school children for physicalization models in geography education and contributes to an understanding of children's spatial thinking and understanding of the overlay concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Al Gore created the vision for Digital Earth in 1998, a wide range of research in this field has been published in journals. However, little attention has been paid to bibliometric analysis of the literature on Digital Earth. This study uses a bibliometric analysis methodology to study the publications related to Digital Earth in the Science Citation Index database and Social Science Citation Index database (via the Web of Science online services) during the period from 1998 to 2015. In this paper, we developed a novel keyword set for ‘Digital Earth’. Using this keyword set, 11,061 scientific articles from 23 subject categories were retrieved. Based on the searched articles, we analyzed the spatiotemporal characteristics of publication outputs, the subject categories and the major journals. Then, authors’ performance, affiliations, cooperation, and funding institutes were evaluated. Finally, keywords were examined. Through keyword clustering, research hotspots in the field of Digital Earth were detected. We assume that the results coincide well with the position of Digital Earth research in the context of big data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Ordnance Equipment Engineering is the property of Chongqing University of Technology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Historical soil survey paper maps are valuable resources that underpin strategies to support soil protection and promote sustainable land use practices, especially in developing countries where digital soil information is often missing. However, many of the soil maps, in particular those for developing countries, are held in traditional archives that are not easily accessible to potential users. Additionally, many of these documents are over 50 years old and are beginning to deteriorate. Realising the need to conserve this information, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the ISRIC-World Soil Information foundation have created the European Digital Archive of Soil Maps (EuDASM), through which all archived paper maps of ISRIC has been made accessible to the public through the Internet. The immediate objective is to transfer paper-based soil maps into a digital format with the maximum possible resolution and to ensure their preservation and easy disclosure. More than 6,000 maps from 135 countries have been captured and are freely available to users through a user-friendly web-based interface. Initial feedback has been very positive, especially from users in Africa, South America and Asia to whom archived soil maps were made available to local users, often for the first time. Link: http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/library/maps/country_maps/list_countries.cfm [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Satellite imagery has become a major source for identifying and mapping terrestrial and planetary landforms. However, interpretating landforms and their significance, especially in changing environments, may still be questionable. Consequently, ground truth to check training models, especially in mountainous areas, can be problematic. This paper outlines a decimal format, [dLL], for latitude and longitude geolocation that can be used for model interpretation and validation and in data sets. As data have positions in space and time, [dLL] defined points, as for images, can be associated with metadata as nodes. Together with vertices, metadata nodes help build ‘information surfaces’ as part of the Digital Earth. This paper examines aspects of the Critical Zone and data integration via the FAIR data principles, data that are; findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable. Mapping and making inventories of rock glacier landforms are examined in the context of their geomorphic and environmental significance and the need for geolocated ground truth. Terrestrial examination of rock glaciers shows them to be predominantly glacier-derived landforms and not indicators of permafrost. Remote-sensing technologies used to track developing rock glacier surface features show them to be climatically melting glaciers beneath rock debris covers. Distinguishing between glaciers, debris-covered glaciers and rock glaciers over time is a challenge for new remote sensing satellites and technologies and shows the necessity for a common geolocation format to report many Earth surface features.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Virtual reality (VR) is a frequently emphasized issue on the Digital Earth (DE) agenda. While current DE research is more engaged in the technical aspects of VR applications, this paper focuses on what is possible with immersive virtual environments (IVE) from the user's perspective. After a brief discussion of spatial presence and embodiment in the context of IVE, both concepts will be merged into a geovisualization immersion pipeline (GIP) as a framework with which to systematically link technical and cognitive aspects of IVE. We will then analyze the general criteria that must be met by IVE in order to facilitate the experience of spatial presence. Adapting these criteria to the special requirements of geospatial data, a definition of geovisualization immersive virtual environments (GeoIVE) is formulated. Finally, the theoretical considerations of this paper are set into practice, using a GeoIVE of a coral reef ecosystem as an example. As we shall see, while GIS do not provide data models or data compatibility for direct visualization of GeoIVE on VR output devices, game engines can serve as middleware to fill this gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broadly, this paper is about designing memorable 3D geovisualizations for spatial knowledge acquisition during (virtual) navigation. Navigation is a fundamentally important task, and even though most people navigate every day, many find it difficult in unfamiliar environments. When people get lost in an unfamiliar environment, or are unable to remember a route that they took, they might feel anxiety, disappointment and frustration; and in real world, such incidents can be costly, and at times, life-threatening. Therefore, in this paper, we study the design decisions in terms of visual realism in a city model, propose a visualization design optimized for route learning, implement and empirically evaluate this design. The evaluation features a navigational route learning task, where we measure short- and long-term recall accuracy of 42 participants with varying spatial abilities and memory capacity. Our findings provide unique empirical evidence on how design choices affect memory in route learning with geovirtual environments, contributing toward empirically verified design guidelines for digital cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to geospatial information continues to be central to the mission of geography and map libraries. Providing or facilitating access has been, and continues to be, a dynamic process in light of both technological change and policy challenges. While technological changes in providing access to information have gathered much attention in the literature, substantive discussions regarding policies and practices that prevent or assist information access to geospatial information have been lacking. This second paper focuses on trends related to policy and practice in terms of sharing and use of geospatial information. These comparative policy and practice perspectives are also needed in order to point to the true promise held by technologies for sharing, exemplified by digital libraries designed For geospatial information as was pointed to in the first paper. On the whole, both papers join together by suggesting a role for librarians, especially through the construct of the geolibrary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid decline of Arctic sea ice has been reminding us the significant impacts caused by global warming. However, the other side of the coin is that this opens a window to utilize the Arctic sea routes in the summer seasons, bringing remarkable economic benefits for ocean transportation between Asia and Europe. However, commercial vessels with low ice classes must tackle substantial environmental challenges in the Arctic sea routes, particularly those caused by variable sea ice, even in the melting seasons. Therefore, the science-based support for shipping safety in the Arctic sea routes is being given more prominence. Emerging satellite remote sensing technology plays a critical role in environmental monitoring in the Arctic. This paper reviews state-of-the-art satellite observations on monitoring sea ice and potential applications on supporting shipping activities in the Arctic Ocean. Moreover, we introduced a recently developed system based on satellite observations to support the safe transportation of Chinese cargo vessels in the Arctic northern sea route, demonstrating the efforts by both the science and business communities to promote the development of the polar silk road. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geospatial information access continues to be central to the mission of geography and map libraries. Providing or facilitating access has been, and continues to be, a dynamic process in light of both technological change and policy challenges. While technological changes in providing access have gathered much attention in the literature, substantive discussions regarding policies and practices preventing or assisting information access have been lacking. Even more troubling is the fact that archiving digital geospatial information receives even less attention. This first paper reviews developments and trends with regard to digital geospatial libraries, as this concept has become the primary metaphor by which access is measured. The second paper will focus on international trends related to the effect of policy and practice in terms of promoting the sharing and use of geospatial information needed to bridge gaps in access. These comparative policy and practice perspectives are also needed in order to point to the true promise held by new technologies for sharing, exemplified by digital libraries designed for geospatial information. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In these early years of the twenty-first century, we must look at how the truly cross-cutting information technology supports other innovations, and how it will fundamentally change the information positions of government, private sector and the scientific domain as well as the citizen. In those positions, location will be a prominent linking pin. The classical top-down system architectures of information exchange will be diluted by peer-to-peer and bottom-up channels, forcing us to rethink their designs. We should not only focus on better architectures, but need to attend to a different economy of information exchange, in which the ‘client’ is not only the information sink, but has become an important source as well. The laws of this rising ‘infoconomy’ have yet to be settled on. This special issue on ‘Digital Earth Applications: Technological design and organizational strategies’ brings together a number of papers that shed light on this future information ecosystem in which location-specific information will be exchanged between stakeholders. The introduction presents a framework that combines geoinformation streams and organisations brokering between government, science, private sector and citizens. This novel framework helps us improve the appreciation of those papers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The discovery of spatio-temporal clusters in complex spatio-temporal data-sets has been a challenging issue in the domain of spatio-temporal data mining and knowledge discovery. In this paper, a novel spatio-temporal clustering method based on spatio-temporal shared nearest neighbors (STSNN) is proposed to detect spatio-temporal clusters of different sizes, shapes, and densities in spatio-temporal databases with a large amount of noise. The concepts of windowed distance and shared nearest neighbor are utilized to define a novel spatio-temporal density for a spatio-temporal entity with definite mathematical meanings. Then, the density-based clustering strategy is employed to uncover spatio-temporal clusters. The spatio-temporal clustering algorithm developed in this paper is easily implemented and less sensitive to density variation among spatio-temporal entities. Experiments are undertaken on several simulated data-sets to demonstrate the effectiveness and advantage of the STSNN algorithm. Also, the real-world applications on two seismic databases show that the STSNN algorithm has the ability to uncover foreshocks and aftershocks effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The advancements of sensing technologies, including remote sensing, in situ sensing, social sensing, and health sensing, have tremendously improved our capability to observe and record natural and social phenomena, such as natural disasters, presidential elections, and infectious diseases. The observations have provided an unprecedented opportunity to better understand and respond to the spatiotemporal dynamics of the environment, urban settings, health and disease propagation, business decisions, and crisis and crime. Spatiotemporal event detection serves as a gateway to enable a better understanding by detecting events that represent the abnormal status of relevant phenomena. This paper reviews the literature for different sensing capabilities, spatiotemporal event extraction methods, and categories of applications for the detected events. The novelty of this review is to revisit the definition and requirements of event detection and to layout the overall workflow (from sensing and event extraction methods to the operations and decision-supporting processes based on the extracted events) as an agenda for future event detection research. Guidance is presented on the current challenges to this research agenda, and future directions are discussed for conducting spatiotemporal event detection in the era of big data, advanced sensing, and artificial intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Web mapping and the use of geospatial information online have evolved rapidly over the past few decades. Almost everyone in the world uses mapping information, whether or not one realizes it. Almost every mobile phone now has location services and every event and object on the earth has a location. The use of this geospatial location data has expanded rapidly, thanks to the development of the Internet. Huge volumes of geospatial data are available and daily being captured online, and are used in web applications and maps for viewing, analysis, modeling and simulation. This paper reviews the developments of web mapping from the first static online map images to the current highly interactive, multi-sourced web mapping services that have been increasingly moved to cloud computing platforms. The whole environment of web mapping captures the integration and interaction between three components found online, namely, geospatial information, people and functionality. In this paper, the trends and interactions among these components are identified and reviewed in relation to the technology developments. The review then concludes by exploring some of the opportunities and directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While graphic variables in 2D maps have been extensively investigated, 4D cartography is still a widely unexplored field. In this paper, we investigate the usefulness of 4D maps (three spatial dimensions plus time) for cartographically illustrating spatio-temporal environmental phenomena. The presented approach focuses mostly on explorative research rather than on enhancement and extension of existing methods and principles. The user study described in the paper shows that 4D cartography is not a well-explored research area and that many experienced map users try to apply their knowledge from 2D maps to 4D dynamic visualisations. Thus, in order to foster the discussion within the community, we formulated several basic research questions for the area of 4D cartography, which range from methods for representing time in 4D visualisations and understanding the temporal context to finding generic methods to achieve optimized temporal generalisation and a consistent definition of graphical variables for 3D and 4D. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since earthquakes, tropical storms, and floods are the three main global natural disasters causing the biggest loss, they should be the main focus of research in disaster science and disaster mitigation and prevention. This paper discusses the characteristics of these three global natural disasters from a scientific point of view, and analyses their patterns of distribution, origin and result, as well as the extent of their damage and measures of disaster mitigation and prevention. The paper, at the technical level, introduces the role of earth observation (EO) technologies in disaster mitigation, and real and quasi-real-time monitoring and assessment using advanced optical and microwave EO capacities, while digital earth technologies provide a very important role in rapidly acquiring spatial information of the disaster areas. The paper concludes by discussing the relationship between man and natural disasters, and proposes the viewpoint that man and nature should be able to harmoniously co-exist, and the importance of understanding disasters from an earth system science perspective so as to better meet the challenges of natural disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geoportals are a consolidated web-based solution to provide open spatial data sharing and online geo-information management. Their roles and possible advancements according to the Digital Earth vision and implementation require investigations. This paper presents a review of the literature concerning geoportals and serves the following primary purposes. First, various geoportal approaches for discovering and accessing Earth observation data and geo-information, mainly with scientific purposes, are summarized according to their characteristics and functionalities. Second, current major challenges in geoportals are identified in terms of functionalities, technologies, and especially big data support, from geoportal cases of China. Finally, based on lessons learned from the international and Chinese geoportals, solutions and recommendations for the challenges in geoportals are proposed in terms of their architectures, services, and technologies. The results show that geoportals usually provide access to distributed data systems, offering maps, data discovery, and data downloads. Some of them are also capable of offering online analysis and processing service, enhanced semantic search engines, and dynamic visualization tools. The strength of geoportals could lead to a full-fledged online Digital Earth system that could provide better data sharing and dissemination solutions to the challenges posed by big data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The foundation of modern Digital Earth frameworks is the Discrete Global Grid System (DGGS). To standardize the DGGS model, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) recently created the DGGS Abstract Specification, which also aims to increase usability and interoperability between DGGSs. To support these demands and aid future research, open implementations are necessary. However, several OGC conformant DGGSs are not available for researchers to use. This has motivated us to develop an open-source web service that allows users to create quadrilateral grids based on the rHEALPix DGGS. In this paper, we describe the implementation of the web service, including issues and limitations, and demonstrate how discrete global grids and regional grids can be created. Lastly, we present examples that show how vector data sets can be modeled and integrated at different levels of resolution – a key benefit of the DGGS model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost all causative factors of diseases depend on location. The Digital Earth approach is suitable for studying diseases globally. Geospatial information systems integrated with statistical models can be used to model the relationship between a disease and its causative factors. Through modelling, the most important causative factors can be extracted and the epidemiology of the disease can be observed. In this paper, skin cancer (the most common type of cancer) has been modelled based on its causative factors, including climate factors, people's occupations, nutrition habits, socio-economic factors, and usage of chemical fertiliser. To fit the model, a data framework was first designed, and then data were gathered and processed. Finally, the disease was modelled using Generalised Linear Models (GLM), a statistical model based on the location of the factors. The results of this study identify the most important causative factors together with their relative priority. Furthermore, a model was used to predict the change in skin cancer occurrences caused by a change in one of its causative factors. This work illustrates the ability of the model to predict disease occurrence. Thus, by using this Digital Earth approach, skincancer can be studied in all the key countries around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to advances in rendering techniques and hardware capability, stereoscopic 3D (s3D) visualization is becoming increasingly common in daily life. However, this does not change the fact that stereo effects and visual comfort depend greatly on how the related parameters are controlled during the production of the s3D images. In geo-virtual reality systems, which are important browsers for Digital Earth, the maintenance of these parameters is deeply related to the navigation process. Therefore, the navigation method in such systems requires special care. This paper presents a new flying method based on aCubemapstructure. The method defines aVehiclemodel and modifies the originalCubemapstructure by adding a front view camera during the navigation; it allows the users to fly through a virtual geographic environment with automatic speed control, smooth collision resolution, and dynamic adjustment of the s3D-related parameters. A user test was conducted to compare this new method with the original method based on theCubemapstructure. The results show that the new method performs better than the former one for it provides a convenient interaction experience with improved stereoscopic effect, and diminishes visual discomfort. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

[Display omitted] The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides an important framework for economic, social, and environmental action. A comprehensive indicator system to aid in the systematic implementation and monitoring of progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is unfortunately limited in many countries due to lack of data. The availability of a growing amount of multi-source data and rapid advancements in big data methods and infrastructure provide unique opportunities to mitigate these data shortages and develop innovative methodologies for comparatively monitoring SDGs. Big Earth Data, a special class of big data with spatial attributes, holds tremendous potential to facilitate science, technology, and innovation toward implementing SDGs around the world. Several programs and initiatives in China have invested in Big Earth Data infrastructure and capabilities, and have successfully carried out case studies to demonstrate their utility in sustainability science. This paper presents implementations of Big Earth Data in evaluating SDG indicators, including the development of new algorithms, indicator expansion (for SDG 11.4.1) and indicator extension (for SDG 11.3.1), introduction of a biodiversity risk index as a more effective analysis method for SDG 15.5.1, and several new high-quality data products, such as global net ecosystem productivity, high-resolution global mountain green cover index, and endangered species richness. These innovations are used to present a comprehensive analysis of SDGs 2, 6, 11, 13, 14, and 15 from 2010 to 2020 in China utilizing Big Earth Data, concluding that all six SDGs are on schedule to be achieved by 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Big data has been a focus of research in science, technology, economics, and social studies. Many countries have already incorporated big data research into their national strategies. This paper elaborates upon the origin, connotation, and development of big data from both a spatial and temporal perspective. It proposes that scientific big data will become a new solution in scientific research as the paradigm changes from being model-driven to data-driven. This paper defines the concept of 'scientific big data' and proposes strategies for solving 'big data problems'. Theoretical frameworks and data systems for Digital Earth are discussed with a clear conclusion that scientific big data is a prominent feature of Digital Earth. As an example, spatial cognition of the formation mechanism of China's Heihe-Tengchong Line-a geo-demographic demarcation line dividing China into two parts-is discussed within the context of big data computation and analysis for Digital Earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qu, S.; Lv, J., and Liu, J., 2020. Visualization analysis for global water resources based on digital earth. In: Hu, C. and Cai, M. (eds.), Geo-informatics and Oceanography. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 105, pp. 47–50. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208. The rapid growth of population has placed continuous increasing pressure on water resources. It is of great significance for the sustainable development of water resources to make rational use of limited water resources and to give full play to the maximum use efficiency of water resources. To make rational use of water resources and to protect them, effective monitoring and management of water resources must be performed. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a new method of global water resources monitoring and management, that is, the visual analysis method of global water resources based on digital earth. Through the three-dimensional digital modeling of global water resources, the visual analysis of global water resources is realized, including the distribution of water resources, water area, water resources depth, pollution degree, and other visual analysis, which provides effective means and decision-making basis for water resources monitoring and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Volunteered geographic information (VGI), as a special subset of crowdsourcing, has provoked interest from many scientific disciplines and industry in the past few years. OpenStreetMap (OSM) is the most famous and well supported example of a VGI project on the Internet today. As a technology, Digital Earth (DE) offers immediate access to enormous quantities of data and information, referenced by locations on the surface of the planet. One of DE's goals is to make global spatial information ubiquitously available as an essential component of democracy. OSM's mission is well positioned within this goal where OSM aims to create a freely available editable map database of the world. This paper explores the characteristics of the collaborative, crowd-based, editing of spatial data in OSM and the crowd itself. We provide some conclusions on how OSM can be best integrated into the fabric of DE. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Earth System Science (ESS) observational data are often inadequately semantically enriched by geo-observational information systems to capture the true meaning of the associated data sets. Data models underpinning these information systems are often too rigid in their data representation to allow for the ever-changing and evolving nature of ESS domain concepts. This impoverished approach to observational data representation reduces the ability of multi-disciplinary practitioners to share information in a computable way. Object oriented techniques that are typically employed to model data in a complex domain (with evolving domain concepts) can unnecessarily exclude domain specialists from the design process, invariably leading to a mismatch between the needs of the domain specialists, and how the concepts are modelled. In many cases, an over simplification of the domain concept is captured by the computer scientist. This paper proposes that two-level modelling methodologies developed by health informaticians to tackle problems of domain specific use-case knowledge modelling can be re-used within ESS informatics. A translational approach to enable a two-level modelling process within geo-observational sensor systems design is described. We show how the Open Geospatial Consortium’s (OGC) Observations & Measurements (O&M) standard can act as a pragmatic solution for a stable reference-model (necessary for two-level modelling), and upon which more volatile domain specific concepts can be defined and managed using archetypes. A rudimentary use-case is presented, followed by a worked example showing the implementation methodology and considerations leading to an O&M based, two-level modelling design approach, to realise semantically rich and interoperable Earth System Science based geo-observational sensor systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the development trajectory and current trends of three-dimensional (3D) geological modelling. In recent years, due to the rising global energy demand and the increasing frequency of regional geological disasters, significant progress has been made in this field. The purpose of this study is to clarify the potential complexity of 3D geological modelling, identify persistent challenges, and propose potential avenues for improvement. The main objectives include simplifying the modelling process, improving model accuracy, integrating different data sources, and quantitatively evaluating model parameters. This study integrates global research in this field, focusing on the latest breakthroughs and applications in mineral exploration, engineering geology, geological disaster assessment, and military geosciences. For example, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tilt photography technology, multisource data fusion, 3D geological modelling method based on machine learning, etc. By identifying areas for improvement and making recommendations, this work aims to provide valuable insights to guide the future development of geological modelling toward a more comprehensive and accurate "Transparent Earth". This review underscores the global applications of 3D geological modelling, highlighting its crucial role across various sectors such as mineral exploration, the oil and gas industry, urban planning, geological hazard assessment, and geoscientific research. The review emphasizes the sector-specific importance of this technology in enhancing modelling accuracy and efficiency, optimizing resource management, driving technological innovation, and improving disaster response capabilities. These insights provide a comprehensive understanding of how 3D geological modelling can significantly impact and benefit multiple industries worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vision of Digital Earth (DE) put recently forward under the auspices of the International Society for DE extends the paradigm of spatial data infrastructures by advocating an interactive and dynamic framework based on near-to-real time information from sensors and citizens. This paper contributes to developing that vision and reports the results of a two-year research project exploring the extent to which it is possible to extract information useful for policy and science from the large volumes of messages and photos being posted daily through social networks. Given the noted concerns about the quality of such data in relation to that provided by authoritative sources, the research has developed a semi-automatic workflow to assess the fitness for purpose of data extracted from Twitter and Flickr, and compared them to that coming from official sources, using forest fires as a case study. The findings indicate that we were able to detect accurately six of eight major fires in France in the summer of 2011, with another four detected by the social networks but not reported by our official source, the European Forest Fire Information Service. These findings and the lessons learned in handling the very large volumes of unstructured data in multiple languages discussed in this study provide useful insights into the value of social network data for policy and science, and contribute to advancing the vision of DE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Administrative units reflect the territorial hierarchies established within all countries of the world. The units are addressable with geocodes that provide a bijective mapping between territories and unique identification codes. Early warning systems for natural or man-made hazards often map affected or threatened areas to administrative units to establish a spatial reference that is comprehensible to all parts of the population. Addressing these territories in an international context has several requirements, such as worldwide coverage, completeness and topicality, which must be met by geocode standards. In this paper, the practicability and suitability of international geocode standards are examined in the context of the requirements of large-scale early warning systems. This paper exposes the insufficiencies and limitations of existing geocode standards International Organization for Standardization (ISO)-3166, Second Administrative Level Boundaries data set project (SALB) and Nomenclature of the Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) and emphasises the suitability of the non-official hierarchical administrative subdivision codes (HASC). The analysis is framed in the context of addressing affected areas for an Indian Ocean tsunami early warning system. This system was developed within the Distant Early Warning Systems project according to the requirements of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Intergovernmental Oceanic Commission for Regional Tsunami Watch Providers (RTWPs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This position paper is the outcome of a brainstorming workshop organised by the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) in Beijing in March 2011. It argues that the vision of Digital Earth (DE) put forward by Vice-President Al Gore 13 years ago needs to be re-evaluated in the light of the many developments in the fields of information technology, data infrastructures and earth observation that have taken place since. The paper identifies the main policy, scientific and societal drivers for the development of DE and illustrates the multi-faceted nature of a new vision of DE grounding it with a few examples of potential applications. Because no single organisation can on its own develop all the aspects of DE, it is essential to develop a series of collaborations at the global level to turn the vision outlined in this paper into reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cartographic communication and support within emergency management (EM) are complicated issues with changing demands according to the incident extent and phase of the EM cycle. Keeping in mind the specifics of each purpose, it is obvious that spatial data used for maps preparation and production must be differently visualized even for the same type of emergency incident (traffic accident, fire, and natural disaster). Context-based cartography is a promising methodology to deal with the changing demands of an operational EM center. An overview of cartographic communication is presented within the context of an operational EM center, activities of particular actors, and map use supporting the incident elimination. The authors of the paper respond to a series of questions, for example: what is the current cartographic support of operational EM in the Czech Republic in Digital Earth conditions? What possibilities are there to improve the cartographic communication? How can contextual cartographic services be implemented in a Web environment and how can the usability of results be tested? The paper gives several examples of the usage of cartographic technologies in map creation for various emergency situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The seriousness of losses caused by disaster dependent on the hazard degree of environment, vulnerability of hazard-affected bodies, and emergency response capacity of the region is studied in this article. The study on hazard-affected bodies is of importance to disaster risk management, regional hazard prevention, reduction, and investment in disaster insurance. With summarizing of various assessment methods of vulnerability of hazard-affected bodies, this paper presents a refined Spatial Quantification Model of regional vulnerability which combines refined spatial geographic data and land-use type data. A quantitative study on regional vulnerability was carried out by defining fine spatial grid as the basic evaluation unit based on GIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vectors and periodic phenomena, e.g. traffic versus time, have direction on a circular scale of 360°. An overview of existing methods for the display of circular-spatial and vectorial-spatial data, such as arrow plots, is given. We introduce the circular dataimage, a new type of graphic for the display of circular-spatial data. It is defined by encoding direction in a spatial display by using colors from a color wheel constructed by connecting three or more two-color gradients with color continuity at the connections. Therefore, image discontinuity from using a single-color gradient, e.g. blue-red, does not occur. High-resolution global views of ocean wind direction are used as a running example throughout the paper. Advantages and disadvantages of circular dataimages compared to arrow plots were obtained from a usability study. Circular dataimages provide for simultaneous recognition of fine structure on a small-scale and large-scale structure on a global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates a multi-resolution digital Earth model called PYXIS, which was developed by PYXIS Innovation Inc. The PYXIS hexagonal grids employ an efficient hierarchical labeling scheme for addressing pixels. We provide a recursive definition of the PYXIS grids, a systematic approach to the labeling, an algorithm to add PYXIS labels, and a discussion of the discrete Fourier transform on PYXIS grids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formal process of system design begins with the identification of use cases. No such cases are readily apparent for the current generation of geobrowsers, though the text of the 1998 Gore speech refers to several. An analysis of the use cases of geographic information systems (GIS) reveals similarities with the functionality of geobrowsers, inviting the view that the two forms of geographic information technology will eventually converge. However, experience suggests that users are finding very different ways of exploiting geobrowsers, and two examples are discussed in detail. These uses can be interpreted within a broad framework of spatial concepts, and the paper concludes that this framework provides a better guide to the future of geobrowsers and Digital Earth than current GIS technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The definition of "Digital Water Conservancy" is proposed on the basis of "Digital Earth" in this paper. The necessity, feasibility, construction principles of "Digital Water Conservancy" are analysed, and the framework of it is proposed, that is: key technology, basic infrastructure, and comprehensive applications. The key technology is composed of spatial information technology, management information technology, and comprehensive information technology; the basic infrastructure consists of National Information Infrastructure (Nil), National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI), special data of water conservancy and security measures; the comprehensive applications are made up of the management system, decision-making models, and application systems. The above three levels supply hardware and solftware to water conservancy around data acquisition and updating, processing and accessing, information extraction and analysis, propagation of information, building and updating of databases, web and transmission, and decision-making support. A spatial information infrastructure, special data of water conservancy, and decision-making models are the core and are discussed in detail. Digital Water Conservancy is a large and complex systematic engineering, but it can be regarded as being composed of points (reservoirs and lakes), lines (rivers and their watersheds), and regions (oceans). A digital reservoir analysis is carried out in Xue Ye Reservoir, Shandong Province to provide experience for informatisation of water conservancy in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this opinion paper, we, a group of scientists from environmental-, geo-, ocean- and information science, argue visual data exploration should become a common analytics approach in Earth system science due to its potential for analysis and interpretation of large and complex spatio-temporal data. We discuss the challenges that appear such as synthesis of heterogeneous data from various sources, reducing the amount of information and facilitating multidisciplinary, collaborative research. We argue that to fully exploit the potential of visual data exploration, several bottlenecks and challenges have to be addressed: providing an efficient data management and an integrated modular workflow, developing and applying suitable visual exploration concepts and methods with the help of effective and tailored tools as well as generating and raising the awareness of visual data exploration and education. We are convinced visual data exploration is worth the effort since it significantly facilitates insight into environmental data and derivation of knowledge from it. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Geospatial datasets are too complex to easily visualize and understand on a computer screen. Combining digital fabrication with a discrete global grid system (DGGS) can produce physical models of the Earth for visualizing multiresolution geospatial datasets. This proposed approach includes a mechanism for attaching a set of 3D printed segments to produce a scalable model of the Earth. The authors have produced two models that support the attachment of different datasets both in 2D and 3D format. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Discrete global grid systems have become an important component of Digital Earth systems. However, previously there has not existed an easy way to map between named places (toponyms) and the cells of a discrete global grid system. The lack of such a tool has limited the opportunities to synthesize social place-based data with the more standard Earth and environmental science data currently being analyzed in Digital Earth applications. This paper introduces Wāhi, the first gazetteer to map entities from the GeoNames database to multiple discrete global grid systems. A gazetteer service is presented that exposes the grid system and the associated gazetteer data as Linked Data. A set of use cases for the discrete global grid gazetteer is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development, integration, and distribution of the information and spatial data infrastructure (i.e. Digital Earth; DE) necessary to support the vision and goals of Future Earth (FE) will occur in a distributed fashion, in very diverse technological, institutional, socio-cultural, and economic contexts around the world. This complex context and ambitious goals require bringing to bear not only the best minds, but also the best science and technologies available. Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial Applications (FOSS4G) offers mature, capable and reliable software to contribute to the creation of this infrastructure. In this paper we point to a selected set of some of the most mature and reliable FOSS4G solutions that can be used to develop the functionality required as part of DE and FE. We provide examples of large-scale, sophisticated, mission-critical applications of each software to illustrate their power and capabilities in systems where they perform roles or functionality similar to the ones they could perform as part of DE and FE. We provide information and resources to assist the readers in carrying out their own assessments to select the best FOSS4G solutions for their particular contexts and system development needs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Big Data has emerged in the past few years as a new paradigm providing abundant data and opportunities to improve and/or enable research and decision-support applications with unprecedented value for digital earth applications including business, sciences and engineering. At the same time, Big Data presents challenges for digital earth to store, transport, process, mine and serve the data. Cloud computing provides fundamental support to address the challenges with shared computing resources including computing, storage, networking and analytical software; the application of these resources has fostered impressive Big Data advancements. This paper surveys the two frontiers – Big Data and cloud computing – and reviews the advantages and consequences of utilizing cloud computing to tackling Big Data in the digital earth and relevant science domains. From the aspects of a general introduction, sources, challenges, technology status and research opportunities, the following observations are offered: (i) cloud computing and Big Data enable science discoveries and application developments; (ii) cloud computing provides major solutions for Big Data; (iii) Big Data, spatiotemporal thinking and various application domains drive the advancement of cloud computing and relevant technologies with new requirements; (iv) intrinsic spatiotemporal principles of Big Data and geospatial sciences provide the source for finding technical and theoretical solutions to optimize cloud computing and processing Big Data; (v) open availability of Big Data and processing capability pose social challenges of geospatial significance and (vi) a weave of innovations is transforming Big Data into geospatial research, engineering and business values. This review introduces future innovations and a research agenda for cloud computing supporting the transformation of the volume, velocity, variety and veracity into values of Big Data for local to global digital earth science and applications. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Broadly, this paper is about designing memorable 3D geovisualizations for spatial knowledge acquisition during (virtual) navigation. Navigation is a fundamentally important task, and even though most people navigate every day, many find it difficult in unfamiliar environments. When people get lost in an unfamiliar environment, or are unable to remember a route that they took, they might feel anxiety, disappointment and frustration; and in real world, such incidents can be costly, and at times, life-threatening. Therefore, in this paper, we study the design decisions in terms of visual realism in a city model, propose a visualization design optimized for route learning, implement and empirically evaluate this design. The evaluation features a navigational route learning task, where we measure short- and long-term recall accuracy of 42 participants with varying spatial abilities and memory capacity. Our findings provide unique empirical evidence on how design choices affect memory in route learning with geovirtual environments, contributing toward empirically verified design guidelines for digital cities.

Virtual reality (VR) is a frequently emphasized issue on the Digital Earth (DE) agenda. While current DE research is more engaged in the technical aspects of VR applications, this paper focuses on what is possible with immersive virtual environments (IVE) from the user's perspective. After a brief discussion of spatial presence and embodiment in the context of IVE, both concepts will be merged into a geovisualization immersion pipeline (GIP) as a framework with which to systematically link technical and cognitive aspects of IVE. We will then analyze the general criteria that must be met by IVE in order to facilitate the experience of spatial presence. Adapting these criteria to the special requirements of geospatial data, a definition of geovisualization immersive virtual environments (GeoIVE) is formulated. Finally, the theoretical considerations of this paper are set into practice, using a GeoIVE of a coral reef ecosystem as an example. As we shall see, while GIS do not provide data models or data compatibility for direct visualization of GeoIVE on VR output devices, game engines can serve as middleware to fill this gap.

The essential aspects of Gore’s “Digital Earth” concept include “georeferenced” data. This paper is concerned with establishing the need for a standardised and common form to locate points on the earth’s surface. Rather than a degree, minute, second (dms) system for latitude/longitude location, a decimal degree system, formatted as a comma separated variable tuple in square brackets, [dLL], is advocated. Values, to an appropriate number of decimal places, can be inserted in text to be computer searchable. The [dLL] also becomes metadata for a data set or as an index in databases or identifiers for images. Various uses of this system are illustrated. The [dLL] allows data to become more “open” via the FAIR data principles: findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. Wider use of [dLL] in the earth sciences is fundamental to collaboration with other disciplines, especially Critical Zone Science. The general use of [dLL] geolocation can be exploited in a wide variety of data analytical methodologies, some of which are outlined, and in earth science and environmental data situations.

Digital Earth is a global reference model for integrating, processing and visualizing geospatial datasets. In this reference model, various data-types, including Digital Elevation Models (DEM) and imagery (orthophotos), are universally and openly available for the entire globe. However, 3D content such as detailed terrains with features, man-made structures, 3D water bodies and 3D vegetation are not commonly available in Digital Earth. In this paper, we present an interactive system for the rapid creation and integration of these types of 3D content to augment Digital Earth. The inputs to our system include available data sources, such as DEM and imagery information depicting landscapes and urban environments. The proposed system employs sketch-based and image-assisted tools to support interactive creation of textured 3D content. For adding terrain features visible in orthophotos, and also the basin of water bodies, we use a multiscale least square surface fitting to generate an adaptive triangular subdivision. For modeling forests and vegetation, we use image-based techniques and take advantage of visible regions and colors of forests in orthophotos. For 3D man-made structures, starting from a single photograph, we provide a simple image-assisted sketching tool to extract these objects, correct for perspective distortion and place them into desired locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative remote sensing retrieval algorithms help understanding the dynamic aspects of Digital Earth. However, the Big Data and complex models in Digital Earth pose grand challenges for computation infrastructures. In this article, taking the aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieval as a study case, we exploit parallel computing methods for high efficient geophysical parameter retrieval. We present an efficient geocomputation workflow for the AOD calculation from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite data. According to their individual potential for parallelization, several procedures were adapted and implemented for a successful parallel execution on multi-core processors and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). The benchmarks in this paper validate the high parallel performance of the retrieval workflow with speedups of up to 5.x on a multi-core processor with 8 threads and 43.x on a GPU. To specifically address the time-consuming model retrieval part, hybrid parallel patterns which combine the multi-core processor’s and the GPU’s compute power were implemented with static and dynamic workload distributions and evaluated on two systems with different CPU–GPU configurations. It is shown that only the dynamic hybrid implementation leads to a greatly enhanced overall exploitation of the heterogeneous hardware environment in varying circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]