Abstract
The exploitation of potential societal benefits of Earth observations is hampered by users having to engage in often tedious processes to discover data and extract information and knowledge. A concept is introduced for a transition from the current perception of data as passive objects (DPO) to a new perception of data as active subjects (DAS). This transition would greatly increase data usage and exploitation, and support the extraction of knowledge from data products. Enabling the data subjects to actively reach out to potential users would revolutionize data dissemination and sharing and facilitate collaboration in user communities. The three core elements of the transformative DAS concept are: (1) “intelligent semantic data agents” (ISDAs) that have the capabilities to communicate with their human and digital environment. Each ISDA provides a voice to the data product it represents. It has comprehensive knowledge of the represented product including quality, uncertainties, access conditions, previous uses, user feedbacks, etc., and it can engage in transactions with users. (2) A knowledge base that constructs extensive graphs presenting a comprehensive picture of communities of people, applications, models, tools, and resources and provides tools for the analysis of these graphs. (3) An interaction platform that links the ISDAs to the human environment and facilitates transaction including discovery of products, access to products and derived knowledge, modifications and use of products, and the exchange of feedback on the usage. This platform documents the transactions in a secure way maintaining full provenance.
Highlights
The current conceptual approach for discovery of Earth observation (EO) data and derived products is to a large extent based on a perception of data as passive objects
As recent as 2019, a new concept paper has been accepted by the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Executive Committee that proposes the development of a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Knowledge Hub mainly for expert communities as a framework for transforming Earth observation (EO) data to knowledge for decision making [31]
The ability to design intelligent software agents that can represent a data product and provide comprehensive information derived from this product, combined with the ability to construct extensive graph data provides a basis for a transition in the Earth observation (EO) domain from the perception of Data as Passive Objects (DPO) to a perception of Data as Active Subjects (DAS)
Summary
The current conceptual approach for discovery of Earth observation (EO) data and derived products is to a large extent based on a perception of data as passive objects. The use of products and knowledge derived from Earth observations (EOs) for decision and policy making is hampered by the level of expertise required to extract relevant information from data products and by the limited discoverability. Understanding “Anthropocene risks”, i.e., risks that emerge from human-driven processes, interact with global social-ecological connectivity, and exhibit complex, cross-scale relationships [10], requires full and easy access to information that can be derived from Earth observation (EO) data and tools for the extraction. Assessing risks, developing interventions to address the threats today and having early warnings concerning hidden risks need full access to comprehensive Earth observations (EOs) to address the many knowledge gaps regarding catastrophic risks and to inform interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary mapping and tracking of the multitude of factors that could contribute to global catastrophic risks [16]. The goal of utilizing the societal benefits of Earth observations (EOs) has to be a major design criterion for systems that manage and provide access to such data
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