The Full Picture

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he Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS)

will only succeed if it is user driven. It is therefore most

appropriate and promising that its implementation is

already being driven by a large variety of users, from developed

and developing countries, and from governmental departments

and ministries, scientific institutes, industry, and national and

international organizations. This chapter of

The Full Picture

offers a broad overview of the many different users and uses that

will benefit from GEOSS.

The Implementation Plan for GEOSS posits nine distinct groups of

users and uses, which it calls ‘societal benefit areas’. The nine areas

are disasters, health, energy, climate, water, weather, ecosystems,

agriculture and biodiversity. While it is indeed useful to consider

the benefits that GEOSS promises to these nine domains, each with

its distinct features and needs, the Implementation Plan also recog-

nizes that each benefit area cannot be viewed in isolation. Instead,

they are mutually interdependent. They require many ‘cross-cutting’

or ‘synergistic’ observation systems, data sets and solutions. The

nine societal benefit areas constitute a useful device for helping us

to understand more easily an extremely complex and multi-dimen-

sional Earth Observation System of Systems. For the convenience of

the reader, the 42 user-oriented outputs and projects that are

presented in this chapter are therefore organized according to the

societal benefit area that they most closely match.

Disasters

Reducing the loss of life and property from natural and human-

induced disasters requires access to a wide range of environmental

information. When disaster looms, rapid access to weather forecasts,

land and ocean parameters and conditions, the location of transport

links and hospitals, and socio-economic conditions can save

uncounted lives.

But Earth observations have value long before the need for an

emergency response arises. They can also help planners to reduce

vulnerability and strengthen preparedness and early warning. And

after disaster strikes, environmental information can be used to

ensure that any housing or public infrastructure that has been

destroyed is reconstructed in a way that reduces future risks.

Ultimately, the key to long-term risk reduction is a better under-

standing of the relationship between natural disasters and sustainable

development, an understanding that can be achieved in part through

Earth observations. For example, scenarios of climate change suggest

that new types of hazard will emerge in the decades ahead, and that

existing hazards may be magnified. Climate forecasts

must therefore be an integral part of sustainable devel-

opment planning and be applied to strategies for

adaptation and risk management.

Essential players in establishing GEOSS as a tool for

managing disasters and natural hazards include: the

UN’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction,

which is defining and implementing the multi-hazard

approach, whereby early warning systems and

response teams can address more than one type of

hazard; the Committee on Earth Observation

Satellites, which supports the use of satellites for risk

management; the Charter on ‘Space and major disas-

ters’; the Intergovernmental Oceanographic

Commission, which promotes tsunami early warning

systems; the United Nations Office for Outer Space

Affairs, which is implementing the UN Platform for

Space-based Information for Disaster Management and

Emergency Response; and the World Meteorological

Organization, which is initiating a disaster risk reduc-

tion programme.

Health

Understanding the environmental factors that affect

human health and well-being requires large quantities

of timely data and information on: airborne, marine, and

water pollution; stratospheric ozone depletion; persis-

tent organic pollutants; nutrition; noise levels;

weather-related disease vectors; and many other vari-

ables. GEOSS will improve the flow of environmental

data and health statistics to the health community, thus

promoting a stronger focus on prevention and contribut-

ing to continued and potentially dramatic improvements

in human health worldwide.

For example, GEOSS promises to make it possible for

vaccination teams from the World Health Organization

and other health agencies to integrate their epidemio-

logical maps with Earth observation maps of climate,

weather, water supplies, soil conditions, and ecosystems,

as well as with maps on topography, bathymetry, popu-

lation, and transport infrastructure. Thus empowered,

health experts will be able to anticipate outbreaks of

infectious diseases and to prioritize the supply of

vaccines to the areas at highest risk.

OCIETAL

ENEFIT

REAS

The societal benefits of GEOSS

NTRODUCTION