page 11
CONTENTSREPORT ON THE 11TH CEOS PLENARY
News From the Working Group on Information Systems and Services
CEOS Working Group on Calibration and Validation
IGOS Strategic Implementation Team - Progress Report
The Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment
The Upper Air Measurements
Long-Term Continuity of Ozone Measurements
Ocean Biology
Global Observation of Forest Cover
Disaster Management Support
The Global Terrestrial Observing System ---This page
ISRO takes over CEOS Chair for 1998
The Global Terrestrial Observing System
Jeff Tschirley GTOSThe Global Terrestrial Observing System was established in 1996 by five international organizations Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), International Commission Scientific Unions (ICSU), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
- A steering committee consisting of about 15 recognized scientists helps
to guide programme development and in developing new initiatives. The GTOS
secretariat, located at FAO in Rome, Italy, provides for the day-to-day
operations of the programme, including liaison with the sponsors, steering
committee members, and other global change initiatives such as GCOS and
GOOS.
Unlike the global observing systems that exist for climate and for oceans, there is no single organization that can provide comprehensive information (or the means for gaining access to it) on land and water resources, biodiversity and pollution impacts. The central mission of GTOS is to address this problem by linking existing networks and terrestrial observing systems to provide policy makers, resource managers and researchers with access to the data needed to detect, quantify, locate, understand and warn of changes (especially reductions) in the capacity of terrestrial ecosystems to support sustainable development. This is achieved by focusing on five issues of global concern: changes in land quality; availability of freshwater resources; loss of biodiversity; pollution and toxicity; climate change.
The programme aims to provide guidance in data collection and analysis, and to promote (a) integrated analysis of bio-physical and socio-economic data (geo-referenced where possible); (b) interaction between monitoring networks, research programmes and policy makers; (c) data exchange and application; and (d) quality assurance and harmonization of measurements methods.
The work for the past 12 months has concentrated on the following main areas:
Formation of the GTOS Steering Committee (GTSC)
Preparation of a GTOS Plan
Initiation of a global network of terrestrial observing systems
Preparation of project proposals
Attendance at meeting of joint panels dealing with space observations (GOSSP) and data and information management (DIMP)
Information development and dissemination
Where there are common interests between the Global Observing Systems (G3OS), joint panels have been established with the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) and the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS). For example, the Terrestrial Observation Panel for Climate is co-sponsored with the GCOS; and both the Joint Data and Information Management Panel and the Global Observing Systems Space-based Observation Panel are jointly sponsored with the GCOS and the GOOS.
GTOS has already established the terrestrial ecosystems monitoring sites (TEMS) meta-database which has registered information about more than 700 terrestrial sites around the world and is accessible on the Internet (http://www.fao.org/gtos/tems) It has now been working to expand the number of sites, update the content and quality of existing data, introduce and distribute a pc-based version of the meta-database, incorporate new user features and promote wider use of TEMS among scientists and policy analysts.
During 1997 GTOS, in collaboration with GCOS and IGBP launched an initiative to establish a Global Terrestrial Observing Network (GT-Net) in order to begin to link and initial group of 12 existing network that carry out regular terrestrial monitoring and assessment. In addition, GT-Net defined a demonstration project on terrestrial ecosystem productivity that will be supported by the members of GT-Net.
During 1998 work will begin on the preparation of a list of variables for "in situ" and space measurements for land, freshwater and biodiversity which is of interest to CEOS and members of GT-Net. It would be especially helpful if this network could develop common approaches to data collection to assure the comparability of data and to collaborate on modelling techniques to "upscale" the data. Joint collaboration with CEOS in the development of the joint proposal on forest cover monitoring and to develop an integrated global observing strategy will continue.
Canada Center for Remote Sensing
- CEOS/IGOS Disaster Management Support Project: Prototype Disaster Information Server by NOAA
- The CEO's prototype EO information exchange server by the European Commission
- A quick tour of Polder by CNES
- Forecasting the ocean by CNES/CLS
- View-it, the leading way in terrain avoidance training by Computed Air Services/Spot-Image
- Application case studies using Earth Observation data and a gallery of IRS data samples by ISRO
- The CEOS Database by ESA
To conclude the 11th Plenary, ISRO as the new Chair of CEOS presented their plans. ISRO will host the 12th Plenary on 10-12 November 1998 in Bangalore. EUMETSAT will follow in 1999, and INPE accepted the role of CEOS Chair in the year 2000.
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