The Next Revolution for the GEOSS Common Infrastructure(GCI)

The on-going evolution in the modus operandi of doing research and organizing science is largely driven by the many technological and information revolutions that characterizing the present digital era. Earth system scientists need to use and integrate very heterogeneous data and information characterizing various fields of academic study to understand the Earth as a system. Besides data diversity, data volume is dramatically increasing due the new and powerful technologies made available to acquire and share data and information. Advanced remote sensing technologies brought the challenge of data deluge for satellite data analysis and interpretation. Drones encapsulate the logic of (low cost) distributed, ubiquitous monitoring information capture. The convergence of wireless technologies, micro-electromechanical systems and the Internet is providing objects, animals and people with the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction. The open data revolution is increasingly affecting also digital models and processing algorithms made more and more accessible and interoperable on Internet. GEOSS Users (and their Web applications) need to know more about how to effectively discover and use this huge amount of heterogeneous data and the increasing number of processing services and digital models. There exists a clear need to define information in terms of data, knowledge in terms of information, and decision-support (i.e. wisdom) in terms of knowledge: the DIKW paradigm. The 4th GEOSS S&T Stakeholder Workshop focused on the scope of the future GEOSS and the concepts and technologies that can support a future-oriented "system of systems" providing observations and practice-relevant knowledge to a wide range of users. Information and knowledge systems are challenged by rapidly developing knowledge needs on the one side and an equally rapid development in (big) data availability not only from traditional sensors but also from a variety of human sensors, the developing Internet of Things (IoT) and Internet of Everything (IoE) scenarios, and the output of increasingly more advanced models. Cloud computing provides any public and private organization with the ability to use data and applications over the Internet instead of hosting, storing, or processing them on locally managed hardware. In such a fast moving technological and information environment, GEOSS (and in particular its common infrastructure and information system) must be flexible to leverage a never-ending technological revolution. To reinforce GEOSS role and use, anticipating the next revolution is important. GEOSS (and in particular its common infrastructure and information system) should apply the DIKW patterns and create knowledge; this requires an innovative sustainability and economic paradigm. Public-private-partnerships (PPP) may be considered for that.