Abstract
Global sustainability research requires an integrative research effort underpinned by digital infrastructures (systems) able to harness data and heterogeneous information across disciplines. Digital data and information sharing across systems and applications is achieved by implementing interoperability: a property of a product or system to work with other products or systems, present or future. There are at least three main interoperability challenges a digital infrastructure must address: technological, semantic, and organizational. In recent years, important international programs and initiatives are focusing on such an ambitious objective. This manuscript presents and combines the studies and the experiences carried out by three relevant projects, focusing on the heavy metal domain: Global Mercury Observation System, Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), and INSPIRE. This research work recognized a valuable interoperability service bus (i.e., a set of standards models, interfaces, and good practices) proposed to characterize the integrative research cyber-infrastructure of the heavy metal research community. In the paper, the GEOSS common infrastructure is discussed implementing a multidisciplinary and participatory research infrastructure, introducing a possible roadmap for the heavy metal pollution research community to join GEOSS as a new Group on Earth Observation community of practice and develop a research infrastructure for carrying out integrative research in its specific domain.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
As of March 2012. http://www.earthobservations.org/about_geo.shtml
References
Belmont Forum (2011) The Belmont challenge: a global, environmental research mission for sustainability. http://igfagcr.org/images/documents/belmont_challenge_white_paper.pdf
Bencardino M, Cinnirella S, D’Amore F, Gratz L, Mazzetti P, Pirrone N (2013) GMOS data policy—draft_12, FP7 GMOS project deliverable
Cinnirella S, D’Amore F, Bencardino M, Sprovieri F, Pirrone N, (2013) The GMOS cyber(e)-infrastructure: advanced services for supporting science and policy. Environ Sci Pollut Res. doi:10.1007/s11356-013-2308-3
Craglia M, Nativi S, Santoro M, Vaccari L, Fugazza C (2011) Inter-disciplinary interoperability for global sustainability research. Proceedings of Geos 2011 Conference, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer edition, pp. 1–15
D’Amore F, Bencardino M, Cinnirella S, Sprovieri F, Pirrone N (2013). Data quality management in GMOS: a QA/QC framework based on a service approach. Abstract Book of the Big Data from Space Conference (5–7 June 2013). Frascati, Italy. http://www.congrexprojects.com/docs/default-source/13c10_docs/abstractbook.pdf
NSF EarthCube, (2012) The EarthCube brokering concept award team, brokering for EarthCube communities: a road map. http://api.ning.com/files/e1f7JW76fC4atlM7lc-wdrsh4bpyUb9knJhLXfEtBqjhhF*rgAdvZNTwzvtnWsqVSXA4EBbE6pNrBO*vpLKR1EiwePStjpnL/BrokeringRoadmapAug171.pdf
European Commission (2006) Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: interoperability for Pan-European eGovernment Services. COM (2006), 45 final, Brussels. http://www.epsos.eu/uploads/tx_epsosfileshare/Communication-on-Interoperability_01.pdf
European Commission (2010) Europe 2020. A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. COM(2010) 2020 final. Luxembourg: Publications Office. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:2020:FIN:EN:PDF
GEO (2005) The Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) 10-Year Implementation Plan (as adopted 16 February 2005). http://www.earthobservations.org/documents/10-Year%20Implementation%20Plan.pdf
GEO (2009) Implementation Guidelines for the GEOSS Data Sharing Principles. Document 7(Rev2) as accepted at GEO-VI. http://www.earthobservations.org/documents/geo_vi/07_Implementation%20Guidelines%20for%20the%20GEOSS%20Data%20Sharing%20Principles%20Rev2.pdf
GEO (2010) GEOSS Data Sharing Action Plan. Document 7(Rev2) as accepted at GEO-VII. http://www.earthobservations.org/documents/geo_vii/07_GEOSS%20Data%20Sharing%20Action%20Plan%20Rev2.pdf
GEO (2012) GEO 2012–2015 Work Plan. Revision 2. http://www.earthobservations.org/documents/work%20plan/GEO%202012-2015%20Work%20Plan_Rev2.pdf
GMOS Consortium (2010) The Global Mercury Observation System (GMOS). http://www.gmos.eu/freedocuments/brochure.pdf
Hilbert M, Lopez P (2011) The world’s technological capacity to store, communicate, and compute information. Science 332(6025):60–65
International Council for Science (ICSU) (2010) Grand challenges in global sustainability research: a systems approach to research priorities for the decade. ICSU (Paris)
INSPIRE Regulation 1205/2008/EC Implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards metadata, 2008. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:326:0012:0030:EN:PDF
ISO 19115 2003/Cor 1 (2006) Geographic information—metadata. ISO TC 211
ISO/TS 19139 (2007) Geographic information—metadata— XML schema implementation. ISO TC 211
Joint WHO/Convention Task Force on the Health Aspects of Air Pollution (2007). “Health risks of heavy metals from long-range transboundary air pollution”, World Health Organization. ISBN 978 92 890 7179 6. http://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/78649/E91044.pdf
Manyika J, Chui M, Bughin J et al (2011) Big Data: the next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity. McKinsey Global Institute, San Francisco
Mazzetti P, Nativi S (2012) Multidisciplinary interoperability for Earth observations: some architectural issues. IEEE JSTARS 5(3):1054–1059
Nativi S, Bigagli L (2009) Discovery, mediation, and access services for earth observation data. IEEE J Selected Topics Appl Earth Observ Remote Sens (JSTARS) 2:233–240
Nativi S, Fox P (2010) Advocating for the use of informatics in the earth and space sciences. EOS Trans Am Geophys Union 91(8):75–76
Nativi S, Khalsa SJ, Domenico D, Craglia M, Pearlman J, Mazzetti P, Rew R (2011) The brokering approach for earth science cyberinfrastructure, EarthCube white paper, US NSF. http://semanticommunity.info/@api/deki/files/13798/=010_Domenico.pdf
Nativi S, Craglia M, Pearlman J, (2012) The brokering approach for multidisciplinary interoperability: a position paper. Int J Spat Data Inf Res, vol. 7, pp. 1–15. http://ijsdir.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.php/ijsdir/article/view/281/319
Nativi S, Craglia M, Pearlman J (2013) Earth science infrastructures interoperability: the brokering approach. IEEE JSTARS 6(3):118–1129
Pirrone N, Aas W, Cinnirella S, Ebinghaus R, Hedgecock IM, Pacyna J, Sprovieri F, Sunderland EM (2013) Toward the next generation of air quality monitoring: mercury. Atmos Environ. doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2013.06.053
Santoro M, Mazzetti P, Nativi S, Fugazza C, Granell C, Diaz L (2012) Methodologies for augmented discovery of geospatial resources. In: Discovery of geospatial resources: methodologies, technologies, and emergent applications. IGI Global. 0-335. Web. 30 Mar 2012
Tress B, Tress G, Fry G, (2005) Defining concepts and the process of knowledge production in integrative research. In: From landscape research to landscape planning: aspects of integration, education and application: proceedings of the Frontis workshop from landscape research to landscape planning: aspects of integration, education and application, The Netherlands 1–6 June 2004/Tress, B. Wageningen: Wageningen UR, Frontis, vol. 12
UNEP (2012) 21 Issues for the 21st century: result of the UNEP foresight process on emerging environmental issues. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi, Kenya. http://www.unep.org/publications/ebooks/foresightreport/Portals/24175/pdfs/Foresight_Report-21_Issues_for_the_21st_Century.pdf
Vaccari L, Craglia M, Fugazza C, Nativi S, Santoro M (2012) Integrative research: the EuroGEOSS experience. IEEE ISTARS 5(6):163–1611
Acknowledgments
The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreements no 265178 (GeoViQua project), no 282915 (GEOWOW project), and no 265113 (GMOS). The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their comments that helped to improve the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nativi, S., Mazzetti, P., Craglia, M. et al. The GEOSS solution for enabling data interoperability and integrative research. Environ Sci Pollut Res 21, 4177–4192 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2264-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2264-y