Review of Web Mapping: Eras, Trends and Directions

Web mapping and the use of geospatial information online have evolved rapidly over the past few decades. Almost everyone in the world uses mapping information, whether or not one realizes it. Almost every mobile phone now has location services and every event and object on the earth has a location. The use of this geospatial location data has expanded rapidly, thanks to the development of the Internet. Huge volumes of geospatial data are available and daily being captured online, and are used in web applications and maps for viewing, analysis, modeling and simulation. This paper reviews the developments of web mapping from the first static online map images to the current highly interactive, multi-sourced web mapping services that have been increasingly moved to cloud computing platforms. The whole environment of web mapping captures the integration and interaction between three components found online, namely, geospatial information, people and functionality. In this paper, the trends and interactions among these components are identified and reviewed in relation to the technology developments. The review then concludes by exploring some of the opportunities and directions

Internet of things

Manual of Digital Earth / Editors: Huadong Guo, Michael F. Goodchild, Alessandro Annoni .- Springer, 2020 .- ISBN: 978-981-32-9915-3Digital Earth was born with the aim of replicating the real world within the digital world. Many efforts have been made to observe and sense the Earth, both from space (remote sensing) and by using in situ sensors. Focusing on the latter, advances in Digital Earth have established vital bridges to exploit these sensors and their networks by taking location as a key element. The current era of connectivity envisions that everything is connected to everything. The concept of the Internet of Things(IoT)emergedasaholisticproposaltoenableanecosystemofvaried,heterogeneous networked objects and devices to speak to and interact with each other. To make the IoT ecosystem a reality, it is necessary to understand the electronic components, communication protocols, real-time analysis techniques, and the location of the objects and devices. The IoT ecosystem and the Digital Earth (DE) jointly form interrelated infrastructures for addressing today’s pressing issues and complex challenges. In this chapter, we explore the synergies and frictions in establishing an efficient and permanent collaboration between the two infrastructures, in order to adequately address multidisciplinary and increasingly complex real-world problems. Although there are still some pending issues, the identified synergies generate optimism for a true collaboration between the Internet of Things and the Digital Earth

Earth Observation Open Science and Innovation

geospatial analytics; social observatory; big earth data; open data; citizen science; open innovation; earth system science; crowdsourced geospatial data; citizen science; science in society; data scienc

Grand Challenges in Immersive Analytics

The definitive version will be published in CHI 2021, May 8–13, 2021, Yokohama, JapanInternational audienceImmersive Analytics is a quickly evolving field that unites several areas such as visualisation, immersive environments, and humancomputer interaction to support human data analysis with emerging technologies. This research has thrived over the past years with multiple workshops, seminars, and a growing body of publications, spanning several conferences. Given the rapid advancement of interaction technologies and novel application domains, this paper aims toward a broader research agenda to enable widespread adoption. We present 17 key research challenges developed over multiple sessions by a diverse group of 24 international experts, initiated from a virtual scientific workshop at ACM CHI 2020. These challenges aim to coordinate future work by providing a systematic roadmap of current directions and impending hurdles to facilitate productive and effective applications for Immersive Analytics

III: Small: Information Integration and Human Interaction for Indoor and Outdoor Spaces

The goal of this research project is to provide a framework model that integrates existing models of indoor and outdoor space, and to use this model to develop an interactive platform for navigation in mixed indoor and outdoor spaces. The user should feel the transition between inside and outside to be seamless, in terms of the navigational support provided. The approach consists of integration of indoors and outdoors on several levels: conceptual models (ontologies), formal system designs, data models, and human interaction. At the conceptual level, the project draws on existing ontologies as well as examining the affordances that the space provides. For example, an outside pedestrian walkway affords the same function as an inside corridor. Formal models of place and connection are also used to precisely specify the design of the navigational support system. Behavioral experiments with human participants assess the validity of our framework for supporting human spatial learning and navigation in integrated indoor and outdoor environments. These experiments also enable the identification and extraction of the salient features of indoor and outdoor spaces for incorporation into the framework. Findings from the human studies will help validate the efficacy of our formal framework for supporting human spatial learning and navigation in such integrated environments. Results will be distributed using the project Web site (www.spatial.maine.edu/IOspace) and will be incorporated into graduate level courses on human interaction with mobile devices, shared with public school teachers participating in the University of Maine\u27s NSF-funded RET (Research Experiences for Teachers). The research teams are working with two companies and one research center on technology transfer for building indoor-outdoor navigation tools with a wide range of applications, including those for the persons with disabilities

The Use of Mobile Sensors by Children: A Review of Two Decades of Environmental Education Projects

Over the past twenty years, the use of electronic mobile sensors by children and youngsters has played a significant role in environmental education projects in Portugal. This paper describes a research synthesis of a set of case studies (environmental education projects) on the use of sensors as epistemic mediators, evidencing the technological, environmental, social, and didactical dimensions of environmental education projects over the last two decades in Portugal. The triggers of the identified changes include: (i) the evolution of sensors, information and communication platforms, and mobile devices; (ii) the increasing relevance of environmental citizenship and participation; (iii) the recognition of the role of multisensory situated information and quantitative information in environmental citizenship; (iv) the cause–effect relation between didactical strategies and environmenta. education goals; (v) the potential of sensory and epistemic learners’ practices in the environment to produce learning outcomes and new knowledge. To support the use of senses and sensors in environmental education projects, the SEAM model was created based on the developed research synthesis.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

III: Small: Information Integration and Human Interaction for Indoor and Outdoor Spaces

The goal of this research project is to provide a framework model that integrates existing models of indoor and outdoor space, and to use this model to develop an interactive platform for navigation in mixed indoor and outdoor spaces. The user should feel the transition between inside and outside to be seamless, in terms of the navigational support provided. The approach consists of integration of indoors and outdoors on several levels: conceptual models (ontologies), formal system designs, data models, and human interaction. At the conceptual level, the project draws on existing ontologies as well as examining the affordances that the space provides. For example, an outside pedestrian walkway affords the same function as an inside corridor. Formal models of place and connection are also used to precisely specify the design of the navigational support system. Behavioral experiments with human participants assess the validity of our framework for supporting human spatial learning and navigation in integrated indoor and outdoor environments. These experiments also enable the identification and extraction of the salient features of indoor and outdoor spaces for incorporation into the framework. Findings from the human studies will help validate the efficacy of our formal framework for supporting human spatial learning and navigation in such integrated environments. Results will be distributed using the project Web site (www.spatial.maine.edu/IOspace) and will be incorporated into graduate level courses on human interaction with mobile devices, shared with public school teachers participating in the University of Maine\u27s NSF-funded RET (Research Experiences for Teachers). The research teams are working with two companies and one research center on technology transfer for building indoor-outdoor navigation tools with a wide range of applications, including those for the persons with disabilities

The sky is the limit:Reconstructing physical geography from an aerial perspective

In an era of rapid geographical data acquisition, interpretations of remote sensing products are an integral part of many undergraduate geography degree schemes but there are fewer opportunities for collection and processing of primary remote sensing data. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) provide a relatively inexpensive opportunity to introduce the principles and practice of airborne remote sensing into fieldcourses, enabling students to learn about image acquisition, data processing and interpretation of derived products. Two case studies illustrate how a low cost “DJI Phantom Vision+” UAV can be used by students to acquire images that can be processed using Structure-from-Motion photogrammetry software. Results from a student questionnaire and analysis of assessed student reports showed that using UAVs enhanced student engagement and equipped them with data processing skills. The derivation of bespoke orthophotos and Digital Elevation Models has the potential to provide students with opportunities to gain insight into various remote sensing data quality issues, although additional training is required to maximise this potential. Recognition of the successes and limitations of this teaching intervention provides scope for improving future UAV exercises. UAVs are enabling both a reconstruction of how we measure the Earth’s surface and a reconstruction of how students do fieldwork

Digital earth:yesterday, today, and tomorrow

The concept of Digital Earth (DE) was formalized by Al Gore in 1998. At that time the technologies needed for its implementation were in an embryonic stage and the concept was quite visionary. Since then digital technologies have progressed significantly and their speed and pervasiveness have generated and are still causing the digital transformation of our society. This creates new opportunities and challenges for the realization of DE. ‘What is DE today?’, ‘What could DE be in the future?’, and ‘What is needed to make DE a reality?’. To answer these questions it is necessary to examine DE considering all the technological, scientific, social, and economic aspects, but also bearing in mind the principles that inspired its formulation. By understanding the lessons learned from the past, it becomes possible to identify the remaining scientific and technological challenges, and the actions needed to achieve the ultimate goal of a ‘Digital Earth for all’. This article reviews the evolution of the DE vision and its multiple definitions, illustrates what has been achieved so far, explains the impact of digital transformation, illustrates the new vision, and concludes with possible future scenarios and recommended actions to facilitate full DE implementation.</p

Commercial Satellite Imagery as an Evolving Open-Source Verification Technology: Emerging Trends and Their Impact for Nuclear Nonproliferation Analysis

One evolving and increasingly important means of verification of a State’s compliance with its international security obligations involves the application of publicly available commercial satellite imagery. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) views commercial satellite imagery as “a particularly valuable open source of information.” In 2001, the IAEA established an in-house Satellite Imagery Analysis Unit (SIAU) to provide an independent capability for "the exploitation of satellite imagery which involves imagery analysis, including correlation/fusion with other sources (open source, geospatial, and third party). Commercial satellite imagery not only supports onsite inspection planning and verification of declared activities,” but perhaps its most important role is that it also “increases the possibility of detecting proscribed nuclear activities.” Analysis of imagery derived from low-earth-orbiting observation satellites has a long history dating to the early 1906s in the midst of the Cold War era. That experience provides a sound basis for effectively exploiting the flood of now publicly available commercial satellite imagery data that is now within reach of anyone with Internet access. This paper provides insights on the process of imagery analysis, together with the use of modern geospatial tools like Google Earth, and highlights a few of the potential pitfalls that can lead to erroneous analytical conclusions. A number of illustrative exemplar cases are reviewed to illustrate how academic researchers (including those within the European Union’s Joint Research Centre) and others in Non-Governmental Organizations are now applying commercial satellite imagery in combination with other open source information in innovative and effective ways for various verification purposes. The international constellation of civil imaging satellites is rapidly growing larger, thereby improving the temporal resolution (reducing the time between image acquisitions), but the satellites are also significantly improving in capabilities with regard to both spatial and spectral resolutions. The significant increase, in both the volume and type of raw imagery data that these satellites can provide, and the ease of access to it, will likely lead to a concomitant increase in new non-proliferation relevant knowledge as well. Many of these new developments were previously unanticipated, and they have already had profound effects beyond what anyone would have thought possible just a few years ago. Among those include multi-satellite, multi-sensor synergies deriving from the diversity of sensors and satellites now available, which are exemplified in a few case studies. This paper also updates earlier work on the subject by this author and explains how the many recent significant developments in the commercial satellite imaging domain will play an ever increasingly valuable role for open source nuclear nonproliferation monitoring and verification in the future.JRC.E.8-Nuclear securit