Digital Earth and Future Earth

Future Earth, a 10-year international research programme jointly initiated by the ICSU (International Council for Science) and the ISSC (International Social Science Council), was launched in June 2012 at the UN conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). Building on existing international global environmental change projects, Future Earth aims to provide a new platform for consolidating the knowledge and support needed to accelerate our transformation to a sustainable world. It will connect the world's scientists across regions and across disciplines to work together under a unifying framework and will focus on three research themes: Dynamic Planet, Global Sustainable Development and Transformations towards Sustainability (Future Earth 2014).

The implementation and success of the Future Earth programme will critically depend on Digital Earth science and technology. Digital Earth integrates the massive amount of multi-spatial, multi-temporal and multi-mode Earth observation and socioeconomic data into a virtual representation of the planet. After near twenty years of development, the science and engineering of Digital Earth fully encompass the 4V (volume, variety, veracity and velocity) and 3H (high dimension, high complexity and high uncertainty) features of scientific big data, thereby driving the new Digital Earth vision with ‘Big Earth Data’ (Guo et al. 2014). In the ‘Big Data Age’, the amount of Digital Earth data, with geospatial data at its core, has reached the exabyte (EB) level. The new generation of Digital Earth systems, which comprise analysis algorithms and simulation models, as well as platforms for data acquisition, management, computation, distribution and visualization, have the ability to handle big Earth data, and to monitor and predict the dynamics of Earth systems, recognize socio-environmental interactions and address the challenges related to global environmental change. Undoubtedly, big data challenges Digital Earth but also paves the way for Digital Earth to effectively and efficiently extract information and to extract knowledge from big Earth data and ultimately support decision-making and sustainable development.

Given all this, Digital Earth will definitely improve Future Earth's cross-cutting capabilities with respect to observing systems, Earth system models and research infrastructure in order to facilitate integration across its research themes. Meanwhile, Digital Earth will enhance the confidence that Future Earth can meet the great challenges indicated by Reid et al. (2010) by providing robust data and information systems. In addition, sustainable development has long been a major issue to be addressed among the goals and activities of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) and within the aims and scope of the International Journal of Digital Earth (IJDE), which are broad platforms that promote international collaboration for creating the future of Digital Earth. The ISDE and IJDE will make continuous efforts to co-design, co-produce and co-develop solutions-oriented science, knowledge and innovation for global sustainability.

As one pillar of Digital Earth, geospatial data are increasingly generated at local, regional and global scales by Earth observation, web-sensors, crowd-sourcing and other technologies. To promote multi-disciplinary collaboration aimed at providing reliable global geo-information to support Future Earth, an ISPRS international workshop has selected papers for submission to an IJDE special issue on ‘Supporting Future Earth with Global Geospatial Information’. This special issue will present original, state-of-the-art research that will assist the development of technologies for producing, sharing and analyzing global geospatial information and also the development of applications to support the Future Earth 2025 vision. Scientists around the world are warmly invited to contribute to the discussion related to this special issue.

Although the debate as to whether we have entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, is still going on, there is no denying the fact that human influences are altering the Earth's systems in ways that threaten well-being and development. The birth of Future Earth will contribute to people being able to thrive in a sustainable and prosperous world. At this historic moment, the Digital Earth community is committed to advancing Digital Earth science and technology to meet the challenges of the big data era, foster international research collaboration on sustainable development and ensure the success of Future Earth. Our vision is one of a future Earth where human habitats are safe, resilient and sustainable and where there is universal access to affordable, reliable and sustainable energy.