Summit
Prof. GUO Huadong chairs the invited keynote speeches.
The 5th Digital Earth Summit was successfully held in Nagoya, Japan from November 9 to 11, 2014. The Summit was hosted by the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE), and organized by the Chubu University, Japan. More than 100 participants from 22 countries attended the event.
This Submit focused on the theme of Digital Earth for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), and eight parallel sessions were organized. The topics of sessions include Education for Sustainable Development, Digital Earth and Environment, Digital Earth and Disaster, Digital Earth and Agriculture, Digital Earth Infrastructure, City Planning, Geodesign and Digital City, Citizen Science and VGI, Visualization and Science Communication. In addition, two special sessions were held, covering Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and Latest Satellite, JAXA.
At the opening ceremony, Prof. Atsuo Iiyoshi, the chancellor of Chubu University and Ms. Michiko Ueno, the former vice minister of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan addressed keynote speeches. Prof. John Richards, the President of the International Society for Digital Earth addressed on behalf of the host of the Summit. Prof. Hiromichi Fukui, the Chair of Local Organizing Committee of the Summit, the Director of IDEAS of Chubu University introduced the preparation work of the Summit and briefed its aim and meaning. He pointed out that “Digital Earth technology is one of the key technologies to support ESD by visualizing complicated earth system, social system, not only for current situation but from past to future”. He hoped that this Summit could contribute to the advance of Digital Earth science and technology.
Prof. GUO Huadong chaired the invited keynote speeches. Prof. Tetsuzo Yasunari from the Research Institute for Human and Nature presented a keynote speech, entitled “Future Earth and Its Implication in Asia and Pacific”. He introduced the main task and aim of Future Earth and its achievement on the promotion of global cooperation on global environmental changes and sustainable development. He emphasized that Digital Earth science and technology played an important role in resolving global issues that humans were facing. Prof. Daniel SUI from the Ohio State University gave a report on “Transforming Society by Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI)”. He pointed out that during the past ten years crowdsourcing in general and volunteered geographic information (VGI) deeply transformed the society in many ways. He described the impacts of VGI on Society and new challenges for GIScience, and argued that VGI merging with big data had turned our attention from digital earth to global brain. After that, Dr. Jonathan Trent from NASA reported on “OMEGA: A Systems Approach to Sustainable Development” by introducing the system of offshore membranes for growing algae (OMEGA). He emphasized that the function and meaning of this system could be verified in the global environmental sustainable development. At last, Dr. Micheal Gould from Esri (Japan) gave a presentation on “GIS as a Platform for Problem-based Learning and Innovation”. He talked about the GIS platform-based program, which would facilitate the building up of the capability of students’ learning and innovation.
Thirty-seven presentations were given in the parallel sessions and special sessions, covering 10 topics. Prof. LI Zhen and Prof. LIN Qizhong from RADI reported on “The Characteristics Analysis of Thermokarst Lake Ice in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Using Envisat-ASAR Imagery” and “A Novel Image Fusion Method Using DSM and Spectral Un-mixing of Pixels”, respectively, and communicated with other researchers attending the Summit.
In the morning of November 11, Prof. John Richards chaired the panel discussion on “Digital Earth for ESD”. Attendees discussed the outcomes of this Summit and the role of Digital Earth in the education for sustainable development. At the closing ceremony, Prof. GUO Huadong awarded Prof. Hiromichi Fukui a medal for his contribution on organizing the Summit, and announced that it had been approved in principal that the next Digital Earth Summit would be held in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2016.
The summit also included a commercial exhibition where 12 organizations and companies in the Digital Earth field exhibited their research results and products. RADI and ISDE set up exhibition booths showing the latest scientific research strength and development level.
Prior to the Summit, the Council meeting of ISDE was held on November 8. Council members listened to the introduction to the preparation work of the 5th Digital Earth Summit and the 9th International Symposium on Digital Earth in 2015, and the bidding reports on the Digital Earth Summit in 2016 and the International Symposium on Digital Earth in 2017. And then, matters arising from the Executive Committee meetings of March and September 2014, the composition of Council and ExCom, and the cooperation between ISDE and other international organizations were fully discussed. At last, Council members listened to the report on the International Journal of Digital Earth (IJDE) and the writing issues of the Manual of Digital Earth.
This Summit was a side-event of the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). On November 12, the Local Organizing Committee of the Summit reported to the UNESCO World Conference of the organizing situation of the Summit and was recognized with affirmation and praise.
Digital Earth Summit as meeting series is held by the International Society for Digital Earth. It has been convened every two years since 2006 in New Zealand (Auckland), Germany (Potsdam), Bulgaria (Baltimore) and New Zealand (Wellington), respectively.
The exhibition booths of RADI and ISDE.
