An international exhibition and scientific Congress in Siberia, Russia was organized, standing as an international platform for presenting significant scientific outlook and for academic exchange in the domain of geospatial information for 12 years. On 20-22 April, this activity Interexpo GEO-Siberia-2016, was held in Novosibirsk, aiming to foster discussions among policymakers and researchers about the evolving challenges facing our geospatial planet and Digital Earth.
As one of the key supporting partners, the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) co-hosted the international seminar, “Digital Earth role in sustainable development of territories influenced by significant global climate change.”
“I believe that many of the objectives between ISDE and the organizer the Siberian State University of Geosystems and Technologies (SSUGT) are linked.” said Prof. Guo Huadong, President of the ISDE, in the opening ceremony, “I hope a Digital Earth international seminar held as part of this conference, will provide more opportunities to share academic views and spur researches, and lead to more collaborations.”
He explained his new understanding in the Digital Earth international seminar. “Digital Earth is now developing rapidly and pervasively, with the development of remote sensing technology, geo information and Earth observation in the era of big data”, said in his keynote speech “Digital Earth in the era of Big Data”. The birth and fast growth of big data have brought new opportunities and challenges to Digital Earth, and move forward its concept from “putting Earth into the computer” to “Big Earth Data”. “In the era of big data, Digital Earth may need to be re-evaluated and further re-defined in the light of many developments in fields of geospatial technology, earth observation and data sciences that have taken place since, with the objective of integrating massive, multi-spatial, multi-temporal, multi-resolution, and multi-mode Earth observation data and social economic data, as well as algorithms and models fully committed to big earth data”. He considered “although some progress has been made, we are still at an early stage in understanding how best to meet these new responsibilities.”
