NASA -National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Welcome to the website for Group on Earth Observation's Task US-09-01a.  NASA is hosting this website as a virtual space to support the coordination and accomplishment of the task.  For information about the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), visit the GEO website: http://www.earthobservations.org.

Societal Benefit Areas 

The following links provide information specific to each SBAs activities under Task US-09-01a, including names of Analysts, Advisory Group members, and lists of documents included in the meta-analysis.

The individual SBA reports are available on the respective SBA webpage.

 
Agriculture
Biodiversity
Climate
Disasters
Ecosystems
Energy
Health
Water
Weather

Documents and Presentations

Advisory Group Member
Representation Map



Points of Contact
Lawrence Friedl, US-09-01a Task Lead 
Affiliation: NASA Applied Sciences Program
GEO Member Country: USA

Ellsworth LeDrew, GEO UIC Co-Chair
Affiliation: University of Waterloo
GEO Participating Organization: IEEE


Amy Jo (Swanson) Scarino, US-09-01a Task Coordinator 

Affiliation: Science Systems and Applications, Inc. at
NASA Langley Research Center
GEO Member Country: USA



Contact US GEO Task US 09-01a or
geo-task-us-0901 (at) lists.nasa.gov
GEO Task US-09-01a
Identify Critical Earth Observation Priorities for Societal Benefit Areas
 

March 2012 Update:  The final Biodiversity report is available on its SBA page. The cross-SBA analysis has been updated to account for the results found in the biodiversity report and is available on the Documents and Presentations page.

The individual reports are available for download in PDF on the respective SBA page.

A cross-SBA analysis has been conducted and the report is finished.  The report is available to download in the Documents and Presentations page.

A map displaying a representation of where the Advisory Group Members are from is now available.


This activity is establishing a process for identifying critical Earth observation priorities common to many of the nine GEO societal benefit areas, involving scientific and technical experts, taking account of socio-economic factors, and building on the results of existing systems’ requirements development processes.  GEO will use the results of this activity to determine, prioritize, and communicate gaps in current and future Earth observations to support discussions on potential investment opportunities.

The nine societal benefit areas (SBA) are:  Agriculture, Biodiversity, Climate, Disasters, Ecosystems, Energy, Health, Water, and Weather.  (The task team divided the Health SBA into three parts: Health - Aeroallergens, Health-Air Quality and Health-Infectious Disease.)

The GEO User Interface Committee (UIC) manages this task.  The UIC developed a nine-step process to identify the critical Earth observation priorities within each SBA. The UIC will use this information to determine the priority observations common across the nine SBAs. 

For each SBA, there is Analyst and an Advisory Group to conduct the nine-step process. The Analysts will serve as the point of contact to manage the process.  The respective Advisory Groups (experts from developed and developing countries) will assist the Analyst to identify documents, assess analyses, and review findings. 

The process for each SBA focuses on performing a meta-analysis of Earth observation priorities already identified in existing, publicly-available documents from the last decade. The task will harvest and analyze information from a representative sampling of documents (e.g., reports, workshop summaries, project summaries, etc.) that GEO Member Countries and Participating Organizations have published or released. The task seeks to ensure an international breadth of documents in this meta-analysis, including significant representation from developing countries. 

There are links to the individual SBA webpages below.  Each page includes information about the Analyst, members of the Advisory Group, the list of documents used, and other information. 
 
 
Links to pdf documents about GEO Task US-09-01a:
Overview of GEO Task US-09-01a
Description of 9-Step Process
 

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NASA Official:  Jonathan Gleason
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