Understanding Digital Earth

In the two decades since the debut of the Digital Earth (DE) vision, a concerted international effort has engaged in nurturing the development of a technology framework and harnessing applications to preserve the planet and sustain human societies. Evolutionary threads can be traced to key historic and multidisciplinary foundations, which were presciently articulated and represented at the first International Symposium on Digital Earth hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. Pioneering groups in government, industry, and academia have cultivated this fertile futuristic conceptual model with technological incubation and exploratory applications. An array of space-age developments in computers, the internet and communications, Earth observation satellites, and spatially oriented applications sparked an innovative discipline. The Beijing Declaration on Digital Earth is recognized for its role in promulgating the series of International Symposia on Digital Earth to promote understanding of the impacts of DE technology and applications on behalf of humankind. Combinations of industrial, academic, and government organizations have rapidly advanced the technological components necessary for implementing the DE vision. Commercial leaders such as Google have accelerated the influence of DE for large segments of society. Challenges remain regarding requisite collaboration on international standards to optimize and accelerate DE implementation scenarios. This chapter provides an overview of the DE initiative and basic framework, the global response to DE, the evolution of DE, its relationship to key global science initiatives, and the response to global challenges.