National Academies Press: OpenBook

Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade (1999)

Chapter: Annex 2 - The EOS Information Federation

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Suggested Citation:"Annex 2 - The EOS Information Federation." National Research Council. 1999. Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5992.
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ANNEX 2

THE EOS Information Federation

The management philosophy of a federation is to make decisions at the lowest level in the organization consistent with accomplishing the task at hand.9 This process is enabled by distributed access to information and by incentives that award achievement rather than response to central control.

Definition

An Earth Observing System (EOS) Information Federation would be an association of autonomous partners collaborating to operate an information system for the benefit of the Earth sciences and other communities. It entails a centralized structure created by the partners for leadership and administration and a decentralized management model for data processing and access to EOS data.

Purpose

The EOS Information Federation should facilitate the availability and use of information produced by, or required for, the creative activities of Mission to Planet Earth and the EOS. Thus, it should empower the global change research community to incorporate scientific, conceptual, and technical innovation and advances into the preparation and distribution of EOS products and information describing them. It should support access to, and management of, EOS information resources with in-depth expertise and capabilities, and its business practices should be based on the principle of full and open exchange of data. 10 Moreover, it should provide a flexible and effective nucleus for meeting the Earth information needs of a broad interdisciplinary community in both public and private

Suggested Citation:"Annex 2 - The EOS Information Federation." National Research Council. 1999. Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5992.
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sectors. Thus, the federation should act as a trustee of large amounts of data and information obtained at considerable expense by the U.S. and other governments for the benefit of humankind.

Basic Principles for Membership and Governance

The EOS Information Federation should be dedicated to serving the needs of a user community that includes elements of four overlapping constituencies:

  • Producers of primary observational products in geophysical units, including EOS instrument teams.

  • Producers, synthesizers, and consumers—including global change researchers and earth scientists using primary geophysical datasets—of higher-level scientific data products and analyses, and assimilated datasets.

  • Other consumers of scientific data, including educators, students, policy analysts, and integrated assessment teams who seek reliable interpreted information.

  • Producers of for-profit information, including value-added data products, for-profit data search services, and analysis, engineering, and consulting firms that use EOS data for client services.

Participation in the affairs of the federation should be open to members of these constituencies who can make significant contributions, including entities from federal or other agencies and international partners. Thus, NASA, as the principal sponsor of EOS activities, should support and foster federation policies that are open and inclusive.

The federation will need a structure that allows it to accept government and other funding, manage its activities, and be accountable to its members and the community at large. A possible mechanism would involve a board of trustees appointed by the legally responsible parents of federation members, an executive body responsible for leadership and management, and a set of councils to coordinate technical activities and resolve technical issues.

For the federation to be successful, its interests and those of its members must be similarly aligned. Members must be accountable to their sponsors and the federation. Incentives must be developed to stimulate and facilitate members to negotiate solutions to conflicts and problems. The complementary and competing interests of members must be balanced and resolved. Finally, the federation must find ways to foster and evaluate its contributions to scientific progress while recognizing that some scientists will view its efforts as competing with, rather than supporting, their own agendas.

Suggested Citation:"Annex 2 - The EOS Information Federation." National Research Council. 1999. Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5992.
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Page 542
Suggested Citation:"Annex 2 - The EOS Information Federation." National Research Council. 1999. Global Environmental Change: Research Pathways for the Next Decade. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/5992.
×
Page 543
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How can we understand and rise to the environmental challenges of global change? One clear answer is to understand the science of global change, not solely in terms of the processes that control changes in climate and the composition of the atmosphere, but in how ecosystems and human society interact with these changes. In the last two decades of the twentieth century, a number of such research efforts—supported by computer and satellite technology—have been launched. Yet many opportunities for integration remain unexploited, and many fundamental questions remain about the earth's capacity to support a growing human population.

This volume encourages a renewed commitment to understanding global change and sets a direction for research in the decade ahead. Through case studies the book explores what can be learned from the lessons of the past 20 years and what are the outstanding scientific questions. Highlights include:

  • Research imperatives and strategies for investigators in the areas of atmospheric chemistry, climate, ecosystem studies, and human dimensions of global change.
  • The context of climate change, including lessons to be gleaned from paleoclimatology.
  • Human responses to—and forcing of—projected global change.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of global change research to date and provides a framework for answering urgent questions.

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