A Future Sensor Web for the Environment in Europe
Sven Schade, Massimo Craglia · EnviroInfo · 2010
We have to understand better the complex interactio ns between global environmental change and the impacts on and of humanity, and assess the risk we are facing, how to mitigate them, and how to adapt to the changes we cannot manage. The global scientific community faces the c hallenge of delivering the necessary information an d knowledge to society and policy makers. Europe has an importa nt role to play in this global effort, and many ini tiatives are under way to improve the retrieval, access and sharin g of relevant data and information. Nevertheless, t here is also an increasing awareness that some of the data currentl y collected about the environment and its social im pacts fall short of the requirements. In this paper we advocate the sensor web as a core contributor to address this ch allenge and improve the quality and timeliness of data about our environment. Widening the notion of a sensor beyond physical devices to include environmental models and user cont ributed contend, we promote central sensor web concepts. We give an overview of recent research areas and the s tate of play, before detailing how sensor services can encapsulate physical, virtual, and citizen based senses about o ur environment. We outline how an overarching event based architecture may facilitate these senses for situation a wareness. The paper concludes with a discussion of recent and future developments that are required to establish a Futur e Sensor Web for the environment in Europe.