A special report titled “Reflections on Earth Observation and Digital Earth” was delivered by CAS Academician GUO Huadong at RADI’s Earth Observation and Digital Earth Academic Forum on April 22 to mark the 100th holding of the forum, which was attended by nearly 200 RADI research personnel and students.
Prof. Guo expounded three topics in his report, namely “Earth Science Big Data”, “Earth Observation from the Moon”, and“Space Technologies for China’s Belt and Road Initiative”, which represent RADI’s development directions: Digital Earth, Earth Observation, and its mission of serving national strategic needs.
Space-based “Belt and Road” Strategy
Prof. Guo made an in-depth analysis of the macro background against which China’s “One Belt, One Road” strategy was proposed and indicated the importance of the strategy. Guo cited a report of the Resource & Environment Pattern and Growth Potential along the Silk Road Economic Belt, and noted that space-based Earth Observation technologies capable of rapidly acquiring macro, objective and accurate data can be used to promote the implementation of the “One Belt, One Road” strategy. He called on RADI scientists to make space-based analysis of the strategy, therefore to back its implementation via space technologies.
Digital Earth: Earth Science Big Data
As Prof. GUO pointed out, big data constitute a new type of strategic resources for China and it is becoming a new engine for scientific discoveries. China now has huge superiorities in the big data field, so it should quicken the pace in building its big data which can in turn help the country enhance the overall national strength and become the world’s top in this regard. In addition, he also explained the relationship between space-based big data of Earth and Digital Earth, saying that Digital Earth is big data of Earth and emphasizing that scientific big data bear enormous opportunities for the Earth science to gain in-depth development. As he recommended, big data can be used to study the evolution of the “Hu Huanyong Line”, a big data alliance be built to cover the Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road, and hence big data can become a great starting point of the “One Belt, One Road” construction.
Earth Observation from the Moon
In this section, Prof. Guo introduced the conception of the moon-based Earth Observation and explained its advantages in details. For instance, it allows multi-angle, consecutive, long-periodic and multi-sensor observations. Furthermore, he also pointed out that as a long-existing stable platform, moon enables people to make Earth Observation for decades, centuries and even longer time and provides strong data and scientific support for systematic earth studies. Earth Observation through sensors installed on the moon boasts unique strengths and it will enhance humans’ observation capacity in an all-round way and considerably promote the development of Earth science in great depth.
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The Earth Observation and Digital Earth Academic Forum as a serial has been held 99 editions since its inauguration on October 22, 2009. A total of 109 top-notch scientists (including 12 academicians) from domestic and aboard were invited to this forum to discuss a wide range of topics about Earth Observation and Digital Earth science from perspectives of basic theories, core technologies and applications. “The Forum serial has boosted the discipline construction and broadened RADI’s academic vision”, as Prof. Guo pointed out in his report.
