The GEO Grid (Global Earth Observation Grid) project aims to provide existing earth observation data sets including satellite imagery, geological data, and ground sensed data with advanced IT platforms where wide variety of users can reach entire integrated data sets more easily.

Up to now, earth observation data have tended to be made available on AS-IS basis, where the providers simply published the data and let users worry about how to make use of it. Users have had to struggle to obtain the data needed for each particular application, prepare the necessary servers and develop software programs, and perform various kinds of data processing. On the other hand, with the advance of the Internet and growing Internet-based services of providing satellite imagery data and others, the number of potential data users have surged dramatically. The knowledge levels of users regarding the data have become extremely diverse, from experts possessing a full set of analysis tools to ordinary consumers with just having a PC or a mobile phone; moreover, the uses of the data vary widely as well. Many of the approaches to data provision, from the standpoint of the data producer alone, can no longer meet all these diversified needs. Some users, for example, simply want to be able to choose the necessary data on a menu, others need the computing resources and tools for processing data, and still others have a need for data obtained by complex computational programs on high performance computing systems. Greater use of the data cannot be achieved without meeting the needs of this diverse range of users. The system design concept of GEO Grid assumes that anyone will be able to make ready use of earth observation data and to create new value with it. The aim is to provide one-stop service from the user's standpoint meeting diverse needs.

As a first step of exploitation to achieve this concept, GEO Grid, started in 2005, has made more than 1.5 million ASTER^* images available for online access. In 2008, a proper data protection function was added to the system, and currently a worldwide geological map (One Geology) and Japanese geological information providing services are being developed in 2009.

According to the 4th Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the rise in average global temperatures observed starting in the latter half of the 20th century is very likely due to an increase in human-caused greenhouse emissions. Concerns about the effects of human socioeconomic activities on the earth's environment have continued to grow. Scientists have further pointed out that as sea levels rise due to continued warming, regions that are no longer habitable or that have become vulnerable to tidal waves and other disasters will increase. Another issue under discussion lately is whether future introduction of a carbon tax will result in farmland being converted to forests. Modern society with its rapid advance cannot, due to the increasing complexity and globalization of city functions, take effective measures against disasters at the local level alone. Japan, with its overseas reliance for much of its resources, materials, labor and other capital needs, can no longer ignore the major disasters occurring frequently throughout the world, including from the standpoint of BCP (business continuity planning).

As these problems are expanding and becoming enormous, we need to grasp phenomena from a broad, whole-earth perspective and launch a many-faceted attack on the problem. To achieve it, all the many different kinds of data gathered from earth observations will need to be mobilized and applied to the problem-solving tasks. The big issues for technologies are (1) integrating different kinds of widely dispersed information with different data providing policy and (2) meeting the large-scale information and complex requirements. In the articles that follow in this special feature, we will introduce the technological approaches taken in GEO Grid toward solving these issues.

In designing the GEO Grid, the emphasis has been on international cooperation and contribution. Central roles are being played in particular by such organizations as the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO), the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) which is pursuing standardization of software handling geospatial information, and the Open Grid Forum (OGF) engaged in standardizing grid technology.

At AIST, GEO Grid is being managed under the GEO Grid Promotion Council as a project that intersects with and merges many different research fields, including information technology, electronics, geology, and environment and energy fields. Toward the achievement of sustainable growth on a global scale, GEO Grid is being built as a system for worldwide sharing of earth observation information that can help bring about sound policy-making, and is being provided to the Asian region as a Japan-originated initiative. The hope is that it will contribute to solving problems facing society on a global scale, from protecting the earth environment and making effective use of energy resources to reducing the harm of natural disasters and managing risks. At the same time, in combination with urban information, lifeline information, geospatial information, societal news and other such information, we hope to uncover needs and create services based on new business models.