The proposed system directly addresses a variety of important gaps (e.g., data discovery, access, and usability) in the capabilities offered by current systems. Beyond just simplifying access to existing EVs, it transforms these existing EVs into the derived products for which users have identified a specific need. Furthermore, it provides an interactive visualization capability that allows the user to explore the data, for example by displaying trends, and thus facilitates understanding of the data significance, in particular for monitoring the progress towards SDGs. Finally, this project addresses one of the challenges posed by the UN General Assembly who promoted the use of “Science, technology and innovation, and in particular ICT (Information and Communication Technology) for implementing the Sustainable Development Goals” and recommended the integration of new data, including geospatial information and in situ monitoring.
The ambition of GEOEssential is to provide significant and coherent European contribution to GEOSS that will be going beyond sectoral topics focusing on different sources of Earth observation (in-situ and remote sensing) through the use of Essential Variables.GEOEssential will support the initiatives of GEO and Copernicus for providing high quality data services based on Earth observation data and modelling.

The expected beyond the state-of-the-art development aim at:

  • GEOSS Knowledge Base approach
  • Improved set of Essential Variables across SBAs
  • Goal driven workflows based on EVs
  • Trans-SBA integration through SDGs or Nexus workflows

By analyzing the Stakeholder needs and with a Goal Driven approach, GEOEssential will create a new basis for innovations with a great potential for:

  • An improved GEO DAB infrastructure by using the knowledge generated by the project in order to advance GEOSS discoverability and accessibility and serve also as a knowledge platform for assessing SDGs.
  • Establishing a set of horizontal services (see the dashboard) reusable also by the other ERA-Planet strands and contributing to the ERA-Planet data hub that, in turn, will contribute to the EuroGEOSS regional hub.
  • National, European, International policies and businesses should greatly benefit from the improvements in the implementation of Essential Variables across the different SBAs as it creates the stable and conditions to develop sustainable solutions.
  • Quantifying the core indicators for SDGs and other intergovernmental initiatives. As requested by most environmental policies, the access and readiness of data to monitor progresses towards targets remains an issue. EV services will clearly amplify our capacity to build informed policy targets and agendas.