GEO Ecosystems SBA

1. GEO Ecosystems SBA Coordination: A. Provenzale, CNR-ISAC GEO Secretariat Yubao Qiu ISRSE35 (Beijing International Convention Center) 23 April, 2013

2. GEO, the Group on Earth Observations An Intergovernmental Organization with 89 Member Countries, the European Commission and 67 Participating Organizations U.S. Department of State, Washington DC July 31, 2003

3. History of GEO • The 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) stressed the importance of Earth observation systems for protecting people and the planet and identified priority actions for strengthening capacity and collaboration in this field. • The Earth Observation Summits in Washington in 2003, Tokyo in 2004 and Brussels in 2005 to adopt and carry out the 10-Year Implementation Plan for building GEOSS and to establish the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) to implement this plan; • The G8 Summits in Evian in 2003, Gleneagles in 2005 and Heiligendamm in 2007 committed to strengthen international cooperation on comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable observation and information systems and affirmed the role of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

4. GEOSS: A Global, Coordinated, Comprehensive and Sustained System of Observing Systems GEOSS will be built from the expansion and interlinking of existing observation and information systems and the investments of Members and Participating Organizations in new systems

5. How GEO works • Coordinating activities of Members and Participating Organisations • Supporting the development of capabilities for Observations, Processing and Information Dissemination • Encouraging cross-cutting approaches The GEO implementation tool is the Workplan

6. The GEO Workplan To address targets of the Implementation Plan and track relevant progress, the main tool is a Workplan, approved every year by the GEO Plenary. The Plan is structured in tasks encompassing all the SBA’s and the transverse areas leading to the progressive definition and implementation of GEOSS Current Workplan is the 2012-2015, available at GEO website http://www.earthobservations.org/

7. EC-01 - Global Ecosystem Monitoring Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, coastal and marine resources Before 2015, GEO aims to: • to establish, in conjunction with a comprehensive biodiversity observation network, a wide-ranging monitoring capability for all ecosystems and the human impacts on them, • to improve the assessment, protection and sustainable management of terrestrial, coastal and marine resources and the delivery of associated ecosystem services.

8. EC-01 - Global Ecosystem Monitoring Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, coastal and marine resources Before 2015, GEO aims to： • Methodologies • Techniques • Tools • communities and networks • to establish the monitoring capability for all ecosystems and the human impacts on them, • to improveecosystem services. Achieved demonstrated • key ecosystems services • moist forests (GFOI?) • dry forests (GFOI?) • Arctic ecosystems (INTERACT) • Wetlands (GEOBON) • Dry-lands (UNCCD) • Mountains (SHARE) • major marine and coastal ecosystems EC-01-C1Global Standardized Ecosystem Classification, Map and Inventory EC-01-C2Operational Monitoring of Key Ecosystems and Related Services SB-01-C2 • RAMSAR Wetlands • SHARE GeoNetwork • phenology observations Italy GEO-BON Noway • Heritage sites & Biosphere Reserves • ABCC Programme Four Countries, Au, Br, Ca, Cn Global Ecosystems Mapping (USGS) HINST, UNESCO And many other contributors… Himalayan Khumbu Valley

9. • Somehow “quiescent” SBA• marked “red” in the evaluations• Thoughtsaboutblending with Biodiversity SBA (GEO-BON)New coordinationstartedat the beginning of 2013

10. Focus on: ecosystemprocesses and functionsecosystemservicestemporalchanges in ecosystemsbiotic/abioticinteractionsresponse to climatechangein addition to data, makeavailablealso:analysistoolsempiricalmodels

11. Twocomponents:C1 - Global StandardizedEcosystemClassification, Map and Inventory (PoC: R. Sayre, USGS)C2 - Operational Monitoring of Key Ecosystems and Related Services(PoC: AP, ISAC-CNR)possibly: C3 – ABCC?

12. C1 - Global StandardizedEcosystemClassification, Map and Inventory Standardized, robust, and practicalclassification and mapof global ecosystemsatmanagement-appropriatescales for terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments.Open issues: Ecosystem Taxonomyinvolvement of new Europe, China

13. C2 - OperationalMonitoringof KeyEcosystemsand RelatedServicesmountain ecosystemsArcticecosystemsforests (incl. Mediterraneanforests)wetlands, lagoons and coastalareasaridand semi-aridregionsoceans (Blue Planet)tropicalecosystemsfocus on protectedareas

14. Open issues 1:re-build the community identifying active contributors/leads(eg EU: LTER Europe, LifeWatch,AnaEE, INTERACT, EU BON)Crucial Chinese contributions(eg NRSCC, RADI-CAS, ISPRS, Ministry of Environment)International organisations and programs(HIST/UNESCO, ABCC)

15. Open issues 2:Relationships with other GEO activitiesBiodiversity SBA and GEO-BON(perhaps a joint component?)Global ForestObservationInitiativeColdRegions (for mountain ecosystems)Global Land CoverBlue Planetstrong collaboration, avoidduplications

16. Open issues 3:Create a community of practiceand base the offer on users’ demandi.e., go beyondscientists’ interestsDefine the KeyEcosystem Servicesfor eachecosystemtype(essentialecosystemvariables, EBV?)

17. Start defining the structure of the archivesand populatethem with data(and define data policies)

18. Nextevents:EU meetings on Mediterraneanforests,coastal and lagoonecosystems(non-EU participantsvery welcome)Workplan symposium (Geneva) 4-6 JuneGEO-BON SteeringCommitee, JulyGeneral GEO Ecosystems meeting (Rome, September)?Mountain ecosystem meeting (with ColdRegions?)when and where?GEO X Plenary (Geneva) January 2014GEO Ministerial Summit, January 2014

19. Thank you! secretariat@geosec.org