On August 23rd-25th, 2011, the 7th International Symposium on Digital Earth themed “The Knowledge Generation” was held in Perth, Australia, by joining the forces of ISDE (International Society for Digital Earth), the WALIS (Western Australian Land Information System) Forum and the WA NRM (Natural Resource Management) Office. Over 800 experts in the fields of Digital Earth, land information, and natural resources from around the world shared their latest findings to explain the Digital Earth concept, global change, natural resource management, and information technology in 22 streams, 16 keynote speeches and more than 100 research reports.
The new ISDE President Prof. John Richards announced the Digital Earth Vision to 2020 in the opening ceremony.“From the very solid foundation provided during Professor Lu’s Presidency we now enter the next phase of development of ISDE, commencing with the launch of the Digital Earth Vision 2020 in Perth this August.” The Digital Earth Vision 2020 was finally launched after more than 6 months of discussions from Digital Earth scientists worldwide. The new vision pointed out what Digital Earth might be in the future and will lead new development of the Digital Earth concept, research and applications. He alsoexplained, “The Digital Earth Vision 2020 will act as the geographical framework on which to build solutions to physical, social and cultural problems, with functionalities of satisfactory metric accuracy, inclusion of underground and underwater data, historical and time predictive models, data archiving, dynamic and interactive, improved access to current and historical data and information, incorporation of inherently non-visual data, metadata on quality, trust and uncertainty, participative in data provision, analysis and debate, includes information on place, culture, identity and networks, development is driven by application demand, and easy and fun to use.”
“Through the experiences of the last ten years’ development of Digital Earth, as well as two Digital Earth Beijing Declarations, we can see that more emphasis and efforts have been geared toward Digital Earth applications and functionality”, the Secretary General of ISDE Prof. Guo Huadong said in a keynote speech on the Digital Earth Science Platform of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Entitled “Digital Earth: From Theory to Action --A Digital Earth Science Platform in CAS”, the presentation briefly described the platform infrastructure, technologies and applications. It is able to describe Digital Earth applications globally, nationally and locally, particularly with respect to global environmental change and natural hazard monitoring.
In the closing ceremony, Malaysia was announced by the society as the host of the 8th International Symposium on Digital Earth in 2013. The local organizing committee in Perth handed over the ISDE flag to the Malaysian committee to signal the transfer of the symposia series into their hands. Also, it was announced that the 4th Digital Earth Summit would be convened in Wellington, New Zealand in 2012.
Prior to the symposium, on August 22nd, the ISDE Executive Committee met, receiving reports on the preparation of ISDE7 by the local organizer WALIS, reports by the secretariat on ISDE activities, IJDE, membership, website, newsletter, and other matters. Discussions on cooperation with other international organizations and suggestions for improvement provided a significant opportunity for EC members to work for future development of the society.
On the 24th, the Editorial Board of the official publication of the society—the International Journal of Digital Earth (IJDE) — had a meeting to discuss the journal’s key issues. The publisher of IJDE, Taylor& Francis, gave a detailed report on the current state of the journal. The Executive Editor Prof. Wang Changlin gave an overview of various issues, including the journal’s impressive new impact factor of 1.453 in SCI-E, and strategies and suggestion for promoting IJDE. The Editorial Board decided to establish an IJDE Award Committee chaired by Prof. Alessandro Annoni from the EU Joint Research Center (JRC), for recognizing quality contributions to IJDE.
The ISDE Secretariat, hosted by the Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth, have witnessed and experienced more than ten years’ development of Digital Earth. ISDE have successful held 7 international symposia and 3 summits on Digital Earth research, applications and development. ISDE is now playing a significant role in Digital Earth research and applications worldwide. Accompanied by the Digital Earth Vision 2020 and lead by their new President, the society will continue to work to promote Digital Earth through implementing specific Digital Earth research, diversifying Digital Earth applications and carrying out more international cooperation.
Opening Ceremony
Digital Earth Vision 2020 announced by Prof. John Richards, New ISDE President
Keynote Speech by Prof. Guo Huadong, Secretary General of ISDE
ISDE Executive Committee Meeting
IJDE Editorial Board Meeting
ISDE Exhibition Booth
1cm Resolution AirPhoto formed by ISDE7 delegates
Malaysia delegates receiving the ISDE flag for hosting the 8th International Symposium on Digital Earth (2013)
New Zealand delegates celebrating to host 4th Digital Earth Summit (2012)