1. AssessmentGRID:
A ground-up perspective, and call to action
Chris Nicholas
chrisgnicholas@att.net
CSI-CGIAR meeting March, 2009

2. Development
“Missile people look down at the World;
submarine people look up.”
inhabitants around
Access to data, computers,
software, and bandwidth is great,
but....SO WHAT ??
AssessmentGRID: looking around
Assess reality and choices to optimize outcomes, at
many levels
END-END coupled decision support
SCALABLE, billable, information “ecosystem”
Sustainable,
Information as a critical weapon in the struggle against Malthus

3. Maps are spatially explicit storyboards and laboratories
of past, present, and future dynamics

5. Geodetic Control Network
Imagery
Hypsography
Hydrography
Boundaries
Geographic names
Land management units/areas
Transportation
Utilities and services
“Natural environment”

6. Current civilian Earth Observation Network

7. Geonetcast (2Mbit) footprints

9. A System for Integrating
Observation, Modeling, and
Data Management Systems Disaster Health Energy
Climate
Water
Weather
Ecosystem Agriculture Biodiversity
A System for Converging
Observation Systems Worldwide

10. ICT, GIS, and Agricultural Knowledge:
Context for multi-level Impact Assessment
Participatory Stakeholder Assessment
- World Bank ESSD project Lifecycle
- GEF 'Science Based Review'

11. Area of interest
Malindi,
CSIR
ESA, INPE
Landsat,
NASA
“the
federation”

12. ENVISAT,
SPOT, etc
VITO ESA
GLCF
MODIS GRID GRID
DEISA
GRID
Landsat
GEOSS
federated catalog,
GRID Malindi
data “assembly”
area
GRID
Query
manager
CSIR
GRID
Remote
ACP
user INPE
ACP
“appliance”
ACP
“appliance” GRID CBERS,
“appliance”
Landsat

13. CHEAP!!
Compute power is
BIG!!!
THINK

16. GRID
SCGIS,
IMN, Univ.
AMESD project: more than 150 stations in Africa

17. Geonetcast
VSAT Slapd or DBS
Research, Active Dir
Student sshd
lab Localized
Asterisk
IPcop
spool
Environmental
Data cache
ITC
toolbox
PC
workstation EUMetCal
acct
content
Postgis
quota
GRID d
Apache CGIAR
requests
educational
Httpd
Content, standard
software
Drupal
PC
workstation User
home,
Minn group
Mapserver accounts
SD
card
reader
Info
PC DHCP
workstation
Appliance Samba
LAN

18. What makes a sustainable information
economy/ecosystem ?
- producers and consumers can rendezvous
“geography brings us together” - J. Dangermmond
- they can exchange “value”
Must exhibit “utility”
Must be relatively scarce
Can be measured (Gbytes, dollars, 'DE bucks', coupons, etc,
concurrent user licenses, features, etc)
Trusted Metrics make it happen
“the W's” : Who, did What, Where, When
Aggregate, “settle” IPDR records weekly

20. The Time for AssessmentGRID is NOW
Doubling food production in 30 years
Climate change
Exhaustible resources (credit, topsoil, fish stocks, etc)
Temper the GEOSS, SERVIR, and other hype. CEOS members: get over
the delusion that 10 meter resolution optical data has significant per-scene
commercial value and give it away, like CBERS. Kenya: cut through the
absurd/corrupt politics of receiving Landsat at Malindi
UNEP/DEWA: Live up to your charter, and produce more than glossy books and
brochures. DRIVE GEF and Wbank science-based project lifecycle accountability.
Initiate and ”referee” a set of 'Peace Games' with everything science can bring to
bear, fully visible to the public
Google and Microsoft: give more than lip service to OGC standards with your
imagery and vector data archives. Track usage with IPDR records
ESRI/ITC: help define and implement an Arc/Appliance that is compatible with
FOSS
CGIAR-CSI: recognize that empowering YOU is what GEOSS must be
all about...and assume your central role

21. “There is no more new frontier....
.....We have got to make it here.”
Thank you
chrisgnicholas@att.net