CIESIN
Center for International Earth Science Information Network
Columbia University
61 Route 9W
Palisades, New York 10964 USA
Telephone: +1 845 365 8988
Facsimile: +1 845 365 8922
Improving Access to Priority Earth Observation Data
Related to Urbanization and Land Cover
in the
GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot – Phase 4
(AIP-4)
Response Due Date: 8 May 2011
Robert S. Chen
Sri Vinay
bchen@ciesin.columbia.edu
sri@ciesin.columbia.edu
+1 845 365 8952
+1 845 365 8962
Due Date: 8 May 2011
GEOSS AIP-4 CFP Response
CIESIN Response to the GEOSS AIP-4 CFP
1 Overview
CIESIN is pleased to respond to Phase 4 of the GEOSS Architecture Implementation
Pilot (AIP) Call for Participation (CFP). CIESIN plans to contribute global- and regionalscale data related to urbanization, human settlements, and other selected land cover
parameters useful in many GEO Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs). CIESIN may also be
able to provide selected data on agricultural land use, net primary productivity, species
distribution, reservoirs and dams, and elevation for regions of interest (e.g., coastal
areas). CIESIN will primarily provide data through Web services and also serves as a
long term archive for these data. CIESIN will also support and make improvements in its
existing Population Estimation Service as an enabler component, providing a Web
Processing Service in the Mediation Tier, and may provide a simple map client based on
OpenLayers to support general users and integration and usability testing.
2 Proposed Contributions
CIESIN, through its NASA-supported Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center
(SEDAC), archives and disseminates a broad range of human dimensions data, including
several types of data identified as high priorities by GEO Task US-09-01a. These include
data on urban land cover, such as an urban extent mask derived from a combination of
satellite and ground-based sources and point data on the location of human settlements.
CIESIN proposes to contribute a set of WMS, WFS, and WCS services that would
provide GEOSS users with flexible access to these data for display, subsetting, and
analysis. CIESIN will also explore providing selected variables from several other global
land cover datasets: agricultural lands, anthropogenic biomes, human appropriation of net
primary productivity, and reservoir and dam locations, pending appropriate permissions
from the originators. CIESIN may also be able to provide gridded species data and
selected coastal elevation data if deemed useful and pending appropriate permissions to
make data available as part of the GEOSS Data-CORE.
2.1
Access to Priority EO Data Sources
CIESIN will provide access to priority EO Data Sources related to Urbanization and
Land Cover, including urban extents and human settlements. CIESIN may also be able to
provide selected variables on agricultural land cover, anthropogenic biomes, net primary
productivity, species distribution, and coastal elevation. CIESIN serves as a Long Term
Archive for these datasets. CIESIN will provide expert guidance to users and others
interested in using and integrating these data and services.
2.2
Activity #2: Clients and Mediated Access Enablers
CIESIN will provide operational access to its Population Estimation Service (PES),
utilized in AIP-3, which provides estimates of population contained within a userspecified polygon. The PES is available through open interfaces including WPS, REST,
and SOAP. The PES can be incorporated into a workflow that enables users to determine,
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Due Date: 8 May 2011
GEOSS AIP-4 CFP Response
for example, the population in proximity to a feature defined by another Priority EO data
source, e.g., a precipitation anomaly, hot or cold wave, or low pressure area/track.
CIESIN is also able to offer a flexible map client based on OpenLayers. The client could
be used to support integration and usability testing, especially for novice/general users
who would not be comfortable using a more complex and sophisticated client. CIESIN
expects to be able to attend and provide demonstrations at the GEO-VIII Plenary.
3 Description of CIESIN
CIESIN is a research center within the Earth Institute at Columbia University, based at
the Lamont campus in Palisades, New York, USA. CIESIN is an Associate (University)
Member of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). CIESIN has participated in a
number of OGC-led activities, including phases 1, 2, and 3 of the Architecture
Implementation Pilot. CIESIN is also a full member of the Global Spatial Data
Infrastructure Association (GSDI), another GEO Participating Organization. Mark
Becker, Associate Director for Geospatial Applications, is a member of the GSDI Board.
CIESIN Director Dr. Robert S. Chen, in his capacity as Secretary-General of CODATA,
the Committee on Data for Science and Technology of the International Council for
Science (ICSU), is one of the co-chairs of the GEO Data Sharing Task Force,
representing ICSU, which is also a GEO Participating Organization.
CIESIN operates the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), one of the
distributed active archive centers in the Earth Observing System Data and Information
System (EOSDIS) of NASA. SEDAC provides operational support for the archiving and
dissemination of a wide range of data and information products and maintains a variety of
online and offline services. SEDAC is committed to expanding accessibility to its data
and services through open standards and is actively developing and implementing
geospatial and other data services using OGC-compliant specifications. SEDAC data
holdings are applicable to a wide range of SBAs. CIESIN’s contract to operate SEDAC
for NASA extends through at least July 2013.
CIESIN will continue to participate in AIP telecons and meetings. SEDAC staff and
system resources will be utilized to support modification and testing of the components
described in this proposal. SEDAC plans to implement the components as part of its
operational infrastructure. System resources available to support this effort include
licenses to ESRI ArcServer 10, ArcSDE 10, Oracle Enterprise, and BEA WebLogic.
CIESIN also works with open source products such as Tomcat, Postgres/PostGIS,
MySQL, GeoNetwork, Geoserver, Mapserver, OpenLayers, and Fedora. CIESIN
hardware resources include several virtual web, application, mapping, and database
servers, and over 100 terabytes of online storage.
Dr. Robert Chen, CIESIN Director and SEDAC Manager, will serve as
Programmatic/Business contact (bchen@ciesin.columbia.edu, +1 845 365-8952). Sri
Vinay, CIESIN’s Associate Director for Information Technology and SEDAC System
Engineer, (sri@ciesin.columbia.edu, +1 845 365-8967) will serve as Technical contact.
Gregory Yetman, CIESIN Senior Staff Associate, will serve as alternate Technical
contact (gyetman@ciesin.columbia.edu, +1 845 365-8982).
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Due Date: 8 May 2011
GEOSS AIP-4 CFP Response
Table 1 – EO Data Sources
Link for Dataset
Dataset Name
GRUMP: Urban
Rural Extents
GRUMP:
Human
Settlement
Points
Global
Agricultural
Lands
Anthropogenic
Biomes
Human
Appropriation
of Net Primary
Productivity
Global
Reservoirs and
Dams
Species
Distribution
Grids
Low-Elevation
Coastal Zone
Observation
Parameter
Provider Name
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw/global.jsp
CIESIN/SEDAC
Urbanization
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw/global.jsp
CIESIN/SEDAC
WMS,
WFS
Urbanization
2
CIESIN/SEDAC
Land Cover
2
CIESIN/SEDAC
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/es/anthropogenicbiomes
.html
Land Cover
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/es/hanpp.html#data
2
WMS,
WCS
WMS,
WCS
CIESIN/SEDAC
Land Cover
2
WMS,
WCS
Land Cover
Biodiversity/
Species
distribution
2
WMS,
WFS
Elevation
2
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/es/aglands.html
N/A
CIESIN/SEDAC
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/species/
CIESIN/SEDAC
2
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw/lecz.jsp
CIESIN/SEDAC
Definition of Columns in Table 1

Data
Access
GCI
GCI
Type
Link Status
(SIR)
WMS,
2
WCS
Dataset Name: name of dataset as defined by provider
4
WMS,
WCS
WMS,
WCS
Due Date: 8 May 2011
GEOSS AIP-4 CFP Response

Provider Name: name of organization that will provide access to the dataset.

Link for Dataset: a URL for the data access service if available (or that that provides information about the dataset)

GCI Link: URL to record in the GCI (if available)

Observation Parameters: Term describing the observation provided in the data set. Use the terms in Table 13 of for as defined
in “GEO Task US-09-01a report to the UIC on Cross-SBA Analysis of Critical Earth Observations Priorities.”
http://sbageotask.larc.nasa.gov/Cross-SBA_Report_GEO_US0901a.pdf

GCI Status: Choose the best of the following: 1) initial identificatopm, 2) access service under development, 3) testing, 4)
persistent access, 5) registered in GCI.

Data Access Type (SIR): If the dataset is access, identify the method of access. If possible identify the Interoperability
Arrangement from the GEOSS Standards and Interoperability Registry (http://seabass.ieee.org/groups/geoss/)
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