In December the GEOCens (Geospatial Cyberinfrastructure for Environmental Sensing) is finishing its pilot phase, as the not-for-profit organization Cybera has recently published at GISUser.com. The software architecture is supposed to improve
researcher access to international environmental data drawn from more than 60,000 sensors and 2,800 web map servers.
Environmental monitoring has significantly increased in relevance during the last years. However, more accurate details and forecasts can only be achieved by analyzing huge amounts of data. Of course, the data collected and shared should be accessible by as many researchers as possible. This is what the GEOCens project is striving for.
The project was created in 2009 as a 3D platform that enables researchers and citizens to gain access to, and share insights on, the Earth’s climatic, hydrologic, and biotic systems and processes. Information is presented to researchers using a virtual globe that resembles Google Earth.
According to Cybera, the system represents a cloud-based Web platform. It helps share and collect a broad spectrum of environmental data. Examples include ice thickness, soil erosion, and animal migration. There are both types of information available, archived geographic data as well as live data. The system got $1.1 million funding from CANARIE’s Network-Enabled Platforms Program. CANARIE is
a dedicated network of high-speed, fibre optic cable that stretches 19,000 km across Canada and links researchers and innovators throughout Canada and around the world.
The way how GEOCens works is that it,
makes use of the CANARIE network and various international research networks to allow users to remotely and transparently access, interchange, understand and use heterogeneous sensor networks and their data. This is done independently from underlying network protocols, hardware, data models and formats. GeoCENS follows Open Geospatial Consortium standard information models to achieve sensor/data interoperability.
More information can be found at the web site of GEOCens. It also allows to visit the portal and view environmental data.