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

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

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).

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

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

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 , available at GEO website

EC-01 - Global Ecosystem Monitoring 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. Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, coastal and marine resources

EC-01 - Global Ecosystem Monitoring Improving the management and protection of terrestrial, coastal and marine resources  to establish the monitoring capability for all ecosystems and the human impacts on them,  to improve ecosystem services. Before 2015, GEO aims to ： Methodologies Techniques Tools communities and networks Achieved demonstrated Global Ecosystems Mapping (USGS)  major marine and coastal ecosystems SB-01-C2  RAMSAR Wetlands GEO-BON EC-01-C1 Global Standardized Ecosystem Classification, Map and Inventory  Heritage sites & Biosphere Reserves HINST, UNESCO EC-01-C2 Operational Monitoring of Key Ecosystems and Related Services Himalayan Khumbu Valley  key ecosystems services moist forests (GFOI?) dry forests (GFOI?) Arctic ecosystems (INTERACT) Wetlands (GEOBON) Dry-lands (UNCCD) Mountains (SHARE)  SHARE GeoNetwork  phenology observations  ABCC Programme Four Countries, Au, Br, Ca, Cn Noway Italy And many other contributors…

Somehow “quiescent” SBA marked “red” in the evaluations Thoughts about blending with Biodiversity SBA (GEO-BON) New coordination started at the beginning of 2013

Focus on: ecosystem processes and functions ecosystem services temporal changes in ecosystems biotic/abiotic interactions response to climate change in addition to data, make available also: analysis tools empirical models

Two components: C1 - Global Standardized Ecosystem Classification, Map and Inventory (PoC: R. Sayre, USGS) C2 - Operational Monitoring of Key Ecosystems and Related Services (PoC: AP, ISAC-CNR) possibly: C3 – ABCC?

C1 - Global Standardized Ecosystem Classification, Map and Inventory Standardized, robust, and practical classification and map of global ecosystems at management-appropriate scales for terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments. Open issues: Ecosystem Taxonomy involvement of new Europe, China

C2 - Operational Monitoring of Key Ecosystems and Related Services mountain ecosystems Arctic ecosystems forests (incl. Mediterranean forests) wetlands, lagoons and coastal areas arid and semi-arid regions oceans (Blue Planet) tropical ecosystems focus on protected areas

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)

Open issues 2: Relationships with other GEO activities Biodiversity SBA and GEO-BON (perhaps a joint component?) Global Forest Observation Initiative Cold Regions (for mountain ecosystems) Global Land Cover Blue Planet strong collaboration, avoid duplications

Open issues 3: Create a community of practice and base the offer on users’ demand i.e., go beyond scientists’ interests Define the Key Ecosystem Services for each ecosystem type (essential ecosystem variables, EBV?)

Start defining the structure of the archives and populate them with data (and define data policies)

Next events: EU meetings on Mediterranean forests, coastal and lagoon ecosystems (non-EU participants very welcome) Workplan symposium (Geneva) 4-6 June GEO-BON Steering Commitee, July General GEO Ecosystems meeting (Rome, September)? Mountain ecosystem meeting (with Cold Regions?) when and where? GEO X Plenary (Geneva) January 2014 GEO Ministerial Summit, January 2014

Thank you!