KEYNOTE: GLOBAL CHALLENGES AND THE CHALLENGES FOR GEOSCIENCE INFORMATICS

At a meeting in late April 2008, at the Royal Society in London, the Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government set out the key global policy challenges facing mankind. The list is predictable but no less worrying for that: population growth, urbanization, poverty alleviation, technological change, food supply, energy demand, water resources, security, infectious diseases and compounding them all, climate change. Some of the predictions are frightening: 60% of the world's population will live in urban environments in 2030 as opposed to 30% in 1950 – and that is 60% of a very much larger global population.

Where does geoscience come in? Well if we (society) want clean water, a house that won't fall down, fuel for our cars and a safe site to dispose of our waste, then we need to know about the rocks and processes beneath our feet. If our urban or rural homes are in a part of the world where earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis strike, then the need to understand those rocks can be a matter of life or death. Unfortunately for society information about the rocks isn't always up-to-date, joined-up, understandable and sometimes even available at all in parts of the world and as a result the essentials of life, like clean water, building materials and precautions against natural disasters are that much more difficult to provide. We in the geoscience have some serious challenges to contemplate.

Whether we work in universities, geological surveys, agencies or commerce, contributing to finding solutions to the challenges above has to be our over-riding mission. So how can we in the geoscience informatics domain contribute best and what are the specific challenges that this creates for us if we want to raise our game? What are the areas in our science and our approach to it that we need to change, improve, and do more of?

Taking a lead from the word “challenge” they can (hopefully memorably) be defined by 10 words beginning with the letter “C” (and here I must acknowledge and apologise for taking liberties with the discussions at a recent summit on geoinformatics in Rome and with the English language!).

· Communicate – make sure our science is available to all the stakeholders whether they have a degree in geoscience or computing or not.

· Content – arguably the biggest problem we face is lack of quality data not lack of compute power; shouldn't we be giving more priority to data management?

· Collaborate – we need to be able to share and integrate our information, so we need interoperability and much improved taxonomies and semantic control.

· Coordinate – manage our efforts in a coherent and cost-effective way with minimal duplication and fewer turf wars.

· Consistency – develop standards and best practice and comply with it so we can cut effort and add value to otherwise insular data and models.

· Chart – audit and map the data resources we have and make them discoverable.

· Currency – we need to exploit new technologies, in particular web technologies, but we also need to focus on the problem and not get seduced by the technology.

· Competencies – ensuring we have the right skills we need; are we providing the education and training need to meet the challenges?

· Contribute – pro-actively share your know-how and listen to and understand the needs and context of those in the developing world.

· Change – be prepared to be more agile and more flexible; accept that change and an increased pace of change is a fact of life and that more than any time in the past we probably won't be able to do as we have always done.

This presentation will, drawing on national and international examples, explore these challenges and the issues they raise.