Facilitating Data-Intensive Research and Education in Earth Science : A Geospatial Web Service Approach

With the continuous increase of data volume and computing power, the data-intensive approach is critical for modern Earth science (ES) research and education. Enabling easy access to and use of massive volumes of ES data and distributed computing resources are essential roles of geoinformatics for its support of data-intensive ES research and education. Problems remain in trying to achieve these objectives for geoinformatics. The key problem is that the current data and information systems are not easily interoperable at the data, functions (services), and systems levels. Recent advances in cyberinfrastructure, Web services, and geospatial interoperability technologies promise to overcome this problem. This book presents an integrated perspective and an innovative geospatial Web service approach to solving the problem by taking the advantage of those recent advances. It should shed some light on establishing effective online learning and research environments in meeting the wide-range data and computing need of ES research and education, and should be especially useful for professionals, educators and students in ES and geoinformatics fields.