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Published online 5 December 2007 | Nature 450, 778-781 (2007) | doi:10.1038/450778a

News Feature

Earth Monitoring: The planetary panopticon

Technology will soon allow the world to be mapped in near-real time and at high resolution. Declan Butler investigates the potential for operational monitoring of the planet.

Declan Butler

Forecasting is a tricky business. You can be let down by your initial data or your model of the processes, by an unrecognized bias or just bad luck.

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  • Currently a system is being developed in the Netherlands, adding an extra dimension to observing and forecasting Earth. An online data portal has recently been launched, providing the means for volunteers to enter observations on every species everywhere in the world. With the help of hundreds of volunteers a resolution has been achieved in the Netherlands of 1 square kilometer. A large part of the data is even more accurate, 1 square meter. In the near future all kinds of other datasets can be added (abiotic). One of the biggest achievements of the project was the develoment of a standard, which is to be followed by anyone joining the project. The data in the project can be combined to forecast presence of species or estimate biodiversity. If you are interested, take a look at www.telmee.nl. Part of this site is in english. Frans Kuenen Reptile, Amphibian & Fish Conservation Netherlands

    • 07 Dec, 2007
    • Posted by: Frans Kuenen