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Steps to the digital Silk Road

Sharing big data from satellite imagery and other Earth observations across Asia, the Middle East and east Africa is key to sustainability, urges Guo Huadong.
  1. Guo Huadong

    1. Guo Huadong is chair of DBAR; a professor of remote sensing science at the Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; president of the International Society for Digital Earth; and former president of the ICSU Committee on Data for Science and Technology.

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The ancient Silk Road trade routes connecting Asia, Europe and Africa lay behind the development of many great civilizations. Today, solar panels and smartphones have replaced silk, and trains and aeroplanes have superseded camels. But the Silk Road spirit of peace, mutual benefit and learning has been revived in an ambitious plan to bridge East and West, launched in 2013 by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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Nature 554, 25-27 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-01303-y

References

  1. Digital Belt and Road Program (DBAR). DBAR Science Plan: An International Science Program for Sustainable Development of the Belt and Road Region Using Big Earth Data (DBAR, 2017); available at http://go.nature.com/2evoxcj

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