First China Digital Earth Conference Held in Beijing

On November 18, the first China Digital Earth Conference (CDEC), hosted by the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), opened in Beijing. More than 800 participants from governmental departments, research institutes and universities, enterprises, attended the conference.

With the theme of “Big Earth Data for Sustainable Development”, the conference aims to focus on Digital Earth concepts, applications and technologies. A new national platform for Chinese scientists and policy makers is built to communicate in the context of big Earth data, and to jointly explore ways to sort out the development of Digital Earth in the era of big data, and also to clarify the scientific and technological bottlenecks of Digital Earth. The conference aims to promote the integration of Digital Earth with social economy, and to explore promoting the sustainable development of human society based on the national strategy of Digital Earth technical service. The opening ceremony was chaired by the president of the conference Prof. Guo Huadong, the Honorary President of ISDE, and the academician of CAS.

The CAS academician Prof. Bai Chunli, the president of CAS and the honorary chairman of the conference, attended the opening ceremony and delivered a speech. He pointed out that through the unremitting efforts of all sectors of society, China's digital geoscience researches and technology applications have achieved fruitful results, and is playing a leading role in many fields. The Digital Earth systems and platforms provide important supports for the country's development in the fields of climate change, disaster prevention and mitigation, urban management, heritage protection and sustainable development, and have casted a great impact at the country and abroad. The rapid development of Digital Earth can greatly promote the digital China strategy. He hoped that all sectors of the community should work together to deepen the researches for Digital Earth theory, and enhance its technical applications, and jointly create a better tomorrow in the field of Digital Earth in China.

Prof. Wang Qinmin, the vice Chairman of the 12th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the Honorary Chairman of CDEC; the CAS academician Dr. Huai Jinpeng, the Secretary-general of the CPC commission of the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) and the executive vice president of CAST; the CAS academician Prof. Xu Guanhua, former Minister of Science and Technology of China and the Chairman of the Science Committee of CDEC; and the CAS academician Dr. Hou Zengqian, the vice chairman of the National Science Foundation of China, also attended the opening ceremony and delivered speeches respectively.

At the opening ceremony, the world's first academic publication in the field of Digital Earth, the Manual of Digital Earth was released. The editors of the publication are Prof. Guo Huadong, Prof. Mike Goodchild, and Dr. Alessandro Annoni. The publication is co-authored by more than 100 authors from 18 countries and is now officially published online by Springer Press. This manual analyzes the theory, technology and application of Digital Earth, studies the current situation of Digital Earth development, and predicts the future development trend. Its emergence will certainly promote the positive development of Digital Earth in the world, and also for digital China strategy.

The Big Earth Data Prototype System was released at the opening ceremony. The system is an important output of the “Big Earth Data Science and Engineer Project" of CAS. It is a Digital Earth prototype system integrating data management, computing, analysis and service, and is equipped with the overall process functions from data to information and to visual simulation. The system has a visual environment of natural interaction and intelligent analysis. It carries out scientific application demonstrations specifically in the comprehensive analysis, decision-making support and knowledge dissemination capabilities. The opening ceremony followed with a signing ceremony for the project. The collaboration agreements with the Provincial Big Data Administration of Fujian province, the Big Data Development Administration of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the Big Data Development Administration of Guizhou province, the Zhangjiakou Municipal Government, the International Cooperation Center of National Development and Reform Commission, the Disaster Reduction Center of Emergency Management Department, have been signed.

During the keynote sessions, the academician Prof. Guo Huadong gave the speech of "Digital Earth Drives Sustainable Development", the academician Prof. Wu Hequan gave the speech of "The Second Half of Internet, the Digitalization of New Era", the academician Prof. Li Deren gave the speech of “the 5G/6G era for geospatial informatics”, the academician Prof. Mei Hong gave the speech of “the world defined by software: the status and challenges”. The Executive Director of the Digital China Research Institute (Fujian) Dr. He ChangChui gave the speech of “the innovations to promote digital China construction”. And the Alibaba Group Vice President Mr. Liu Song and the Vice President of JD group Dr. Zhou Bowen, gave their talks on the topics of the “intelligent technology for spatial information services”, and “ artificial intelligence for sustainable development ”.

The 52 sessions in the three-day conference focused on the themes of the Sustainable Development Goals for Big Earth Data Services, Digital Earth Frontier Technologies and Platforms. The conference also organized a memorial seminar of the academic thoughts of Prof. Chen Shupeng.

Hosted by ISDE and CAS, the conference was jointly organized by 11 organizations including the National Committee of ISDE, the CAS Big Earth Data Science and engineer Project, the Digital China Research Institute (Fujian), the Aerospace Information Research Institute of CAS, and the Digital Earth Key Laboratory of CAS, and other 16 organizations are the co-sponsors. The next conference will be organized on year 2021.

A scene of the conference.

Signing ceremony of the CASEarth Program.