The Big Geographical Data Working Committee of Geographical
Society of China (GSC_BigData) Established

Geographical Society of China

Responding to the calls from the Big Data for Development: Challenges and Opportunities of United Nations, May 2012, Action Framework for Big Data Development of the National Council of P.R. China, 2015 and the Open Data in a Big Data World, ICSU, IAP, ISSC, TWAS, 2017, as well as meeting the urgent needs from the geographers of China either for research, education, international cooperation and broad disciplinarians of society, the Council of Geographical Society of China made a decision to establish a special working committee on big geographical data (Figure 1), named Big Geographical Data Working Committee of Geographical Society of China (GSC_BigData for short).

The GSC_BigData launch meeting was held on August 28, 2018 in Xi’an, China during the National Conference on Geographers 2018. Professor Zhang, G. Y., the Vice President and Executive Secretary General of the GSC, announced the GSC Council’s decision on Establishing the GSC Big Geographical Data Working Committee, issued on June 20, 2018 (GSC_2018-04).

The Officers of the GSC_BigData were appointed by the GSC Council, they were:

Liao, X. H. (Chair), Professor and Deputy Director of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Yang, S. T. (Vice Chair), Professor and Vice President of Guizhou Normal University.

Liu, Q. H. (Vice Chair), Professor of Deputy Director of State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Applications, Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth (RADI), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Chen, L. J. (Vice Chair), Senior Engineer of National Geomatics Center of China (NGCC).

Zhu, Y. Q. (Vice Chair), Professor and Director of Department of Geo-data Science and sharing and Deputy Director of State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environment Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Liu, C. (Secretary General), Professor and Deputy Director of Academic Journal Center, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

Jiang, D., (Associate Secretary General), Professor and Director of Department of Resource and Geography, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The GSC_BigData launch meeting was moderated by Prof. Liu, C., Prof. Liao, X. H., provided a speech on Objectives, Tasks and Action Lines of the GSC_BigData. He pointed out that the objectives of the GSC_BigData were establishing a communication platform on big data among the GSC members, and providing public services for meeting the need of the geographers of China. The major tasks of the GSC_BigData were: (1) promote the big geographical data science and technology development; (2) accelerate the geographical data publishing, sharing and applications for sciences and sustainability; (3) enhance the big geographical data education and capacity building, including big geographical data popularizing and communication broadly; (4) provide big geographical data strategical consultants for public and private decisions and (5) facilitate international cooperation on big geographical data within the GSC framework.

Seven action lines were given in Liao’s speech, they were Action Line 1: Data policy and strategy consultation; Action Line 2: Data publishing and dissemination; Action Line 3: Data standards; Action Line 4: Data quality, security and impact; Action Line 5: Education, capacity building and ethics; Action Line 6: Data computing environment; and Action Line 7: Data economics.

For implementation of the GSC_BigData mission and tasks, 7 working groups were established:

(1) Action Line 1: Work Group on data policy and strategy consultation (WGPC) chaired by Liao, X. H., its main task was to organize GSC members to have the research on policy and stratagem of geographical big data and carry out related consultation activities;

(2) Action Line 2: Work Group on data publishing and dissemination (WGPD) chaired by Zhu, Y. Q., Its main task was to organize the members of GSC to carry out publications of a series of achievements, including the publication and dissemination through the Global Change Research Data Publishing & Repository, the Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery, and a series of books;

(3) Action Line 3: Work Group on data standards (WGDS), chaired by Jiang, D., its main task was to organize members of the Society to develop and promote the big geographical data standards and specifications, and to promote the development and application of national and international standards related;

(4) Action Line 4: Work Group on education and capacity building (WGEC), chaired by Yang, S. T., its main task was to organize members to compile textbooks and to promote colleges and universities to offer courses related to the big geographical data;

(5) Action Line 5: Work Group on data quality, security and Impact (WGQI) chaired by Chen, L. J., its main task was to promote quality, security and intellectual property protection awareness of big geographical data, and promote high-quality geographic data products, publishing data impact ranking;

(6) Action Line 5: Work Group on data computing environment (WGCE) chaired by Liu, Q. H., its main task was to organize and promote the data computing environment and infrastructure, advertising the best practices and practical cases of big geographical data analysis and discoveries;

(7) Work Group on data economics (WGDE). Its main task is to promote the geographical data for economic development.

The GSC_BigData Officers certificates were prsented at the launch meeting (Figure 2-7).

Professor Zhang, Y. L., Director of the Physical Geography Committee of GSC and Li M. C., Director of Institute of Geographic Information System and Remote Sensing, Nanjing University, congratulated the GSC_BigData establishment. Group photo of the GSC_BigData Launch Meeting was shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8  Group Photo of the GSC_BigData Launch Meeting, August 28, 2018, Xi’an, China