GEO User Requirements for Air Quality Report

< GEO User Requirements for Air Quality | Report | Documents | Resources GEO Task US-09-01a Report Outline – Final

The following is the outline for the US-09-01a preliminary and final reports. We’ve included general descriptions of the content for some sections. We will also provide an annotated outline, which describes each sections’ content in more depth.

• Cover (1 page) - Backside of front cover will have the Analyst and Advisory Group names
• Summary (1-2 page; 1 page strongly preferred) (If 1 page, the backside should be blank)
• Table of Contents (1 page) - List of Tables and Figures (1 page – on the backside of the Table of Contents)

Introduction (2-3 pages)

This report articulates Earth observation priorities for the Human Health: Air Quality SBA based on an analysis of YY publicly-available documents, including documents produced by Group on Earth Observations’ Member Countries and Participating Organizations.

GEO and Societal Benefit Areas

The Group on Earth Observations (GEO, www.earthobservations.org) is an intergovernmental organization working to improve the availability, access, and use of Earth observations to benefit society. GEO is coordinating efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) . GEOSS builds on national, regional, and international observation systems to provide coordinated Earth observations from thousands of ground, airborne, and space-based instruments.

GEO is focused on enhancing the development and use of Earth observations in nine Societal Benefit Areas (SBA): Agriculture Biodiversity Climate Disasters Ecosystems Energy Human Health Water Weather

GEO Task US-09-01a

The objective of GEO Task US-09-01a is to establish and conduct a process to identify critical Earth observation priorities within each Societal Benefit Area and those common to the nine SBAs. Many countries and organizations have written reports, held workshops, sponsored projects, conducted surveys, and produced documents that specify Earth observation needs. In addition, researchers and practitioners have also identified and recommended key Earth observation needs in publications and peer-reviewed literature. Task US-09-01a focuses on compiling information on observation parameters from a representative sampling of these existing materials and analyzing across the materials to determine the priority observations.

Purpose of Report (this includes audience)

The primary purpose of this report is to articulate the critical Earth observation priorities for the Human Health: Air Quality SBA. The intent of the report is to describe the overall process and specific methodologies used to identify documents, analyze them, and determine a set of Earth observation parameters and characteristics. The report describes the prioritization methodologies used to determine the priority Earth observations for this SBA. The report also provides information on key challenges faced, feedback on the process, and recommendations for process improvements.

The primary audience for this report is the GEO User Interface Committee (UIC), which is managing Task US-09-01a for GEO. The GEO UIC will use the results of this report in combination with reports from the other eight SBAs. The GEO UIC will perform a meta-analysis across all nine SBA reports to identify critical Earth observation priorities common to many of the SBAs. Based on the nine SBA reports, the GEO UIC will produce an overall Task US-09-01a report, including the common observations and recommendations for GEO processes to determine Earth observation priorities in the future.

The report’s authors anticipate that the GEO Secretariat, Committees, Member Countries, Participating Organizations, Observers, Communities of Practice, and the communities associated with the Human Health: Air Quality SBA are additional audiences for this report.

Scope of Report (this includes terminology)

This report addresses the Earth observation priorities for the Human Health: Air Quality SBA. In particular, this report addressed the sub-areas of AAA, BBB, CCC, etc. within the Human Health: Air Quality SBA (see Section 3 for more details).

The report provides some background and contextual information about the Human Health: Air Quality SBA. However, this report is not intended as a handbook or primer on the Human Health: Air Quality SBA, and a complete description of the Human Health: Air Quality SBA is beyond the scope of this report. Please consult the GEO website (http://www.earthobservations.org) for more information about the Human Health: Air Quality SBA.

The report focuses on the Earth observations within the Human Health: Air Quality SBA, independent of any specific technology or collection method. Thus, the report addresses the “demand” side of observation needs and priorities. The report does not address the specific source of the observations or the sensor technology involved with producing the observations. Similarly, any discussions of visualization tools, decision support tools, or system processing characteristics (e.g., data format, data outlet) associated with the direct use of the observations are beyond the scope of this report.

In this report, the term Earth observation refers to parameters and variables (e.g., physical, geophysical, chemical, biological) sensed or measured, derived parameters and products, and related parameters from model outputs. The term Earth observation priorities refers to the parameters deemed of higher significance that others for the given SBA, as determined through the methodologies described within. The report uses the terms “user needs” and “user requirements” interchangeably to refer to Earth observations that are articulated and desired by the groups and users in the cited documents. The term “requirements” is used generally in the report to reflect users’ wants and needs; the use in this report does not imply technical, engineering specifications.

Following this introduction, the report discusses the overall approach and methodologies used in this analysis (Section 2). Section 3 describes the Human Health: Air Quality SBA and the specific sub-areas that were part of the analysis. Section 4 articulates the specific Earth observations for each Human Health: Air Quality SBA sub-area, and Section 5 presents the priority observations across the Human Health: Air Quality SBA. Sections 6 & 7 present additional findings from the analysis of the documents and any recommendations. The Appendices include the documents cited and sourced as well as any additional information describing aspects of the Human Health: Air Quality SBA

Methodology and Process (~5 pages)

Analyst and Advisory Group

a general description on how the Analyst formed the Advisory Group and a table listing the Advisory Group members, including region, area of expertise, and GEO Member Country or Participating Organization affiliation.

XXX SBA (~5 pages)

Documents

a general statement about the set of documents; a table of the documents with region, sub-area, organizational author, GEO Member or Participating Org. ===User Types statement and table on the general types of users in the SBA sub-areas; this section also needs to articulate how this User Types contributed to the analysis, such as its use to review & improve the set of documents

Earth Observations for XXX SBA (length is dependent; maybe 3-4 pages/sub-area)

Sub-areas (one section per sub-area)

These sections should state what observations and characteristics came out of the meta-analysis of the documents, including a brief rationale based on the documents. These sections need to reflect the methodology from 2.3.2. Essentially, the section for each sub-area needs to articulate which observations “made the cut” and why.

Priority Observations (4-5 pages)

Priority observations.

List(s) or table(s) of priority observations and characteristics This section needs to reflect the methodology from 2.3.3. This section can also include text to describe the table(s) and its contents

Additional Findings (1-3 pages)

This section is for other finding and results of the meta-analysis that do not fit in the sections above. Create sub-sections as needed.

Analyst Comments and Recommendations (2-3 pages)

Recommendations

Overall, section 7 is for the Analysts to provide their perspectives on the SBA, documents, set of observation priorities, etc. This section can be a bit more subjective than the other sections. This section might include perspectives on the US-09-01a process and suggestions for improvement. Create additional sub-sections as needed.

Appendix

Other appendices as needed

AQ GEO Task 0901a Report Outline v.1