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)

This section documents the general process followed and specific methodologies used to identify documents, analyze them, determine Earth observation parameters and characteristics, and establish a set of priority Earth observations for this SBA.

Task Process

The GEO UIC established a general process for each of the SBAs to follow in order to ensure some consistency across the SBAs. This general process for each SBA involves 9 steps, as summarized in the following list: Step 1: Identify Analyst and Advisory Group for the SBA Step 2: Determine scope of topics within the SBA Step 3: Identify documents regarding observation priorities for the SBA Step 4: Develop analytic methods and priority-setting criteria Step 5: Review and analyze documents for priority Earth observations needs Step 6: Combine the information and develop a preliminary report Step 7: Gather feedback on the preliminary report Step 8: Perform any additional analysis Step 9: Complete the report on Earth observations for the SBA

A detailed description of the general US-09-01a process is available at the Task website http://sbageotask.larc.nasa.gov or GEO website. Some steps in the process occurred simultaneously or iteratively, such as identifying documents (Step 3) and reviewing documents (Step 5).

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.

The XXX SBA had an “Analyst” and an “Advisory Group” to conduct the process of identifying documents, analyzing them, and prioritizing the Earth observations. The Analyst served as the main coordinator to manage the activities.

Analysts

For the XXX SBA, the Analyst was ZZZ. He/she ... (brief paragraph on Analyst, including appropriate information to establish his/her credentials and qualifications as the Analyst).

The XXX SBA Analyst served ... (sentence/paragraph about the arrangement for the Analysts involvement (a pro bono basis as a representative of organization RRR, under contract to organization RRR, etc.)

Advisory Group

The Advisory Group for the XXX SBA consisted of # (scientific, technical, programmatic, etc.) experts from the field of (SBA topic) or some subset thereof (e.g., sub-set of SBA topic). Table X shows the Advisory Group members.

Table X of the AG Members, including: Name, GEO Member Country or Participating Organization, Organizational Affiliation, Geographic Region, Specialty/Area of Expertise. Note: Please use the template table which Lawrence provided in an email. If the Organizational Affiliation is the same as the GEO Organization, then either repeat or provide the person’s sub-organization in the affiliation line.

The Analyst identified the Advisory Group members through (literature searches, personal contacts, web searches, research, references, professional associations, authorship of documents/papers, etc.). The Analyst attempted to recruit Advisory Group members from all geographic regions and multiple developing countries. The Analyst contacted #/numerous people to participate on the Advisory Group. # expressed interest; # did not respond; and # were unable to participate but provided document references or suggestions for other possible Advisory Group members. Overall, the Advisory Group includes members from XX countries and YY continents, including ZZ from developing countries.

The primary roles of the AG were to (assist in identifying documents, assess methodologies and analytic techniques, assess prioritization schemes, review findings, and review reports.) The primary contact with the AG was thorugh (telecons, emails, etc.); the Advisory Group met (in person, telecom, etc) # number of times during the course of the analysis.

Other information about selection of AG, roles of AG.

Note: Comments on the success of the AG or suggestions how to improve the AG should be in section 7.

Methodology

This section provides a general description of the processes, analytic methods, and approaches the Analyst/AG used to identify documents, analyze them, and establish a set of priority Earth observations. (Note: this section is essentially a summary of your activities in Step 4 of the nine-step process.)

Documents (general description on how Analyst/AG identified documents; not a list of the documents)

This section provides a general description of the process/method/approach the Analyst/AG used to identify documents and select a representative sampling for the analysis. Note: Section 3.3 provides specific information about the documents, such as number of them, geographic distribution, etc.

Analytic Methods

This section provides a general description of the process/method/approach the Analyst/AG used to analyze documents and extract information to identify Earth observation parameters and characteristics.

Prioritization Methods

This section provides a general description of the process/methods/approaches the Analyst/AG used to prioritize the Earth observations, including the specific priority-setting criteria.

XXX SBA (~5 pages)

This section provides summary information of the XXX SBA and the specific sub-areas. This section also discusses the specific documents used in the meta-analysis (general discussion rather than specifics on each document) and the broad user-types within the SBA.

Description (General information, includes brief GEO definition)

This section provides a succinct description of the SBA. This section should include the SBA statement from the 10-year Implementation Plan. For example, this section might include a statement such as “The following is the brief statement of topics covered and key outcomes in the XXX SBA from the GEOSS 10-Year Implementation Plan: …” Note: Please use the language from the 10-year plan, which Lawrence included in an email.

Section 3.1 should briefly state the broad set of sub-areas within the SBA. For example, the Disasters report stated the broad categories of disasters (weather-related, geologic, and human-induced) and specific disaster types (earthquakes, volcanoes, wildfires, avalanches, etc.). Section 3.2 articulates the specific sub-areas the report addresses.

Sub-areas (statement and brief description/rationale)

This section states the specific sub-areas that the report addresses. This section should briefly describe each sub-area. This section should provide the reason or rationale why the Analyst/Advisory Group selected these sub-areas.

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.

This section states the specific documents that the Analyst/AG reviewed in the analysis. The section can include specific information about the identification and selection of a representative sampling. This section might include a table to summarize the number of documents by SBA sub-area, geographic region, authorship (by GEO member or participating organization). Note: Please use the template table, with additions as needed, which Lawrence included in an email.

This section should also address any attempts or actions taken to close any apparent gaps in types of documents.

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

This section discusses the broad user types within the SBA. The specific user types can be listed or in a table. This section needs to describe how the user types were employed by the Analyst/AG, such as to perform a gap analysis of the documents to determine any potential biases.

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

This section contains the results from the analysis of the documents and the specific observation parameters/characteristics that the analysis revealed for each 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.

For each sub-area, this section should identify the observations mentioned in the documents and state the specific observations that are common and representative of the sub-area. This section should reference the documents in establishing the set of observations. Since the results should be based on the methodology described in section 2.3.2, this section should blend those methodologies into the discussion in this section. A table listing all the observations and representative characteristics in this sub-area would be beneficial – please use the template table that Lawrence provided in an email.

Priority Observations (4-5 pages)

This section contains the results from the prioritization method(s) applied to the observations identified in section 4.

General description

The section contains and describes specific information about the prioritization of the Earth observations from section 4. This section should contain specific information about the application of the prioritization method(s) described in section 2.3.3.

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 This section contains the specific priority Earth observations for the XXX SBA. A table listing all the observations and representative characteristics is preferred – please use the template table that Lawrence provided in an email.

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