Science and policy increasingly request for sustainable development and growth. Similarly, Digital Earth undergoes a paradigm shift to an open platform that actively supports user engagement. While the public becomes able to contribute new content, we recognize a gap in user-driven validation, feedback and requirements capture, and innovative application development. Rather than defining Digital Earth applications top down, we see a need for methods and tools that will help building applications bottom up and driven by community needs. These should include a technology toolbox of geospatial and environmental enablers, which allow to access functional building blocks and content in multiple ways, but – equally important – enable the collaboration within partially unknown stakeholder networks. The validation and testing in real-life scenarios will be a central requirement when approaching the Digital Earth 2020 goals, which were articulated recently. We particularly argue to follow a Living Lab approach for co-creation and awareness rising in relation to environmental and geospatial matters. We explain why and how such a Digital Earth Living Lab could lead to a sustainable approach for developing, deploying, and using Digital Earth applications and suggest a paradigm shift for Virtual Globes becoming forums for research and innovation.

SCHADE Sven;  GRANELL CANUT Carlos; 

2015-02-04

TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD

JRC83217

1753-8947,   

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17538947.2013.804600,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC83217,   

10.1080/17538947.2013.804600,