Epilogue: Toward a global biodiversity monitoring system

Monitoring the ongoing declines in biodiversity and ecosystem health is essential for formulating societal responses. The Group on Earth Observations Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) was created in 2008 to develop a global monitoring network, but that is a huge task with much remaining work. Fortunately, satellite remote sensing can help by providing periodic, global data that is not otherwise available. Continued advances - many of which are discussed in this book’s 19 chapters - in science as well as sensor and computational technology have an increasingly important role. However, taking advantage of these requires bringing together a variety of elements and disciplines, and it is with this in mind that a conceptual system architecture is here suggested. Key elements of this cloud-based architecture include: explicit support for collaboration, particularly across disciplines, to facilitate development of new algorithms; access to a wide variety of data, including satellite, airborne, and in situ; recognition of the importance of integrating across sensors and scales; and access to significant CPU cycles for generating heavy products such as time series. Such a system would build upon GEO BON and contribute to its mission by being the core of its RS activities; like GEO BON itself, it would be a coordinated effort among many international players.