The following document was presented to the 3rd Session of the GOOS Steering Committee by Francis Bretherton (fbretherton@ssec.wisc.edu).
The Integrated Global Observing
Strategy (IGOS) is concerned with sustained measurements of the
enviornment that are applied to issues of international concern. It
envisages the evolutionary development of several related observing
systems, each organized within a coherent theme and responsive to a
variety of end uses of overall economic benefit and improved
scientific understanding. The diagram below is intended to stimulate
discussion of appropriate roles of the public and private sectors in
the implementation of this concept.
Within the USA, there is a reasonably settled consensus that the
taxpayer benefits most if the results of government-funded data
collection are available to the general public as widely as possible,
free of copyright or other restrictions and to everyone without
discrimination. At the same time, as environmental information
becomes more valued, commercial interests want to be involved, with
distribution rights on data and derived products a prime concern.
Particularly problematic are government-private partnerships, in
which individually negotiated agreements over data rights can have
many unforeseen consequences. In some other countries government
agencies themselves are expected to cover a significant fraction of
their costs by selling data and services as if they were a commercial
business. These differences among nations are currently exacerbated
by the Internet and the globalization of the economy, as well as by
recurring fears of economic or military domination. Successful
international collaboration depends upon voluntary adherence to a
common vision of obligations and expectations, which minimizes the
intrusion of these factors.
Many people have freely contributed ideas to development of this
concept and the associated graphic. This material may be used freely
and without restriction, subject only to a request to honor the
spirit in which it is presented.
- Environmental observation in the public interest requires the
growing several "trees", each with multiple uses around a distinct
theme and co-ordinated with other "trees" where necessary. A
well-developed example is the system for daily weather
prediction.
- For credibility, each trunk must be a
responsibility of the public sector, with open scrutiny and
assessment of data and synthesized products by the international
scientific community.
- Branches imply further
distribution or processing. Mature branches - application areas for
which the synthesized data products are well understood - are
potential candidates for value-added privatization, provided the
basic scientific data and core products remain available at marginal
cost of reproduction. Where the science is not yet mature, investment
in system development should be particularly responsive to research
applications.
- Individual roots are potential candidates
for data buys from private companies, provided the public sector
acquires all rights to further distribution and use of the data and
government-sponsored derived products. Where a root serves more than
one trunk, close liaison between those trunks is essential. Thus the
whole may actually resemble a Banyan tree.
- The incentive
to participate in collaborative international science based observing
programmes is the sharing of information. This requires free and
unrestricted exchange of appropriate data and products at minimal
cost to the scientific user. Data subject to use restriction should
not be regarded as contributing to the Global Observing
System.
- Building capacity and enhancement of environmental understanding enables all nations to participate, and thus fertilizes the entire enterprise.