Planetary computing for data-driven environmental policy-making

Patrick Ferris; Michael Dales; Sadiq Jaffer; Amelia Holcomb; Eleanor Toye Scott; Thomas Swinfield; Alison Eyres; Andrew Balmford; David Coomes; Srinivasan Keshav; Anil Madhavapeddy

arXiv · 2303.04501

Planetary computing for data-driven environmental policy-making

Patrick Ferris·Michael Dales·Sadiq Jaffer·Amelia Holcomb·Eleanor Toye Scott·Thomas Swinfield·Alison Eyres·Andrew Balmford·David Coomes·Srinivasan Keshav·Anil Madhavapeddy

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Abstract

We make a case for "planetary computing" -- infrastructure to handle the ingestion, transformation, analysis and publication of global data products for furthering environmental science and enabling better informed policy-making. We draw on our experiences as a team of computer scientists working with environmental scientists on forest carbon and biodiversity preservation, and classify existing solutions by their flexibility in scalably processing geospatial data, and also how well they support building trust in the results via traceability and reproducibility. We identify research gaps in the intersection of computing and environmental science around how to handle continuously changing datasets that are often collected across decades and require careful access control rather than being fully open access.

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Patrick Ferris, Michael Dales, Sadiq Jaffer, Amelia Holcomb, Eleanor Toye Scott, Thomas Swinfield, Alison Eyres, Andrew Balmford, David Coomes, Srinivasan Keshav, Anil Madhavapeddy. 2023-03-08. Planetary computing for data-driven environmental policy-making. https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.04501

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