Igol version 3

8.Relation of IGOL to other Themes

Transfers of matter and energy and drivers of those fluxes tightly link the Land Theme’s observations with those of other IGOS-P Themes such as Atmospheric Chemistry, Carbon, Coastal, Geohazards, and Water. These tight linkages with other IGOS-P Themes amplify the importance of IGOL: land-based observations comprise important baseline data for many of the other IGOS-P Themes. Many observations evaluated in this Land Theme Report are also required by the other Themes:

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  Atmospheric Chemistry Theme:
  
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    albedo for energy budgeting (biophysical observations)
    
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    air pollutant emissions (human settlements and socioeconomic data)
    
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    heat sinks (water availability, topography)
    
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  Carbon Theme:
  
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    vegetation status and activity (fire, biophysical observations, biodiversity)
    
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    fossil fuel emissions (human settlements and socioeconomic data)
    
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    bio-fuel production (land use)
    
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    forest biomass inventories, harvests (land cover, biophysical observations)
    
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    soil carbon stocks (soils, land cover, land use)
    
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    lake, reservoir C stocks (water availability)
    
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    wetland extent (land cover)
    
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  Geohazards Theme:
  
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    digital elevation models (topography)
    
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    soil physical parameters (soils)
    
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  Water Cycle Theme:
  
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    soil moisture modeling (soils)
    
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    surface water storage (water availability and use)
    
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    wetland extent (land cover; water availability and use)
    
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    water quality (water availability and use)
    
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  Cryosphere Theme:
  
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    frozen soils (soils)
    

The domain of the Land Theme Report was identified by attempting to limit overlap with observational domains of the other IGOS-P Themes:

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  Soil water content for drought and soil moisture monitoring were addressed in the Water Cycle Theme.
  
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  CO₂ stock and flux observations on land were addressed in the Carbon Theme.
  
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  Frozen soils were not explicitly addressed in the Land Theme, but they will form a central component of the Cryosphere Theme.
  
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  Biodiversity in wetland and surface water systems was not singled out within Land Theme, but Land Theme recommendations apply to wetland and surface water systems.
  
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  Aquaculture was not addressed in the Land Theme.
  
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  Several classes of Land Theme observations spatially overlap with Coastal observations.
  

Improving land observations to enhance societal benefits will rely upon observations and methods derived from other disciplines. Activities that promote interaction across disciplines and developing links across IGOS-P Themes will contribute to ensuring gaps are covered and redundancies minimized, while fostering coordination of observational priorities and diffusion of methods and applications across scientific communities.

9.Implementation

9.1.Strategy

Implementation of the recommendations of IGOL will be the responsibility of numerous international and national bodies. In the following section (9.2) we highlight the main recommendations from this report and the body or bodies identified as responsible for them.

In terms of overall international coordination, the report is being completed at a time of considerable flux in roles and responsibilities. IGOL was set up under the framework of the IGOS Partnership and this report is formally submitted to that body. One of the main mechanisms for implementation in the framework of IGOS-P was to set up an Implementation Team, with one of the IGOS partners agreeing to chair the Team. It is fair to comment that this approach has had only mixed success in large part because of the difficulty in capturing resources for the coordination activity. We do not recommend that such a body be set up for IGOL though as noted below we do recognize the need for oversight of progress in achieving the recommendations of IGOL

Since the time that IGOL was created, an inter-governmental body, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), has been set up with responsibilities for the implementation of a comprehensive Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS). It has defined an overall strategy (GEO 2005) and a large number of tasks (GEO 2007) several of which if successfully implemented will undoubtedly contribute to the goals of IGOL. Implementation of many of the coordination tasks recommended in this report are part of existing tasks or should form new tasks of GEO.

It is anticipated that CEOS will continue to play a central role with respect to coordination of space observations either acting in its own right or through other bodies responsible for the coordination of implementation responding to tasks identified by GEO.

Notwithstanding the significance of these overarching bodies, many of the coordination responsibilities for terrestrial observations still lay with UN institutions notably the FAO, UNEP, UNESCO and WMO and their subsidiary organizational entities.

In terms of the international coordination of terrestrial observations, GTOS has the broadest current remit. A consideration of its current scope and that of IGOL clearly shows that the latter is significantly broader in many respects, though with its burgeoning activities in biodiversity and conservation and in situ flux measurements the differences have been lessened. It is recommended that GTOS review the scope of activities of IGOL and consider expanding its role to better match the totality of terrestrial observations discussed in this document. One of the tasks of a rescoped GTOS could be to monitor progress in the implementation of IGOL and advise the bodies responsible for implementation, as described in the next section, where progress is inadequate.

Since GEO is the principal body charged with coordination of implementation we provide the mapping of IGOL recommendations to GEO tasks highlighting any tasks identified by IGOL which are not in the current tasks. The GEO tasks identify those charged with the implementation.