Abstract
Satellite remote sensing is a field expanding exponentially, with data at the PB level. In the past 40 years, it has evolved from partially covering the Earth's surface with 100–30 meter resolution to covering every corner of the Earth at 30 cm resolution. The repeat frequency is improving, and there is a potential point expected to be reached when we collect Earth surface data at submeter resolution constantly. The speed of data acquisition moves ahead, with data processing and information extraction several blocks behind. How should we fill the gap? Environmental scholars learning from the computer science community is clearly not enough. We need better pattern recognition and machine learning technologies to make better use of the explosion of Earth observation data. Will computer scientists, particularly data scientists and AI researchers, join forces to tackle these problems? I propose the concept of iEarth, calling for the participation of data scientists and AI researchers to join hands with environmental scientists to tackle today's grand environmental challenges of the human society, food insecurity, disaster early warning and prevention, water and energy shortages, global health, climate change, etc.
About the speaker
"Professor Peng Gong is the Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Academic Development) at The University of Hong Kong, where he also serves as Chair Professor of Global Sustainability in the Departments of Geography and Earth & Planetary Sciences (since 2021). He holds a BS and MS from Nanjing University and a PhD from the University of Waterloo. His academic career spans York University, the University of Calgary, and UC Berkeley, where he became a full professor in 2001. He later founded Tsinghua University’s Department of Earth System Science (2016) and served as Dean of Science (2017).
In addition to being a Foreign Member of the Academy of Europe, he was the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Geographic Information Sciences (now Annals of GIS). He advises Future Earth as well as Earth Commission; and co-chairs the Lancet Climate Change and Health Commission and Countdown 2030. An interdisciplinary leader, he co-founded the Center for Assessment and Monitoring of Forest and Environmental Resources at UC Berkeley and established key Chinese institutions, including the first Earth System Science Institute in China at Nanjing University.
His research spans urbanization and health, environmental change monitoring, and infectious disease modelling. He received research awards from the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, the Association of American Geographers and the Joint Board Council of Science China and Science Bulletin. Over 30 of his former PhD students now hold faculty positions at top universities worldwide.
