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AEGOS strengthens GEOSS coverage of georesources
By Stuart Marsh, British Geological Survey
Although georesources do not constitute a GEO Societal Benefit Area (SBA), their inclusion in GEOSS is essential. Not only is the Earth’s sub-surface an integral part of the Earth system, but georesources – which range from minerals to underground water supplies to geothermal energy – are relevant to several existing SBAs and thus demonstrate the cross-cutting nature of GEOSS. The recent launch of the African European Georesources Observation System (AEGOS), therefore, promises to both broaden and strengthen GEOSS.
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Funded by the European Commission’s Framework 7 programme and implemented by the European and African geological surveys, AEGOS was launched in February at a conference in Cape Town, South Africa. The conference included the public launch of AEGOS, the first meeting of the project’s steering committee, and several days of joint working meetings amongst the European and African partners. The public launch was held in parallel with the first day of the Mining Indaba conference, which brought the geological surveys together with the mining community.
AEGOS will start by scoping out a georesources observing system and providing recommendations to GEO. The formal link between the AEGOS project and GEO has already been established through GEO sub-task CB-09-05d on “Georesources services for Africa”. Our discussions in Cape Town explored specific activities that can help the project to cement this link.
There are also several other links to GEO through project partners. We are represented on all GEO Committees: the British Geological Survey and EuroGeoSurveys on the Science and Technology Committee, the German Geological Survey on the Capacity Building Committee, and the EC’s Joint Research Centre on both the Architecture and Data and User Interface Committees. The project partners participated in the April/May round of GEO committee meetings as representatives of AEGOS. Because AEGOS receives EC funding, we were also represented at the parallel meeting on all of the EC’s GEO-related projects.
The AEGOS Kick-Off meeting identified strong potential for linking AEGOS and other GEO Tasks in the various Societal Benefit Areas through AEGOS's planned case studies. These case studies have not yet been selected, but the likely candidates were discussed in Cape Town. For example, a possible groundwater case study could be directly linked to the GEO sub-task WA-08-01c on “Groundwater”. Other candidate studies include geothermal energy and mineral resources assessments. These potential links will be firmed up as the AEGOS project unfolds. It is also likely that AEGOS will recommend new GEO activities relating, for example, to mineral resources, an issue that is not presently represented in the GEO Work Plan. It is not yet clear whether this can best be achieved via existing activities, a new Task or sub-task, or some other mechanism.
Finally, the role of AEGOS in implementing GEOSS is being strengthened in various ways through issues dealt with by the GEO committees. Examples include architecture and metadata, where the AEGOS project will follow the existing GEO and INSPIRE interoperability principles; GEONetCast, for which we plan the trial delivery of geological data to African countries; and capacity building, where we can foresee cooperation in extending our activities to those geological surveys in Africa not currently funded from within the AEGOS Consortium.
This wide range of links shows that the AEGOS project is, in fact, well integrated with GEO. We can have confidence that the bold statement made at the start of this article will be transformed into reality over the coming months. AEGOS would be pleased to hear from anyone who can help us to achieve that.
For more information, please contact
Stuart Marsh, British Geological Survey, at shm@bgs.ac.uk;
Luc Chevalier, Council for Geoscience, South Africa, at lchevallier@geoscience.org.za; or
Marc Urvois, French Geological Survey, at m.urvois@brgm.fr.
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