EGIDA · Coordinating Earth and Environmental cross-disciplinary projects to promote GEOSS

EGIDA will prepare a sustainable process promoting coordination of activities carried out by: the GEO Science & Technology (S&T) Committee; S&T national and European initiatives; and other S&T Communities. This will be done by supporting broader implementation and effectiveness of the GEOSS S&T Roadmap and the GEOSS mission through coherent and interoperable networking of National and European projects, and international initiatives. EGIDA will deliver evaluation processes, tests and assessment indexes, expertise databases, a “GEO Label” concept, surveys, and other instruments that will link relevant European S&T communities to GEOSS and ensure it is built using state-of-the-art science and technology. Through co-ordination with the GEOSS S&T Committee (five co-chairs are involved in EGIDA), these deliverables will contribute strongly to the GEO S&T Roadmap implementation.For European countries, EGIDA will deliver the EGIDA Methodology, a sustainable mechanism based on the GEO S&T approach at national and regional level, to coordinate national multi-disciplinary “System of Systems”. This builds on existing national initiatives and European projects, and facilitates the European S&T Community contributions to and interactions with GEOSS. The EGIDA Methodology will improve development and management of S&T infrastructures (i.e. sensors, data, processing services, and environmental modelling infrastructures), supporting mobilization of the resources needed to contribute effectively to GEOSS.EGIDA will involve developing countries by transferring the EGIDA S&T methodology to them and implementing three specific use cases: two regional use-cases (Balkan region, Mediterranean region) and a pan-European thematic use-case (Air Quality and Health). EGIDA will be embedded within a wide Network of Stakeholders selected to represent the various actors (science teams and institutions, S&T programmes, GEO components) and the scientific fields relevant to the nine GEOSS SBAs.