CASEarth

The Big Earth Data Science Engineering Program (CASEarth) was officially approved on 1 January 2018 by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) with an implementation period of five years.

CASEarth aims to draw advantages from the extensive resources of CAS and other units in China and abroad to develop a data sharing platform to host big data and cloud services, to cater to modern data-intensive scientific applications for a wide variety of fields including resource management, environment sciences, biology, ecology, and many others. Its prime focus is fundamental and applied research through scientific programs that include: the Digital Belt and Road, Panoramic Beautiful China, Biodiversity and Ecological Security, 3D Information Ocean, and Spatiotemporal Three-pole Environments, leading to the development of a state-of-the-art international Digital Earth science platform. The platform will allow technological innovations in the field of Earth-related big data, support major breakthroughs and scientific discoveries in Earth system science, enable comprehensive macro-level decision-making support and public knowledge dissemination services, and also function as a science-based decision support system for developing major domestic and foreign strategies. The system will also provide support to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

CASEarth will ultimately establish an "International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals", which was announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his address at the 75th United Nations General Assembly on 22 September 2020.

It will also build a state-of-the-art Big Earth Data infrastructure to overcome challenges of data access, data sharing, and seamless integration of scattered data, models, and services. The infrastructure will assist diverse and multidisciplinary fields such as resource management and utilization, environmental science, biology, ecology, and biodiversity. It will develop a state-of-the-art Big Earth Data platform to drive research and innovation to explore new paradigms of the big data-driven, multidisciplinary, collaborative scientific discovery. In this way, researchers can showcase as well as spur major breakthroughs in Earth system sciences, life sciences, and associated disciplines. CASEarth will also construct a decision support system to provide a panoramic and dynamic understanding of the sustainable development process and facilitate the momentum of the Belt and Road, enabling accurate assessment and decision support for the Beautiful China initiative to contribute to Digital China.

CASEarth will break through the bottleneck of open data and data sharing, realize the comprehensive integration of data, models, and services, promote multidisciplinary integration, and build a Big Earth Data and cloud service platform as well as a big data-driven Digital Earth Science Platform with global influence. It will provide comprehensive display and dynamic simulation for sustainable development processes and ecological conditions along the Belt and Road and provide accurate evaluation and decision support for Beautiful China's sustainable development.

CASEarth will explore a new paradigm of scientific discovery involving big data-driven multidisciplinary integration and global collaboration, and it will constitute a major breakthrough in Earth systems science, life sciences, and related disciplines. CASEarth can become an international center for exoteric big data, comprehensively enhancing national technological innovation, scientific discovery, macro-level decision-making and public knowledge dissemination, and other significant outputs.