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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the definition of a European perspective on Digital Earth (DE), identify some actions that can contribute to raise the awareness of DE in the European context and thus strengthen the European contribution to the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE). The paper identifies opportunities and synergies with the current policy priorities in Europe (Europe 2020, Innovation Union and Digital Agenda) and highlights a number of key areas to advance the development of DE from a European perspective: (1) integrating scientific research into DE; (2) exploiting the Observation Web with human-centred sensing; and (3) governance, including the establishment of stronger linkages across the European landscape of funding streams and initiatives. The paper is offered also as a contribution to the development of this new vision of DE to be presented at the next International DE Conference in Perth, Australia, in August 2011. The global recognition of this new vision will then reinforce the European component and build a positive feedback loop for the further implementation of DE across the globe.

Cartographic communication and support within emergency management (EM) are complicated issues with changing demands according to the incident extent and phase of the EM cycle. Keeping in mind the specifics of each purpose, it is obvious that spatial data used for maps preparation and production must be differently visualized even for the same type of emergency incident (traffic accident, fire, and natural disaster). Context-based cartography is a promising methodology to deal with the changing demands of an operational EM center.An overview of cartographic communication is presented within the context of an operational EM center, activities of particular actors, and map use supporting the incident elimination. The authors of the paper respond to a series of questions, for example: what is the current cartographic support of operational EM in the Czech Republic in Digital Earth conditions? What possibilities are there to improve the cartographic communication? How can contextual cartographic services be implemented in a Web environment and how can the usability of results be tested? The paper gives several examples of the usage of cartographic technologies in map creation for various emergency situations.

Cartography has become an important tool for supporting decision-making processes in the field of crisis management. Maps (or GIS) can be used for solving various problems, e.g. the localization of accident site, the delimitation of endangered areas, the formulation of evacuation plans and others. People involved in decisionmaking processes use various procedures to solve these problems. However, a suitable and efficient form of cartographic support for particular situations and crisis management cycle stages is still missing. The main goal of the experiment was twofold. First, we wanted to assess the interdisciplinary (cartography-psychology) web-based testing environment and achieve the first usability results. Second, the use of different cartographic base map representations was analysed in order to judge the efficiency for specific situations. Testing was focused on various types of tasks, e.g. simple sign selection, the possibility of memorizing important information from the map and the choice of the optimal evacuation route. The overall testing was performed within the interactive web environment, based on predefined templates, automatically recorded and calibrated against the evaluation of the pretest users' abilities. Preliminary testing results provide valuable inputs concerning the usability of selected base maps for supporting decision-making processes during various crisis situations.