Open Space

Abstract

An examination of environmental satellite data sharing policies, offering a model of data-sharing policy development, case and practical recommendations for increasing global data sharing. Key to understanding and addressing climate change is continuous and precise monitoring of environmental conditions. Satellites play an important role in collecting climate data, offering comprehensive global coverage that can't be matched by in situ observation. And yet, as Mariel Borowitz shows in this book, much satellite data is not freely available but restricted; this remains true despite the data-sharing advocacy of international organizations and a global open data movement. Borowitz examines policies governing the sharing of environmental satellite data, offering a model of data-sharing policy development and applying it in case studies from the United States, Europe, and Japan—countries responsible for nearly half of the unclassified government Earth observation satellites. Borowitz develops a model that centers on the government agency as the primary actor while taking into account the roles of such outside actors as other government officials and non-governmental actors, as well as the economic, security, and normative attributes of the data itself. The case studies include the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), and the United States Geological Survey (USGS); the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT); and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA). Finally, she considers the policy implications of her findings for the future and provides recommendations on how to increase global sharing of satellite data.

From Open Data to Open Science

“…Open data are data that may be accessed, used, and shared for any purpose without restrictions. Open data policies, typically developed by government and commercial organizations, define what data will be shared, with whom, at what price, and under what conditions the data can be reused or redistributed (Borowitz, 2017). Data sharing policies fall on a spectrum of openness with the most open data being made fully available either free of charge or at no more than the cost of reproduction (Group on Earth Observations, 2020; Open Knowledge Foundation, 2020).…”

Machine Learning-Aided Management of Motorway Facilities Using Single-Vehicle Accident Data

“…This can be seen in Figure 4, which shows the overlapping of factors and the complexity level between them. First of all, for weather conditions, Figure 5 shows the ratio of rainy days and days without precipitation from 2009 to 2019, according to Japan Meteorological Agency [37]. In addition, Figure 6 demonstrates the ratio of three (3) types of road surface conditions at the time of accidents for the analyzed period.…”

At the outer limits of the international: Orbital infrastructures and the technopolitics of planetary (in)security

“…As has been addressed in forensic detail by Mariel Borowitz, the accompanying rhetoric of 'global challenges' and 'planetary perspective' that surrounds EO systems and initiatives is rendered even more complicated once it is recognised that access to the data they produce is often subject to multiple 'exceptions'. 84 As the term suggests, the nature of these exceptions varies, with some forms of EO data restrictions arising from international law, others from data protection laws, commercial laws and imperatives, or privacy regulations. 85 Commonly, foreign policy and national security imperatives also lead to authorised exceptions on and restrictions to EO data.…”