Earth Systems Data Portal and ArcGIS Online Platform Will Help More People Take Action

Redlands, California — February 26, 2014—Esri is working with the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) to create a GIS platform for the program Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). Esri technology will make GEOSS earth observation data available to a wider audience for understanding, monitoring, and making decisions about the planet.

GEOSS is a portal between a flexible network of earth observation content providers. Esri, the world leader in GIS technology, will work with GEOSS designers to improve information search and discover functionality between contributors' various content collections.

"By underpinning scientific data with Esri's technology, GEOSS is situated to play a global role in brokering various forms of earth science, observation, and information," said Stefano Nativi, GEOSS technology lead and Earth and Space Science Informatics Laboratory coordinator.

A memorandum of understanding describes how Esri and GEOSS designers will explore ways to create paths between GEOSS and Esri's geospatial cloud platform ArcGIS Online. With the system in place, scientists will benefit from basemaps, imagery, and data layers in Esri's ArcGIS Online, while the ArcGIS Online community benefits by discovering and using certain GEOSS data.

"Esri's participation in the GEOSS program will enable a broader community to lay observation information on authoritative basemaps of the planet," Esri president Jack Dangermond said. "The overarching goal is to generate greater understanding of earth measurements, existing knowledge, and scientific analysis so that more people can take action."

GEO members include 89 governments and the European Commission as well as 67 intergovernmental, international, and regional organizations. The GEOSS program is expected to benefit nine areas: disasters, health, energy, climate, water, weather, ecosystems, agriculture, and biodiversity.

For more information about ArcGIS Online, visit esri.com/agol.

About Esri
Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS, Esri software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of Web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at www.esri.com.

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