Spatial Big Data: Guarding for “The Belt and Road”

GUO Huadong

Academecian of CAS

President of International Society of Digital Earth

Director, UNESCO International Center for Natural and Cultural Heritage Space Technology

On a clear night, stars in the sky flash. Strange, why some "stars" continue to move forward? It turns out that bright spot moving forward slowly is not a star, but the satellite, among which a considerable part are remote sensing satellites. Remote sensing satellites have extraordinary capabilities as they run along the Earth's orbit, taking pictures of the Earth all day, so that people can clearly see different phenomena on the surface of the Earth. In recent decades, China has launched a series of remote sensing satellites, and in the future will have more satellites off the surface of the Earth in order to have an uninterrupted observation on the Earth.

"The Belt and Road" initiative is a great project for China to draw a grand blueprint together with the countries along the route. It covers 65 countries and 4.4 billion people. It has the characteristics of wide range, long cycle and wide area, while on the other hand facing problems and challenges concerning environment, resource and disaster. Space observation technology has macroscopic, fast, accurate and objective ability to obtain data, in response to these challenges and issues with great advantages, can achieve cross-border coordination of space observations. Obtain scientific data from the space can help us faster, more accurate, more widely comprehense "B&R"

Using the spatial data, we can carry out a scientific analysis of the macro-spatial pattern of resources and environment in the context of B&R under global change. As a result, we launched the international scientific program of "Digital Silk Road", which has earned full support from more than 20 countries and international organizations. "Digital Silk Road" uses large space data for the sake of sustainable development of countries along B&R, using different information gained from remote sensing satellites, navigation satellites, communications satellites and ground observation, sea-based observation to build large space data sharing platform, constructing researches in 6 areas including environmental change, agriculture and food safety, coastal zones, natural disasters, world heritage, water and cities in order to create a "spatial information system and scientific model along the way" that will benefit all countries along the route .

Since having been launched, "Digital Silk Road" international program has made significant achievements. For example, for the environmental problems of Angkor Wat in Cambodia on the Maritime Silk Road, remote sensing monitoring was carried out to provide a basis for decision-making for the protection of Angkor Wat's world cultural heritage. In the five Central Asian countries, which lacked space technology, study on Global Change in Arid and Semi-arid Areas has been conducted and the Silk Road Regional Remote Sensing Alliance has been built in order to rationally provide information support for ecological protection, remediation and ecological compensation; In addition, during the construction of the Sino-Pakistani economic corridor, some large projects need to carry out pre-risk assessment, including the assessment of natural disasters such as earthquakes, flood threats, etc., and spatial analysis of large data can provide scientific support.

Big data is the new strategic resources of the country and scientific data is changing the traditional scientific research methods, which is the new key to understand nature as well as a new engine of scientific discovery. For the countrys "B&R" strategy, we advocate the common construction of the Silk Road and the maritime Silk Road Grand Data Alliance, so that large data can become the peace messenger of countries contributing to "B&R", so that big data will light all corners of “B&R”, thus escorting “B&R” to the glorious future.