Abstract

Earth Knowledge is developing a web-based Knowledge Portal and Collaboration Environment that will serve as the information-technology-based foundation of a modular Internet-based Earth-Systems Monitoring, Analysis, and Management Tool. This Knowledge Portal is essentially a mash-upof web-based and client-based tools and services that support on-line collaboration, community discussion, and broad public dissemination of earth and environmental science information in a wide-area distributed network. In contrast to specialized knowledge-management or geographic-information systems developed for long-term and incremental scientific analysis, this system will exploit familiar software tools using industry standard protocols, formats, and APIs to discover, process, fuse, and visualize existing environmental datasets using Google Earth and Google Maps. An early form of these tools and services is being used by Earth Knowledge to facilitate the investigations and conversations of scientists, resource managers, and citizen-stakeholders addressing water resource sustainability issues in the Great Basin region of the desert southwestern United States. These ongoing projects will serve as use cases for the further development of this information-technology infrastructure. This Knowledge Portal will accelerate the deployment of Earth-system data and information into an operational knowledge management system that may be used by decision-makers concerned with stewardship of water resources in the American Desert Southwest.