Semantic requirements analysis for the Integrated Earth Observation Sensor Web for the digital earth

The integration of semantics in the context of the Earth Observation Sensor Web can achieve a clear and detailed expression of resources. The semantics plays a major role in providing resource discovery and automatic composition as well as machine interpretation in an interoperable way. This article summarizes the recent developments of the Semantic Sensor Web, and proposes the Integrated Earth Observation Sensor Web (IEOSW). The IEOSW could achieve collaborative observation for multi-sensors within multi-platforms, and process diverse data and models for emergency and long-term events. The progress of IEOSW reflects limitations about accessing, sharing, discovering, and managing resources across various applications. This paper focuses on semantic requirements of IEOSW, which improves the interoperation of heterogeneous resources and communication protocols. The architecture and potential capabilities of IEOSW with semantics and to meet semantic acquirements are proposed. Furthermore, five major aspects of semantic requirements under IEOSW are discussed for flood monitoring.