text: Ecosystems monitoring is essential to properly understand their development and the effects of events, both climatological and anthropological in nature. The amount of data used in these assessments is increasing at very high rates. This is due to increasing availability of sensing systems and the development of new techniques to analyze sensor data. The Enviro-Net Project encompasses several of such sensor system deployments across five countries in the Americas. These deployments use a few different ground-based sensor systems, installed at different heights monitoring the conditions in tropical dry forests over long periods of time. This paper presents our experience in deploying and maintaining these systems, retrieving and pre-processing the data, and describes the Web portal developed to help with data management, visualization and analysis.
  @cite_9: Abstract: The Sensor Web is a macro-instrument concept that allows for the spatio-temporal understanding of an environment through coordinated efforts between multiple numbers and types of sensing platforms, including both orbital and terrestrial and both fixed and mobile. Each of these platforms, or pods, communicates within their local neighborhood and thus distributes information to the instrument as a whole. Much as intelligence in the brain is a result of the myriad of connections between dendrites, it is anticipated that the Sensor Web will develop a macro-intelligence as a result of its distributed information with the pods reacting and adapting to their environment in a way that is much more than their individual sum. The sharing of data among individual pods will allow for a global perception and purpose of the instrument as a whole. The Sensor Web is to sensors what the Internet is to computers, with different platforms and operating systems communicating via a set of shared, robust protocols. This paper will outline the potential of the Sensor Web concept and describe the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Sensor Webs Project (http: sensorwebs.jpl.nasa.gov ). In particular, various fielded Sensor Webs will be discussed.
  @cite_47: The Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards activities that focus on sensors and sensor networks comprise an OGC focus area known as Sensor Web Enablement (SWE). Readers interested in greater technical and architecture details can download the OGC SWE Architecture Discussion Paper titled "The OGC Sensor Web Enablement Architecture" (OGC document 06-021r1).
  @cite_39: This paper provides an overview of sensor webs from the perspective of Earth observation. Definitions of in-situ, proximal, and remote sensing are presented. Sensor webs are also defined and the over-arching concept of integrated Earth sensing is outlined. The paper goes on to describe experiences in the development and deployment of sensor web prototypes in support of vegetation monitoring applications. Recommendations are provided with regard to where the emphasis should be placed for advancing in-situ sensor webs in the context of Earth observation in the future. Finally, the geostrategic importance of integrated Earth sensing, sensor webs and related technologies is discussed.
  @cite_8: Environmental Sensor Networks (ESNs) facilitate the study of fundamental processes and the development of hazard response systems. They have evolved from passive logging systems that require manual downloading, into ‘intelligent’ sensor networks that comprise a network of automatic sensor nodes and communications systems which actively communicate their data to a Sensor Network Server (SNS) where these data can be integrated with other environmental datasets. The sensor nodes can be fixed or mobile and range in scale appropriate to the environment being sensed. ESNs range in scale and function and we have reviewed over 50 representative examples. Large Scale Single Function Networks tend to use large single purpose nodes to cover a wide geographical area. Localised Multifunction Sensor Networks typically monitor a small area in more detail, often with wireless adhoc systems. Biosensor Networks use emerging biotechnologies to monitor environmental processes as well as developing proxies for immediate use. In the future, sensor networks will integrate these three elements (Heterogeneous Sensor Networks). The communications system and data storage and integration (cyberinfrastructure) aspects of ESNs are discussed, along with current challenges which need to be addressed. We argue that Environmental Sensor Networks will become a standard research tool for future Earth System and Environmental Science. Not only do they provide a ‘virtual’ connection with the environment, they allow new field and conceptual approaches to the study of environmental processes to be developed. We suggest that although technological advances have facilitated these changes, it is vital that Earth Systems and Environmental Scientists utilise them.
summary: These and other initiatives, aiming at integration of ground-based monitoring efforts, are leading to an evolution from single site environmental monitoring into networks for environment observation @cite_8 . This evolution culminates with the current vision for a Sensor Web @cite_9 @cite_39 @cite_47 , encompassing several types of deployments of sensor systems, interconnecting them globally through a Web-based integration strategy using standards developed by the Sensor Web Enablement ( http: www.opengeospatial.org projects groups sensorweb ) Working Group of the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC) ( http: www.opengeospatial.org ).