Digital Earth stands for the vision to construct a comprehensive virtual representation of the planet. It generated a collaborative effort between Earth sciences, space sciences and information sciences to monitor and forecast natural and human phenomena. The International Society for Digital Earth, established in Beijing in 2006, is a non-political, non-governmental and not-for-profit international organization. It promotes international cooperation, and facilitates the use of Digital Earth technologies (such as spatial data infrastructures, positioning systems, and earth observation facilities) in, inter alia, economic and socially-sustainable development, environmental protection, early warning and disaster mitigation, natural resources conservation, education and improvement of the well-being of the society in general. The mission of the society is to provide a framework for understanding current and newly emerging technologies of benefit to society, and to revise the Digital Earth vision in the light of these new developments.
Digital Earth brings together interdisciplinary scientists whose disciplines contribute towards a digital virtual reality representation of our Earth including its eco-systems and human related socio-economic activities. ISDE as a research society is therefore the place for worldwide scientific researchers, specialists on the wide range of themes covered by Digital Earth, to come together and discuss how to further advance Digital Earth.
As a scientific community, ISDE promotes the Digital Earth vision worldwide by organizing series of international symposium on Digital Earth and Digital Earth summits. To date, 9 international symposia and 6 summits on digital earth have been held in 10 different countries. The society also publishes its official journal – International Journal of Digital Earth, and has built partnership with CODATA, IRDR, GSDI, OGC, ICIMOD, ISPRS, ICA and AARSE. ISDE is also a participating organization of the Group on Earth Observations. The membership of the society includes corporate members and individual members.