Digital Earth

Digital Earth is a comprehensive multidisciplinary research area, covering earth science, space science, information science, and computer science and technology. Digital Earth was originally described as a multiresolution, three-dimensional visual representation of Earth that would help humankind take advantage of geo-referenced information on physical and social environments. With more than two decades advancement, Digital Earth technology has been developed to monitor, model, and analyze the Earth with a multidimensional, multiscale, multitemporal, and multilayered information system in terms of various aspects of human societies. Digital Earth also serves as a common platform supporting domestic and international cooperation for global sustainable development, climate change, and disaster mitigation. It has become a new growth point of the social economy and of social welfare. This article gives an overview of how Digital Earth technologies have been developed, and how it has been applied in different domains and at regional/national scales during the last two decades. Through this article, the aim is to provide researchers with a comprehensive instruction in understanding the Digital Earth discipline.