A model for representing earth observation tasks that supports the dynamic demand for flood disaster monitoring and management

A comprehensive, accurate, and timely expression of earth observation (EO) tasks is the primary prerequisite for responding to emergency monitoring of disasters, especially floods. However, the existing information model does not fully satisfy the demand for a fine-grain observation expression of EO task, which results in the absence of task process management. The current study proposed an EO task representation model based on meta-object facility to address this problem. The model not only describes the static information of a task, but it also defines the dynamics of an observation task by introducing a functional metamodel. This metamodel describes the full life cycle of a task; it comprises five process methods: birth, separation, combination, updating, and extinction. An earth observation task modeling and management prototype system (EO-TMMS) for conducting a remote sensing satellite sensor observation task representation experiment on flooding was developed. In accordance with the results, the proposed model can describe various EO tasks demands, full life cycle process of EO task. Compared with other typical observation tasks information models, the proposed model satisfies the dynamic and fine-grain process representation of EO tasks, which can improve the efficiency of EO sensors utilization