European perspectives on trends in public sector Earth observation data policies

The growing number of Earth observation satellites are producing ever incre asing amounts of data. These data sets require adequate management to be wi dely exploited and to ensure preservation of what is a valuable information resource. Many Earth observation organisations have formulated or are deve loping policies related to how data are managed and distributed which encom pass issues such as property rights, access and price of the data, exclusiv e data use and data archiving. European Earth observation is gaining more p rominence in these developing policy issues. This paper is a review, from a largely European perspective, of current Earth observation data policies i n operation by various public sector international, regional and national o rganisations in both the data providing and data user sectors. It will be d emonstrated that certain trends exist between the various data policies but that differences in position are present in some key areas which may need to be reconciled in order for the Earth observation sector to reach maturit y. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.