This project is devoted to the pre-planning and organization of the first of two major meetings on the establishment of global digital map data bases. At the first, representatives of all identified existing and planned global digital data bases will be invited to address the status of existing efforts, the need for global data bases and the decisionmaking context which has to be served. Attention also will be focussed on the questions to be solved by their use, the desirable data structures, the potential contribution of (next-decade) computer hardware and concepts of artifical intelligence to data structures and the desirable degrees of topological coding, the contradictions in map series data used as a base, their cost, management, access policy, degree of integration and reliability. The way in which earth observations are eventually stored and able to be integrated will effectively determine the degree to which global spatial processes can be understood. Systematic review papers of potential problem areas will be commissioned for the first meeting to be held in England in the Spring of 1988. Working groups will be established thereafter to study areas of identified concern in preparation for the second meeting in Washington, D.C., now tentatively scheduled for 1990. The meetings are under the auspicies of the International Geographical Union (IGU) and are part of the International Geosphere-Biosphere program.
