Introduction

In a world connected by networks that enable instant transmission of voices, images, and data, environmental science is changing in ways that bring researchers, students, decision-makers, and citizens closer than ever before. Realizing the potential of this connected world depends on building an infrastructure, both technological and human, that enables effective interaction.

Why is infrastructure necessary? Local actions have global impacts, and global changes have local effects. Understanding the full complexity of environmental problems depends on the ability of researchers, students, decision-makers, and stakeholders to work across the continuum of scales that characterize the causes of and responses to environmental change (Association of American Geographers Global Change in Local Places Research Team 2003; Kates and Wilbanks 2003). A primary goal for a flourishing HERO network would be to build the information resources to support long-term scientific research partnerships needed to understand these changes. For the data collection and analysis efforts of a HERO network to succeed, geospatial technology and methods that are developed and implemented must meet two goals. First, the technology and methods must facilitate context- and task-sensitive encoding of data in, and retrieval of data from, the very large and complex data warehouses that will develop. Second, the technology and methods must support collaboration among scientists at different HEROs as they work together on common problems.