From August 28th to 30th 2017, the Geospatial Sensor Webs Conference 2017 opened its doors to Sensor Web researchers and practitioners. Approximately 60 participants from research, industry and public administration exchanged ideas on practical applications, emerging trends, user requirements, and future developments.

The 2017 edition of the Geospatial Sensor Webs Conference had something for everybody. Pre-conference tutorials introduced newcomers to Sensor Web and Web-based geoprocessing technologies. The conference track fostered a wide scientific exchange on status, emerging trends and future directions of the technologies. Additional workshop sessions provided a format for in-depth discussions on specific Sensor Web topics.

The conference presentations illustrated the broad applicability of Sensor Web technology in a variety of domains. Examples of Sensor Web applications included marine observation data, air quality monitoring, and hydrological data flows. Much discussion surrounded important technological topics, such as Sensor Web viewer tools, the automatic plug-and-play integration of sensors into Sensor Web infrastructures, and various workflows for publishing observation data sets via Sensor Web servers. The tutorials and presentations are available online.

Lively discussions also concerned future directions for the Sensor Web community. Event-based architectures, Internet of Things technologies, geo-semantics, as well as linking Sensor Web components with data processing and analysis tools (e.g. R) offer new perspectives for more powerful Sensor Web infrastructures in the future.

The 52°North Team is pleased with the success of the event and has begun preparations for the 2018 edition of the Geospatial Sensor Webs Conference. More information, such as date and call for presentations will be published via the 52°North Website and communication channels.