The geosciences need practitioners who possess an ethical conscience and the desire to act responsibly. Ethically responsible geoscientists will achieve success and satisfaction by carrying out excellent research and professional activities, and by maintaining honest and open collaborations with colleagues. Such individuals will be able to contribute to building a resilient society, be better prepared to face global economic and environmental challenges and be willing to take concrete actions for the conservation of the geo-environment. Geoethics provides ethical, social, and cultural values for the scientific community and for society as a whole. Geoethics represents a new vision of a world in which it is possible to maintain a more balanced relationship between humans and nature, considering modern economic and social development expectations. This chapter illustrates some aspects of geoethics, provides an overview of its basic values and themes, and highlights prominent global issues that involve geoethics, including climate change, geo-risks, land management, exploitation of geo-resources, and sustainability. The International Association for Promoting Geoethics (IAPG) provides a multidisciplinary platform for discussion, a place where multidisciplinary collaboration can strengthen the development of geoethics from a scientific and philosophical perspective, in order to better introduce geoethical values into society.

In line with the concept proposed by Aristotle (384-322 BC), ethics reflects on the conduct of humans and the criteria with which to evaluate behaviors and choices in order to identify "true good" including the means to achieve this goal. It also addresses the moral duties of humans towards themselves and others, and what is the right thing to do when facing a decision. Regarding the practice of a profession, ethics is the identification of duties and rights that regulate the professional activity (deontology) by members of a social group, who are characterized by the possession of specific technicalscientific knowledge, methods and tools for its application.There are values that the human community accepts as universally representative of individual and social good, because of the universal character of the human species itself, such as honesty, justice, responsibility, respect for life, and the environment. However, depending on the cultural context, and considering time and place, the ways in which values are applied can change.In the end, ethics concerns all humans, without distinction, and especially those who have major scientific, political, and social roles, and who certainly have to face issues of great ethical value. Function and Practice of EthicsEthics is intended to clarify, for a given circumstance, what to do and how to do it, taking into account the consequences of that act. Its function is to guide humans when they need to make a choice by providing a framework of reference values, shared by the social group to which they belong, that can lead to good or to what is most useful to the individual or society.Moral philosophy (i.e., the reflection on how to act rightly to achieve good) attributes the ability to distinguish good from evil, and therefore to make right decisions, to some human faculties, such as reason, conscience, and knowledge, provided these faculties are adequately cultivated. Therefore, university training that includes not only technical-scientific elements, but also ethical aspects of professional practice, becomes crucial for dealing responsibly with issues specific to each disciplinary field.Individual freedom is the fundamental pre-requisite for ethically practicing one's own profession. It allows the intentional action (will) for the pursuit of good and/or profit. So, its absence prejudices the possibility of taking ethical decisions. The analytical tool for assessing and weighing situations and possible decisions in a detailed way is critical thinking, i.e., the aptitude to question a problem in the complexity of its variables, assessing interactions, uncertainties, probabilities of occurrence, but also methods, models, and tools to solve the problem itself.An ethical problem presupposes the existence of a choice between two alternatives, one of which is the best option, taking into account the reference system of social, scientific, economic, and cultural values in which one is acting, assuring an accurate knowledge of the problem to be faced and an

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Novel measurement technologies, additional sensors and increasing data processing capacities offer new opportunities to answer some of the currently most pressing societal and environmental questions. They also contribute to the fact that the available data volume will continue to increase. At the same time, the requirements for those providing such data rise and the needs of users to access it. The EPOS Delivery Framework aims to support this endeavour in the solid Earth domain by providing access to data, products, and services supporting multidisciplinary analyses for a wide range of users. Based on this example, we look at the most pressing issues from when data, products, and services are made accessible, to access principles, ethical issues related to its collection and use as well as with respect to their promotion. Among many peculiarities, we shed light on a common component that affects all fields equally: change. Not only will the amount and type of data, products, and services change, but so will the societal expectations and providers capabilities.

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This is the second volume focused on geoethics published by the Geological Society of London. This is a significant step forward in which authors address the maturation of geoethics. The field of geoethics is now ready to be introduced outside the geoscience community as a logical platform for global ethics that addresses anthropogenic changes. Geoethics has a distinction in the geoscientific community for discussing ethical, social and cultural implications of geoscience knowledge, research, practice, education and communication. This provides a common ground for confronting ideas, experiences and proposals on how geosciences can supply additional service to society in order to improve the way humans interact responsibly with the Earth system. This book provides new messages to geoscientists, social scientists, intellectuals, law- and decision-makers, and laypeople. Motivations and actions for facing global anthropogenic changes and their intense impacts on the planet need to be governed by an ethical framework capable of merging a solid conceptual structure with pragmatic approaches based on geoscientific knowledge. This philosophy defines geoethics.

The main goal of this study is to emphasise the geotourism potential and the values of geoethics as drivers of rural development in the territory of the Knjaževac municipality, which is one of the richest areas in Serbia in terms of geoheritage. Numerous objects of geomorphological and hydrological heritage stand out in an area of 1,202 km2. Despite this richness in geoheritage, the potential of geotourism development has been ignored by many stakeholders, and the geoheritage of this area has not been sufficiently explored and proposed for tourism purposes. This study makes an inventory of geosites in the municipality of Knjaževac. The selected sites were evaluated by applying the Modified Geosite Assessment Model to discover the most suitable geosites for future geotourism development, in order to select the geosite that possesses the greatest geotourism potential to support rural development. The results uncover information about the major areas of improvement for each evaluated geosite. Moreover, areas that demand more attention and better management in the upcoming period to become recognisable geotourism destinations were identified. It is pointed out that geoethical implications in geosite management can contribute to sustainable geoconservation in Eastern Serbia.