2021-04-23, 14:30–15:00, Track 1
Earth Observation Data are an important source of information to tackle the Global Change. Datacubes in cloud environments can be helpful to organize the growing amount of data and makes it easier for many experts to get started.
We are facing an unprecedented Global Change. We seem to have a not inconsiderable influence on this state and we already know what we can do to mitigate the possible consequences. We are just beginning to understand, if, how and how much these consequences are connected to the Global Change. It is not possible to know all details and there could be a need to adapt to new situations in shorter time steps.
Earth Observation Data, especially satellite data, has a great potential to support us during this process. And we must be aware what happened since 1965 when the USGS wanted to start a program for systematic earth observation.
With the first Landsat satellite, launched in 1972 started a new era. Now, we are close to the 9th Landsat generation, and the whole archive is open to the public. ESAs Copernicus program is the next game changer, e.g. Sentinel-2A and 2B twin satellites orbiting since 2015 and 2017, using open data policies. Like Sentinel-1A, 1B, 3A and 3B. Tons of data, and we need to get the information out of them in a efficient way.
Datacubes are common tools for storing information, also for Earth Observation Data today. The Open Data Cube (ODC) Python library is an impressive open source tool to manage satellite data, and lower the obstacles to bring experts together, which can immediately use analysis ready products or workflows from a large an still growing community. Without producing high costs. Our subnational ODC implementation tries to support decision making in the context of forest monitoring without using proprietary services to lower barriers for state authorities with different data protection regulations.